George Allen was both outraised and outshone by Tim Kaine in March. | REUTERS Top Senate races: Va., Mass. lead list

If voting closed today, Republicans would net three pickups in the Senate — one shy of a takeover — according to POLITICO’s Senate Monthly 10, a rolling assessment of the most competitive races in the upper chamber.

Six months until Election Day, the GOP appears poised to prevail in Nebraska, North Dakota and Missouri — an outcome that would leave the Senate split evenly between members who caucus with Democrats and Republicans.


While North Dakota makes its first appearance on the list — it remains a likely Republican takeover, as does Nebraska, where Bob Kerrey’s comeback bid faces some imposing hurdles.

Missouri has slid down the competitive rung, with polling showing a hard slog for Sen. Claire McCaskill, even against a GOP field of error-prone contenders.

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ best chances of a takeaway — in Massachusetts and Nevada — remain margin-of-error coin flips. Yet Sen. Chuck Schumer’s remark to The Hill last week that “[Maine] is ours” shows where the party thinks independent candidate Angus King will end up.

March’s ratings can be reviewed here.

1. Virginia

Beyond outraising George Allen for the fourth consecutive quarter and doubling his number of Virginia donors, Democrat Tim Kaine managed to dominate the commonwealth’s narrative with a two-week economic tour that earned him dozens of positive local press clips.

At stops in Charlottesville and Richmond, Kaine drew crowds of 400 and — as The New York Times noted – glowed in the “almost nonpartisan” reflection of Sen. Mark Warner. It was a familiar sight for Virginians: the two ran coordinated campaigns in 2001 when Warner was elected governor and Kaine won his own bid for lieutenant governor.

Crossroads GPS dropped in again to link Kaine to President Barack Obama. But with polling still showing a dead heat, it’s an open question whether that line of attack is moving the needle.

Who won April: Kaine

Latest poll: Allen 46%, Kaine 45% (Rasmussen Reports, 500 likely voters, April 23)

2. Massachusetts

The basketball shot Sen. Scott Brown sank from half court could be a metaphor for the way his campaign closed the month. Democratic mayors from the state’s two largest cities lined up with the freshman Republican just as a potentially damaging storyline involving Elizabeth Warren’s tenure at Harvard began to snowball.

A Boston Herald piece revealing that Warren had been listed as a minority professor at Harvard because of her Native American heritage left her campaign grasping for an explanation and Warren visibly rattled.

Her inability to say whether she cited her minority status to help land the Ivy League gig is “undermining Warren’s credibility and competence as a candidate,” WHDH-TV reporter Andy Hiller remarked in a recent segment.

Her campaign’s response — accusing Brown of playing “nasty” gender politics — was the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass. Or a half-court shot.

Who won April: Brown

Latest poll: Warren 46%, Brown 45% (Rasmussen Reports, 500 likely voters, April 9)

3. Nevada

Rep. Shelley Berkley again outraised Sen. Dean Heller for the quarter. But the Democrat is also spending more, leaving the two with roughly the same amount of cash on hand.

The overarching question for Berkley is whether she can play outside her home base of Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas. Her self-professed nervousness at a Democratic dinner in rural Elko County was evident when she fumbled the nod of the party chairman.

Heller, on the other hand, was called out by journalist Jon Ralston for making a phony argument to explain why he opposed shutting loopholes for oil companies.

It should be noted that Berkley hasn’t held a public-polling lead outside the margin of error.

Who won April: Draw

Latest poll: Heller 46%, Berkley 43% (Public Policy Polling, 553 registered voters, March 29-April 1)

4. Montana

Tuesday’s Public Policy Survey marked the first time Democratic Sen. Jon Tester has held a lead outside the margin of error.

The shift, the Democratic-aligned pollster explained, is the result of independents and women: Both groups moved toward Tester around the time he launched three television ads.

Rep. Denny Rehberg’s campaign dismissed the data as an outlier driven by a “[Service Employees International Union]-funded pollster,” but Republicans privately acknowledge that Tester’s campaign has been steady under fire.

Who won April: Tester

Latest poll: Tester 48%, Rehberg 43% (Public Policy Polling, 934 voters, April 26-29)

5. Wisconsin (up 1 spot)

For the first time, the Badger State leapfrogs Missouri — even as the four-way fight for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin remains in flux.

Wealthy hedge fund manager Eric Hovde is up with a third television advertisement lamenting the “toxic relationship” between “Washington and Wall Street.”

The newcomer’s spots are slick but a rival campaign operative wonders if he’s just hanging a lantern on his own problem. “How does a guy who lives in D.C., does business on Wall Street … and supports taxpayer funded bailouts of Wall Street run this ad?” the strategist asked.

Former Rep. Mark Neumann picked up more conservative endorsements, including from Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Citizens United. More important, he’s keeping pace with Tommy Thompson on the financial front: Neumann boasts more cash on hand for the August primary than the former governor.

Who won April: Draw

Latest poll: Baldwin 46%, Neumann 45% (Daily Kos/Public Policy Polling, 1,136 likely voters, April 13-15)

6. Missouri (down 1 spot)

It’s been a downpour of bad news for the three Republicans gunning for McCaskill’s seat.

Businessman John Brunner burned through at least $2 million and lost 7 percentage points against first-term Sen. McCaskill according to Republican-favored pollster Rasmussen Reports.

Sarah Steelman’s financial freeze continued and her inability to recognize the Violence Against Women Act won’t likely do much to assuage donors. She raised just $178,000 and was nabbed on camera saying she was unfamiliar with the legislation.

Rep. Todd Akin’s comments likening government-funded student loans to “stage 3 cancer of socialism” earned a derisive shout-out from the president, though GOP primary voters may see it differently.

Still, McCaskill needs her rivals to pile up many more of these incidents to put the brakes on her polling slide.

Who won April: Akin

Latest poll: Steelman 49%, McCaskill 42% (Rasmussen Reports, 500 likely voters, April 17)

7. Ohio (up 1 spot)

It’s widely accepted that Josh Mandel had a rocky start to his Senate bid, but April might be the month that proved early stumbles aren’t fatal.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. John McCain both paraded into the state for the boyish-looking 33-year-old Marine veteran. A narrowing polling gap forced Sen. Sherrod Brown to go negative in his first TV spot.

Still, cringe-worthy headlines keep coming for the first-term state treasurer.

The latest involves charges that Mandel granted the largest raises in his office to friends and political aides.

With Brown being outspent by an estimate of 10-1, this race could become the archetype of whether campaigns really matter anymore or if money can overwhelm the system.

Who won April: Mandel

Latest poll: Brown 44%, Mandel 41% (Rasmussen Reports, 500 likely voters, April 18)

8. New Mexico (up 1 spot)

There’s no contender Republicans are more bullish about than former Rep. Heather Wilson, who has put a traditionally blue state very much in play.

Her impressive first-quarter fundraising allowed her to go up this week with an ad focusing almost entirely on her Air Force service and never mentioning her time in Washington.

Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich is in solid position for a primary victory over state auditor Hector Balderas next month and has inched back ahead of Wilson in general election polling.

Look for this race to engage swiftly next month, with Democrats seeking to wipe the seat from “tossup” lists and Republicans investing to keep it competitive.

Who won April: Wilson

Latest poll: Heinrich 48%, Wilson 43% (Public Policy Polling, 526 registered voters, April 19-22)

9. Florida (down 2 spots)

The unrelenting Florida press corps spent much of the month dissecting how lackluster a field Republicans have put up against Sen. Bill Nelson.

A day after the Tampa Bay Times outlined the concerns surrounding Rep. Connie Mack’s “underwhelming” campaign, the newspaper openly wondered “how long [George] LeMieux’s campaign would last.”

The brief flirtation with Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater only underscored unease among activists who fear Nelson may be getting another free pass.

Mack’s burn rate is unacceptably high in the expensive Sunshine State and his first ad — featuring monkeys and cocaine — was roundly panned as juvenile. That charge is particularly unhelpful for a candidate trying to move past a “frat boy” image.

Even in Washington, there’s a sense among GOP operatives that this race is slipping out of reach.

Who won April: Nelson

Latest poll: Nelson 47%, Mack 36% (Rasmussen Reports, 500 likely voters, April 25)

10. North Dakota (new)

The Peace Garden State makes its debut here, an indication that Democrats have made a viable case that freshman Rep. Rick Berg is a weak favorite to pick up the seat held by Sen. Kent Conrad for 24 years.

With a dearth of public polling, the case for former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp is based on a body of clues.

A Democratic poll showed Heitkamp with a 5-point lead; no Republican data countered the finding. The latest Crossroads GPS air strike included $76,000 to bruise Heitkamp — a sign she’s on the radar of the cycle’s most notorious super PAC. Even Berg blasted an email to supporters recently claiming the state is “Harry Reid’s #1 target.”

While still likely to end up in the GOP column, Republicans have shown they’ve got work to do to secure a seat that’s critical to getting to a majority.

Who won April: Heitkamp

No recent public polling

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how Tim Kaine became Virginia lieutenant governor in 2001.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Naira Ruiz @ 05/02/2012 06:45 AM Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how Tim Kaine became Virginia lieutenant governor in 2001.