Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Ashley Judd, center, attends the final day of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 6, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Democrats have been here before — confronting a numbers game that undercuts their bid to keep a Senate majority. They confounded such odds in 2012, but by necessity their sigh of relief was brief. The Democrats face a similar scenario in the 2014 midterms, and later today the story-line gets a little bleaker for the party.

South Dakotan Tim Johnson, a successful Democrat in a state that since 1940 has voted Republican in every presidential election save Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, is expected to announce that he won’t seek a fourth Senate term.

Even with Johnson – who remains hampered by the effects of a 2006 brain hemorrhage — on the ticket, the seat shaped up as a tough Democratic hold. Now that challenge is heightened, especially with former Gov. Mike Rounds having already announced he will seek the Republican Senate nomination.

So let’s count South Dakota as a likely Republican pickup in 2014, along with West Virginia, where Democrat Jay Rockefeller has decided not to seek re-election. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito gives Republicans a strong contender to replace Rockefeller in a state where President Barack Obama carried barely a third of the vote last November.

With those two gains, Republicans will need to net four more seats to win back the Senate they lost in the 2006 election. A daunting task, but definitely doable, given the electoral math.

Democrats have 19 other seats to defend next year — and as in South Dakota and West Virginia,  five of them are in states that Republican Mitt Romney carried against Obama. In each of those — Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina — the Democratic incumbents are wily politicians. But each will have their work cut out for them, and as of now none are heavy favorites.

An eighth clearly vulnerable Democratic seat is in Iowa, a race that opened up when party mainstay Tom Harkin decided not to seek a sixth term. As Bloomberg’s John McCormick recently detailed, the campaign’s initial skirmish will be closely watched for what it reveals about conflicts within the Republican Party. Depending on what happens among the state’s Republicans, the battle to replace Harkin may emege as one of the nation’s most fiercely fought contests.

Two other potential problem spots loom for Democrats — Michigan, where Democrat Carl Levin’s decision to retire means Republicans can legitimately contemplate capturing the open seat, and Minnesota, where Republicans are anxious to send Democrat Al Franken (a victor by barely 300 votes six years ago) back to his comedic roots.

All told,  that gives Democrats 10 seats to worry about.

The comparable list for Republicans, among the 14 seats they are defending?

At best, as of now, one.

Barring unforseen political twists, Republicans seem assured of maintaining their seats in the party strongholds of Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska (an open seat), Oklahoma, South Carolina (where both senators will be on the ballot), Tennessee and Wyoming.

One day, the burgeoning Latino population could turn Texas into a swing state, ripe for competitive races. But that day remains still a way’s off as John Cornyn, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, seeks re-election next year.

Democrats may also muse about taking out Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, especially if actress Ashley Judd decides to take him on. A Judd candidacy would enliven the midterm campaign, but it’s hard to see the venerable McConnell losing his starring role in a state Romney carried with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Susan Collins of Maine stands as the oddity among her Republican Senate colleagues — she’s the only one up for re-election next year in a state that Obama won last year. It’s also a state that charts its own course, electing independent (though Democrat-leaning) Angus King as its other senator in 2012. But Collins, after easily surviving the 2008 Democratic wave, isn’t likely to lose her bid for a fourth term.

Georgia, in the wake of Saxby Chambliss’ decision to step down at the end of his current term, stands as the sole seat Republicans may have to break a sweat to retain. And that prospect hinges on who the party tabs as its standard-bearer.

Those interested include four members of the state’s contingent of Republican House members, a group the Hill newspaper aptly described as “conservative, more conservative and most conservative.”

Paul Broun, the congressman to whom many would apply the “most conservative” label, already has announced his intention to seek the Chambliss seat. And that could give the Democrats their shot.

Broun has a rich history of making provocative comments, including widely quoted remarks in a speech late last year. A trained physician and member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, he said the theories of evolution and the “Big Bang” creation of Earth were among “lies straight from the pit of Hell.”

To punctuate his point, he also estimated Earth’s age as “about 9,000 years old.”

Amid the dark clouds hovering over the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a Broun nomination would be greeted by its staff as a ray of sunshine.

Original post is 2014 Senate Primer: Why Democrats Have to Worry by Political Capital.

Sen.-elect Angus King, I-Maine, center, the former governor of Maine, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 13, 2012. Photograph by Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Senator-elect Angus King of Maine, elected as an independent, says he will caucus with the Democrats.

That will give the Senate’s Democrats a 55-45 edge over Republicans when they convene a new session of Congress in January.

King, announcing his stance in Washington this morning, said he also hopes to act as a bridge between the parties.

Original post is King of the Caucus: Democratic by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama takes his lobbying of executives public today when he meets at the White House with the heads of General Electric, Ford, Honeywell and American Express to ask them to back his plan to impose higher taxes on the wealthy to cut the deficit and avert going over the so-called fiscal cliff. He’ll also hold his first press conference since his re-election.

It’s decision day in Congress, with House and Senate Republicans and Democrats choosing their leaders for the 113th Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announces whether she plans to relinquish her post, while independent Senator-elect Angus King of Maine decides which party he’ll caucus with.

Senior FBI officials are expected to brief the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on their handling of the Petraeus investigation, ABC News reported. Officials are expected to lay out how the case was developed and argue that there were no politics involved. The case is so critical that FBI Director Robert Mueller may attend to defend the bureau, according to the report.

Also today, a House panel holds a hearing on meningitis deaths while Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials discuss Basel III rules before the Senate Banking Committee. And the Bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission issues its annual report, calling China ‘‘the most threatening actor in cyberspace’’ as the country’s intelligence agencies and hackers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to U.S. military and defense contractor computers, according to a draft. The report, mandated by Congress, will probably recommend specific penalties to blunt China’s encroachment.

With assistance from Jim O’Connell

Original post is Washington Daybook: The Art of Lobbying by Political Capital.

Independent Senator-elect Angus King from Maine. Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Senator-elect Angus King of Maine says probably will decide which party to caucus with in time to vote in tomorrow’s congressional leadership elections.

“I will probably have some comment for you some time tomorrow,” King, an independent who beat a Republican and a Democrat to replace retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, told reporters today.

King, a former governor who met this morning with Maine’s other Republican senator, Susan Collins, on Capitol Hill, said his decision would not amount to ” building a wall between myself and the other party,”

“Whichever decision I make, I am not declaring opposition or inability to work with or unwillingness to work with members of the other party,” he said.

Members of both parties have said they expect King to caucus with Democrats, who retained their Senate majority in last week’s election and will control 55 seats if King joins their caucus.

Still, Collins said she hoped King would align himself with Republicans.

“But regardless, I am confident that he will not be an automatic vote for either caucus and instead will look at the issues on their merits and will attempt to reach across the aisle regardless of which side of the aisle he’s sitting on,” she said.

Original post is King’s Caucus Call: Tomorrow by Political Capital.

Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Maine independent Senate candidate Angus King speaks at a news conference in Brunswick, Maine.

Angus King thinks the U.S. Senate has no concept of time.

In his newest Senate campaign commercial, the independent ex-governor of Maine holds up a clock that reads 8:00, telling viewers that the half of the Senate would read it as 2:00 and the other half would say 4:30.

“Arguing about everything is why nothing gets done,” King says to the camera, adding that Congress has enacted a budget and all of the regular appropriations bills just four times in the past 30 years.

King says members of Congress shouldn’t get paid if they don’t pass a budget.

“You know what time it is really — it’s time for a change,” he says in the ad, which began running this morning in Portland, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG.

King leads in polls in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, though his early big advantage has shrunk somewhat after attacks from Republican groups supporting Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has attacked Summers and ignored Democratic state senator Cynthia Dill, who’s running a distant third in the polls. King is expected to caucus with Democrats if he wins the Nov. 6 election.

Original post is Angus King’s Recipe for Congress: No Budget, No Salary by Political Capital.

Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Maine independent Senate candidate Angus King speaks at a news conference in Brunswick, Maine.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has decided to spend $410,000 on a television ad campaign against Republican candidate Charlie Summers in Maine.

The ads are scheduled to run Oct. 2-12. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already funded ads in that campaign to undermine front-runner Angus King, a former Maine governor who is running as an independent. King is in a three-way race with Summers and Cynthia Dill, the Democratic candidate, who is trailing both the independent and the Republican. The Republicans have tried a tactic in which they praise Dill in order to boost her standing and erode King’s lead.

“When Republican extremism forced Olympia Snowe to retire from the Senate, it presented a significant challenge to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, ” DSCC executive director Guy Cecil said in a statement. “Charlie Summers is an anti-choice Tea Partier, who supports eliminating the Department of Education, privatizing Social Security, protecting tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and ending Medicare as we know it. Charlie Summers should not be in the United States Senate and it is time every Mainer knows it.”

The Democrats find themselves in an awkward position.

Party leaders have not endorsed and funded Dill’s campaign, while at the same time hoping that King would caucus with the Democrats once elected to the Senate. King has refused to state which party he would choose to caucus with. King has endorsed the reelection of President Barack Obama and has been in Washington at fundraisers organized by Democratic lobbyists on his behalf.

Original post is Democrats Invest in Maine, Independent King Backing Obama by Political Capital.