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Am I the only one who has done the math? As an actuary, let me tell you that there is between a 91% and 93% chance that Republicans WILL regain the Senate in 2002 elections, assuming no one switches parties and Cheney remains VP.

It only takes a switch of ONE!

Sheesh, a no brainer.

"Am I the only one who has done the math? As an actuary, let me tell you that there is between a 91% and 93% chance that Republicans WILL regain the Senate in 2002 elections, assuming no one switches parties and Cheney remains VP."

Actually, I have done the math, and your assessment seems wildly optmistic. How did you arrive at such a figure?

I have set up a simple computer program to simulate the election results, based on assumed probabilities for what I deemed the 7 truly competitive races (SD, MN, NJ, MO, NH, CO, AR). I assumed all other races were won by the incumbent party. I gave the GOP a 50/50 chance to achieve a pickup in each individual race in SD, MN, NJ and MO. I gave the Democrats a 50/50 chance to pickup AR, and a 40/60 chance at picking up each CO and NH.

I then ran the program 10,000 times. The results:

GOP gains 4 seats: 0.82%

GOP gains 3 seats: 5.58%

GOP gains 2 seats: 16.11%

GOP gains 1 seat: 27.33%

Stalemate (neither party gains): 28.08%

Dems gain 1 seat: 16.04%

Dems gain 2 seats: 5.16%

Dems gain 3 seats: 0.88%

This puts the odds of the GOP regaining the Senate at approximately 50%. The odds of the Democrats increasing their majority is only about 22%.

If anyone wildly disagrees with my assumptions, let me know. It's an easy program to run, and I can post results under different scenarios.

I agree they will regain the senate with a simple majority. The concern is that the dims will just flip 1-2 RINOs as needed a la jumpin' jim jeffords, so we need a 4-5 seat majority to nullify that.