Real Clear Politics has a link to this Survey USA chart of approval ratings for all 50 US Senators. A few things of interest:

Of Democrats running for re-election next year, Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has an approval rating of 47%; Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has 54%; Bill Nelson (D-FL) has 48%; Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has 46%.

There are a total of 18 Democratic seats up next year; four Democratic Senators have bowed out, leaving their seats (NJ, MN, MD and VT) open. One might think that Feinstein is doing great - but for a Democrat with a reputation as a moderate in California to only have 54% approval is not a good thing - still, even if you exclude her, you've got three vulnerable Democratic incumbants and four open Democratic seats...that 7 out of 18 which will take some serious defending on the part of the Democrats.

Now, the bad news for the GOP:

Mike Dewine (R-OH) is at 42%; John Kyl (R-AZ) is at 49%; Rick Santorum (R-PA) is at 42%; Jim Talent (R-MO) is at 48%. So far, there is one open GOP seat, in Tennesse. Dewine in Ohio is dragged down by the poor state of the Ohio GOP under Taft, while Santorum is under a barrage of Democrat-inspired MSM hit pieces. Still, after all is said and done the GOP has five vulnerable seats, the Democrats seven...if we swap (ie, we beat all their weak sisters, they beat all of ours), then its a net gain of two seats for the GOP.

It won't work like that - but I think that the generic status of the 2006 Senate contests works out right now to a small advantage for the GOP. Not bad in this long, hot, anti-GOP August we're currently in.

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