Has anyone heard how Thune is doing against Daschle? I heard someone (can't recall who) predict just last week that the Democrats would pick up 2 seats in the senate. That is hard to believe in light of the situation in the south, where 5 southern Democrats aren't running for reelection. I would think that the Republicans could pick off a minimum of 2 of those and, quite possibly, 4 or even 5.
Since the Demonrats need 2 seats to take over control of the Senate (formally... they already obviously control it now), I'd guess that was a Demonrat rallying his troops.
There is no way in hell they will gain 2 Senate Seats barring some sort of national disaster for the R's.
Realistically, the worst that could happen is that we break even.
Worst case would be that we lose 3 of our 4 open seats, and gain 3 of the 5 southern seats, and don't unseat any vulnerable incumbents. We have the advantage of having no truly vulnerable incumbents, while they have at least 2, possibly 4 depending on who you talk to.