The New York Times presents the big overview of the race for Congress. Republican win of the House likely; Senate still up in the air. I can’t shake the feeling that this election will be a Republican version of the Democrat sweep in 2008 when everything broke right. I just hope the Democrats hold 40 seats in the Senate. Then they can become the Party of No. Nate Silver, by the way, thinks Repubs are a long shot to get 51.

There’s a graphic on the House races
. According to it, Arkansas’s 2nd goes Republican; the 1st is leaning that way. I still think Chad Causey is gaining.

There’s irony in the coming Republican triumph, as Frank Rich notes, plus blame for the White House:

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Even as the G.O.P. benefits from unlimited corporate campaign money, it’s pulling off the remarkable feat of persuading a large swath of anxious voters that it will lead a populist charge against the rulers of our economic pyramid — the banks, energy companies, insurance giants and other special interests underwriting its own candidates. Should those forces prevail, an America that still hasn’t remotely recovered from the worst hard times in 70 years will end up handing over even more power to those who greased the skids.

We can blame much of this turn of events on the deep pockets of oil billionaires like the Koch brothers and on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which freed corporations to try to buy any election they choose. But the Obama White House is hardly innocent. Its failure to hold the bust’s malefactors accountable has helped turn what should have been a clear-cut choice on Nov. 2 into a blurry contest between the party of big corporations and the party of business as usual.

Is there any hope for Democrats? Stan Greenberg and James Carville say maybe (though time is short):

In addition, there are signs that voters are still open to hearing from Democrats. An NPR poll that surveys likely voters in key House districts found this month that a Democratic message focused on the middle class and American jobs won out over a Republican message of deficit reduction and wasteful spending. (Disclosure: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner helped conduct this survey.) True, voters are not particularly moved by Democratic messages about Republican extremism or the policies that produced the recession. But they are open to hearing about how to repair the economy and put Americans back to work.

Finally this: Going by party registration of early voters, Democrats aren’t faring so badly as supposed. Presuming, of course, that they vote as they are registered.

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