Mark Halperin

Second of all, there's questions about the Democratic candidates in all three races.

Republicans in at least two of the three have strong candidates.

So that overview should give you an idea of just how challenging this is going to be for the Democrats to take the majority.

They got to go six for six and the core six.

And then they got to go in addition to that, at least one for three and the other three.

Mathematically, that's challenging.

And if you look, as we will in a moment, you drill down on the individual races.

It's it's tough.

I'll say again, Democrats are defending three.

If you told me today they lost one, two, or all three of them, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Okay?

They're defending three, and then they got to win four of six, or of seven, that they're challenging for.

No, sorry, four of six that they're challenging for to win it.

We'll see.

We'll see.

So in a moment, I'm going to go state by state with you, and I'm going to give you the opportunity to understand, I think better than you'll hear anywhere else, why it is that even my Democratic sources say this is a challenge.

This is going to be a challenge to take the majority.

It's not the long shot it was a few weeks ago for reasons I'll walk through.

But it's not automatic by any means.

And really, after drilling down on this and looking at the numbers, anybody who tells you the Democrats are the favorite to take the Senate, I think are wrong.