June 11, 2010 07:57 PM UTC

Colorado Falls Off "Friday Senate Line"

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• by: Colorado Pols

Checking with our friend Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, today’s Friday Senate Line reflects a number of changes resulting from recent primary elections around the country. For those of you who don’t read “The Fix” regularly (and you should), this is his periodically updated list of Senate and other offices considered most likely to switch parties in upcoming elections.

For many months since Ken Salazar gave up his seat to become Interior Secretary and Michael Bennet was appointed to replace him, Colorado’s seat has been listed as likely to flip from Democrat to Republican-held by Cillizza–no longer, the combination of a stabilizing primary situation in Colorado and more interesting developments elsewhere:

Recent Republican primaries have been good to Democrats. Victories by tea party backed candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky mean those seats, once considered off the radar, are now back in play.

In the Pennsylvania primary, Democrats won by losing. Sen. Arlen Specter (D) was a terrible profile for Democrats to try to hold the seat in the fall — a long serving politician who had openly admitted to switching parties to preserve his chances at re-election. Rep. Joe Sestak, who ousted Specter on May 18, has a considerably better profile as a short timer in Congress — he was first elected in 2006 — with a deep military resume and strong outsider credentials…

All of the above is not to say that Republicans won’t make Senate gains this fall. They will. And, they may well make significant gains — including in places like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Illinois. But, Democrats’ hand in each of those states has improved over the last month and given the party a path to victory that they may not have had before.

Coming onto the Line: Ohio, Washington

Coming off the Line: Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire

In Cillizza’s Senate Line prior to today’s, the Colorado Senate race dropped from #6 to #8 mostly likely to flip, noting that “Ken Buck, a conservative favorite, has put former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton on her heels in the Republican primary while former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff continues to struggle to raise enough money to be viable”–basically the story you already know.

Since then, not much has changed, except for a national electoral climate that gradually begins to appear less bleak for incumbent Democrats than it did six months ago.