While canceling ad time is not a foolproof sign that one side or the other is giving up, it’s a pretty damn good one. It’s the whole put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is thing. If you assume — as the DSCC seems to — that Florida, Illinois and Wisconsin are close to over, then Democrats stand at a two-seat gain. And with Democrats giving up in Ohio weeks ago, that state is off the table, too.

Politico reported Monday night that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee canceled a week of reserved ad time in three states: Florida, Illinois, and Wisconsin. That’s good news for Democratic hopes in Illinois and Wisconsin, where polling has consistently shown Republican Senators Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson running behind their Democratic challengers, and less good news in Florida where Republican Senator Marco Rubio appears to be moving toward putting the Sunshine State race away.

What those moves mean is this: There are now five states that will decide which side controls the Senate next year: Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Four of those five are currently in Republican hands; Nevada is an open seat created by the retirement of Senate minority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.


If Democrats hold Nevada — more on that below — they need to win two of the four remaining seats to control the Senate if Hillary Clinton is elected president. They need to win three of the four if Donald Trump is elected.

At the moment, Democrats’ best bet for a pickup out of that quartet of states is Indiana, where former senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat, continues to lead Republican Representative Todd Young — although both sides acknowledge the race is closing amid a GOP onslaught on Bayh’s time spent in Washington since he left the Senate in 2010.


Pennsylvania moved toward Democrats — and against Senator Pat Toomey — in the aftermath of the two national political conventions, and hasn’t swung back since. Toomey is running a serious and centrist campaign but is struggling to distance himself from the Republican brand nationally. His opponent, Katie McGinty, has been unspectacular but benefits hugely from being a Democrat in a Democratic-leaning state in a presidential turnout year.

North Carolina Republican Richard Burr has the opposite problem of Toomey: He’s in a good(ish) state to be a Republican but has, to date, run a very poor campaign. Trump and Republican Governor Pat McCrory, have done Burr no favors at the top of the ticket. Republicans have just begun pummeling former state representative Deborah Ross with ads focused on her record as an ACLU lawyer, commercials they believe will be a silver bullet in the race.

New Hampshire is extremely close — as it has been since the day Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, decided to challenge Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte continues to struggle with what to say about Trump, offering a series of tortured responses about the difference between voting for him and endorsing him. On Monday night, Ayotte made her Trump problem worse by saying, in a debate, that Trump was ‘‘absolutely’’ a role model for kids. Within hours, Ayotte was backtracking.

The big ‘‘if’’ buried in all of the analysis above is Nevada. Remember that if Democrats hold Nevada they need to win only one or two of the four remaining Republican target seats to retake the majority. But, right now, Democrats aren’t winning Nevada.


Representative Joe Heck, a Republican, leads former state attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto by 3.5 points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. And Heck has led in nine of the 11 polls conducted in the race since May.

A Heck win makes a Democratic Senate a longer shot; the party would need to win two of the four GOP held seats even if Clinton was elected president and take three of four if Trump wins. That’s not impossible. If history is any guide, the toss-up races tend to all move in one direction in the final weeks of the campaign. If they all move toward Democrats, the party will win the majority — maybe with a few seats to spare. If Republicans get a slight tailwind, however, they could — against all odds — hold onto their majority for two more years.

Correction: Incorrect information was included in an earlier version of this story that moved over wire services.