51-49 At Best

That's basically what the Senate split will look like for Repuiblicans, as they pull out of Ohio.

Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said [...]

Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia — while trying to hold on to the House by pouring money into districts where Republicans have a strong historical or registration advantage, party officials said Sunday. Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the few Democrats who appear endangered.

And if they lose two of those three firewall seats, the Senate flips. Of course, anything can happen in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhose Island, where even without national party support the Republican candidates have the money edge. But essentially, they've given up, and winning any of those four would essentially be a surprise.

That's a tremendous accomplishment and Democrats shouldn't look past that. Four Senate seats is a lot. And getting guys like Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown in the Senate (in addition to the all-but-assured Bernie Sanders in Vermont and Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota) makes the Senate a far more progressive place. I don't know that we've ever had someone in the Senate like Brown, who doesn't buy the Washington consensus, neoliberal argument that free trade and globalization are automatically good.

The Chicago Tribune has more on the blue-ing of Ohio, which spells major positives for the Democrats in 2008 as well as 2006:

Ohio Democrats, who in recent years have shown all the organizational vigor of Chicago Republicans, have a strut instead of a limp in their step these days, less than a month before the election. And they know they wouldn't be in this position without the timely, bumbling generosity of the Republicans.

"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who actually lived in a chicken coop for some weeks as a child and is leading in his bid to become the state's first Democratic chief executive in 16 years.

Once again Ohio, credited with giving President Bush a second term two years ago, is the national battleground in miniature. The war in Iraq has left the veteran Senate incumbent, Mike DeWine, surprisingly vulnerable. Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty to felony corruption charges Friday, but has yet to leave office. And the Rep. Mark Foley congressional page sex scandal has damaged the campaign of the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, Deborah Pryce, who described Foley as a friend in a recent magazine article.

The intensity from people quoted in this article, their desire to change direction and get the Republicans out of office, is palpable, and consistent with what I hear when I phonebank across the country. Democrats are very fired up. This is the norm:

Clif Kelley, a retired economist from Columbus, Ohio, is the walking, talking, fuming embodiment of what pollsters say is a defining feature of this election: the intensity of Democrats.

Mr. Kelley and a handful of fellow Democrats in Franklin County’s 21st Ward began meeting about two years ago, calling themselves Grassroots 21. Today they have a newsletter, a blog and on one recent Sunday a sprawling audience crammed into Mr. Kelley’s suburban backyard for a rally on a semi-rainy day.

Mr. Kelley reminded his friends that he vowed two years ago he would not die under a Bush administration. “You can see I’ve been holding on,” he said as the audience roared.

Mr. Kelley is 89. And angry. He says he simply “can’t wait” for Election Day.

Turnout is the major factor in a midterm election. I think the turnout in 2006 will be as high as for the Presidential election in 1996, maybe even 2000. That is unprecedented. You have people getting on buses in the Bay Area, going hundreds of miles to help the campaigns of Jerry McNerney and Charlie Brown. I've given money to candidates in six or seven states so far. The Internet has nationalized elections in a powerful way, and the excitement felt is magnifying all over the country.

Bush has outlawed any talk of losing control of Congress, but the party's actions show that they basically need to be perfect with their turnout to hold the line on Election Day. They trust their GOTV models, but I don't think they've seen anything like the Democratic intensity this year. And pulling out of Ohio suggests that they know what's to come.