 Chambers of the Wisconsin State Senate. Analyst Louis Jacobson says that the Democratic Party's majority control of the chamber is vulnerable on November 2, 2010 By Geoff Pallay and Leslie Graves
While much of the country has been focusing on whether Congress will change hands, the importance of the state level elections is beginning to draw attention.
Across the country, there are 1,971 senate seats in the 50 states. Forty-three states are holding state senate elections this fall -- with a grand total of 1,167 seats up for grabs. Translation: 59 percent of all state senate seats are up for election.
According to Louis Jacobson, a staff writer for PolitiFact, partisan dominance will be at stake in 12 of the 43 states.[1]
When looking at states with elections this fall, the percentage of seats up for election jumps even higher. Nearly 70 percent of all seats in senates with elections this fall are up for election.
Meanwhile, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that whichever party resides in the White House typically performs poorly during midterm elections for state level offices. In fact, only twice in the last 110 years -- 1934 and 2002 -- has the party that controlled the White House outperformed its opposition in state elections.[2]
| 
