Mark Halperin

That means if they lose a single Republican, a currently Democratic-held seat to the Republicans, they would need to win not four, but five.

And so you have to look at the current map and say, how are Democrats going to do this?

They're going to have to net four seats to go to a 51-49 majority.

So what I've done for you today is I've talked to

Republican and Democratic strategists across the country in the individual states, people who are working on these Senate races or have worked on Senate races.

And I've gone through and broken down, where will Democrats get these seats?

And if you do the actual breakdown, what you'll find is it's possible that Democrats will take the majority, but the odds are not anything like what most analysts say, what the betting markets say.

So again, right now, 53-47, Democrats must net four.

And there are a handful of races, nine races that are in play, okay?

Three are races that are currently held by Democrats.

So they're Republican pickup opportunities.

and six are ones that are held by republicans that are democratic pick up opportunities okay now we're going to run through all the individual races and i'm going to talk to you about them but what i'll tell you is that if you go race by race it's a bit of a challenge democrats almost have to run the table not quite but almost have to run the table to do that what are the competitive races

The Republican race, the Republicans held, Democratic held seats where Republicans have a chance to win, even in a year that should be good for Democrats.

You find those in New Hampshire, Michigan, and Georgia.

So those are three Republican opportunities to pick up seats.

And then the Democrats' opportunities, their best opportunities, everyone would agree, are Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio.

And then there are three more where people talk about the prospect of Democrats losing, or winning rather, Iowa, Texas, and Alaska.

So the basic math here, folks, is nine competitive seats.

And I'm here to tell you, if Republicans win one, one of the seats that Democrats currently hold that are in play, they're almost certain to take the majority.

And their chances in those three, again,