CQ Politics: GOP Faces Tough Odds for 2008 Senate Comeback

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/06/gop_faces_tough_odds_for_2008.html

GOP Faces Tough Odds for 2008 Senate Comeback

GOP Faces Tough Odds for 2008 Senate Comeback
By CQ Staff | 6:00 PM; Jun. 05, 2007 | Email This Article

Republican Party strategists, even under expected circumstances, knew they faced a difficult imbalance in the 2008 lineup of Senate races. The GOP have 21 seats to defend to just 12 for the Democrats.

Moreover, the political landscape in those 33 states looks forbidding, at least at this early stage of the 2008 campaign cycle. CQPolitics.com’s current ratings of the races show five contests for Republican-held seats that appear highly competitive to just two for Democratic-held seats.

So it was with some political trepidation, along with sadness, that Republican officials received the news Monday night that Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas had died of leukemia at age 74.

State law requires the interim appointment of a member of the departed incumbent’s party — a Republican, in this case — to soon to fill the vacancy, even though Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal is a Democrat. But the law also sets up a special election in November 2008 to fill the remaining four years of the unexpired term Thomas won just last November.

FULL article at link.