Is it too early for a predictions thread?

Answer: Yes, it is, since there’s bound to be a predictions thread tomorrow too. But I figured I’d give our new registrants an extra reason to test out their new comment accounts.

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I think Ryan Lizza has it right, with one exception.

I’m going to guess that Pat Roberts noses past Greg Orman in Kansas, just because it’s hard to believe a longtime Republican incumbent from a deep red state could lose to a no-name independent in a year when the GOP’s cleaning up nationally. But that’s a hunch, belied by the actual data: Despite an all-hands-on-deck whirl of campaigning on Roberts’ behalf by tea-party heroes over the last six weeks (among them Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Rand Paul) plus an endorsement from Roberts’s primary opponent Milton Wolf, Orman leads narrowly in three of the last four polls. He’s favored, ever so slightly, in FiveThirtyEight’s forecast. If Kansans haven’t come home to the Republican already, there’s every reason to think they’re not going to. In fact, ironically, it may not be conservative antipathy to Roberts that’s killing him. Sam Brownback is also on the ballot tomorrow and is supposedly facing a “moderate revolt” among Kansas’s centrist Republicans over his tax and spending cuts; he’s down several points to Democrat Paul Davis and is likely to lose. He’s also sure to cost Roberts some votes among center-righties and independents who go to the polls intent on voting against Brownback and end up not splitting their ballot in the Senate race. The question is whether wanting to punish Obama by electing a more heavily Republican Senate will trump wanting to punish Brownback among disaffected GOPers or vice versa. I’m betting on the former. Lightly.

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Another prediction: Although some polls have Scott Brown within a point of Jeanne Shaheen or even leading, I think she’ll win comfortably by three points. Too bad, as Brown ran a solid campaign. Oh, and I think Cory Gardner will hold off Mark Udall, thus averting my total nervous breakdown in real time for the amusement of Hot Air readers. Here’s your thread for your own predictions. While you mull, enjoy Joe Biden and his surprisingly, unnaturally taut forehead project that Democrats will shock the world by retaining control of the Senate. All things are possible in close races thanks to non-citizen voters, my friends.

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