The Dems and Repubs have three divergent approaches to this November’s elections:

1. The Repubs want to make it a “national” election while the Dems want to make it local. The view is that historically the electorate votes like 3 percentage points lower than the incumbent President’s approval rating (Obama’s is hovering at around 40%).
2. The Repubs want no part of social issues while the Dems want to pound them on it. In the past the Repubs loved to bring up abortion, gays, and weed. Not now – the country has moved on.
3. The Dems hope that the “Independent” candidates – former Repubs who got booted out in the Primaries by the TEA Party – take votes away from the Repub candidates.

The Repubs are favored in a majority of the 11 closely-contested seats and they only need to win 6 votes to take control of the Senate. This year’s mid-term see a lot of Dem Senators in Red States – States where Obama got beat in the NAational Elections by Romney. So the money is on the Repubs to win back the Senate – ho hum. If they don’t it says a lot about the 2016 Presidential elections, with immigration a big issue.