Ohio and Maine Senate Races Projection Updates

Two senate races have had their projections updated here due to changes in candidates. The Maine senate race had been previously listed as leaning Republican, but with the incumbent Senator Olympia Snowe no longer running for office the projection has been updated to a tossup.

Part of the reason for this change in Maine is that there is no incumbent in the race and part is due to the poor showings of both general election candidates in the primaries. On the Democratic side, the largest percentage of votes was 44% while the leading Republican only got 29%.

The Ohio Senate race does have an incumbent Senator that is one of the most liberal in the Senate. Senator Brown's support for Obamacare and other liberal initiatives had made him vulnerable to a strong Republican candidate. However, despite getting 63% of the votes in the primary, Josh Mandel isn't expected to really challenge Senator Brown as he has not put forth position statements, had previously pledged not to run after just winning an election for State Treasurer, and has no history on which to base his positions. That Ohio senate race has been changed to leaning Democrat and may get changed to a solid Democratic senate seat in the next couple of months.