The battle for the Senate is going down to the wire with the Republicans still on track to win by a narrow margin, a new poll shows.
The New York Times/CBS News/YouGov
online survey with 100,000 respondents found that the GOP is leading by a clear statistical advantage of at least four percentage points in enough races to finish with 50 seats.
The survey shows that Republicans are likely to capture six seats currently held by the Democrats – South Dakota, Montana, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Arkansas. They also have chances of winning at least one seat in Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, and Kansas.
But the survey also reveals that Democrats could still hang onto the Senate if certain factors work out to their advantage in a best case scenario, the Times reports.
Although Democratic candidates are leading by at least four points in enough races to hold 46 seats, they also have a slight edge in North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa.
And if the Democrats win all three of those states, the control of the Senate could come down to Kansas, where the Republican incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts is in a very tight race with independent candidate Greg Orman. They both have 40 percent of the vote, according to the YouGov data.
If Orman wins and caucuses with the Democrats, they will hold the Senate, due to the fact the Vice President Joe Biden would cast the deciding vote to break the tiebreaker, according to the Times.
In Iowa, Democrat Bruce Braley leads Republican Joni Ernst by just 43.8 to 43.4 percent in the poll, basically a dead-heat.
In North Carolina, incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan has a one percentage point, 44-43 percent, advantage over GOP candidate Thom Tillis, the research shows.
And in Colorado, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall has a three-point lead, 48-45 percent, over GOP rival Cory Gardner, the survey says.
The reason that the GOP is better positioned to take control of the Senate is because Democrats are likely to lose Alaska, where Republican Dan Sullivan leads Sen. Mark Begich by 6 points, says the Times, which suggests that figure it likely to lessen by Election Day.
If the Democrats lose Alaska, they will have to win Kansas or one of four other states where they still have a chance of success – Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas or Louisiana – even though they currently trail by 4 to 6 points.
In the open seat of Georgia, Republican David Perdue has a 4 percent lead over Democrat Michelle Nunn among likely voters in the New York Times/CBS News/YouGov online survey, though he is tied with Nunn among registered voters.
“With so many close races and so few persuadable voters, turnout will be pivotal in many contests, including in Georgia,” wrote Nate Cohn in the Times’ The Upshot column.