Hedging the bets

Larry Sabato, one of the most astute political analysts around, is starting to give credence to the idea that the election results might not be all that close:

By and large, 2004 is not about the Democrats, but Bush has still had some success already in typecasting John Kerry as a classic liberal, elitist Massachusetts Democrat. Kerry's weaknesses, and a recovering economy, can give Bush hope. At the same time, everything so far suggests that the 2004 presidential contest will be exceedingly competitive, hard-fought (nasty, that is), and possibly close. (Since America has not had two consecutive close presidential elections since the four elections between 1876 and 1888, we wonder if November will really turn out to be a squeaker.)

This is a different trend than what he saw a month ago (which I foolishly failed to blog and link at the time), in which he argued that everything would have to break perfectly for a Bush reelection.

For the Senate races, of the six unsafe Democratic seats he has two going to the Republicans (Georgia and South Carolina), three "toss-ups" (Florida, Louisiana and South Dakota), and only one staying with the Democrats (North Carolina). For the Republicans, they have five unsafe seats, but Sabato projects two staying with the Republicans (Oklahoma and Pennsylvania), two "toss-ups" (Alaska and Colorado), with only Illinois switching to the Democrats.

We'll stay tuned.