PENNSYLVANIA LEANING RED - AT 9:51 P.M. ET:  One of the great battlegrounds next year will be Pennsylvania, where a Senate seat, currently held by Republican turned Democrat Arlen Specter, will be up for grabs.  Thus far the news for Republicans is good.  From The Politico:

There’s good news all around for Republican Pat Toomey in a new poll released Thursday from Rasmussen, which shows him leading both of his potential Democratic rivals.

The telephone survey of 1,200 likely Pennsylvania voters finds Toomey leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter 46 percent to 42 percent in a prospective general election Senate matchup next year. Four percent said they would vote for another candidate, while 8 percent were unsure.

Specter, who has held the Senate seat since 1980, left the Republican Party to become a Democrat in April, just as he was facing a primary challenge from the more conservative Toomey, a former representative and president of the anti-tax Club for Growth.

COMMENT:  Early polls also show Republican Rob Portman leading for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated next year by George Voinovich, but the incumbent is also a Republican, so a GOP victory would amount to holding a seat, which is fine. 

And look at this, also from The Politico, regarding one of the bluest of the blue states:

The Cook Political Report’s Senate race analyst Jennifer Duffy doesn’t think much of Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) re-election prospects, in her latest update on the Connecticut Senate race.

And she’s moving the race rating to “Lean Republican” – a very rare instance where the political insider publication has put an incumbent's chances of winning in such dire territory.

We stress that the election won't be held until next November.

December 10, 2009