The closest Senate contests: Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington.  Alaska, with a major write-in, is hard to figure out. AK Senate: Miller 37%, Murkowski (R) 30%, McAdams (D) 30%, Public Policy Polling, 10/30-31; 1,539 likely vot…

Polls show Republicans poised to make major gains in the House and Senate elections, perhaps capturing one or both chambers.  Republicans claim that their polls show more and more vulnerable House Democrats while Democrats assert that their base is coming home and a number of Senate and House elections are looking better.

Will the Republicans sweep the Senate and House of Representatives as predicted by some political pundits? Will public disenchantment with incumbents in general instead cause upsets for both parties?

Here’s your chance to make your best guess – and win some money and notoriety while you do it.

Click here to enter our 2010 election contest by midnight tonight!

This year, we want you to predict who will win the House and Senate as well as a number of the hottest, most-contested, most-watched congressional and gubernatorial races across the country.

So, here’s your chance to cast your best guess as to what will happen on Nov. 2 (and, win $100). Enter now!

Rules are below:

• 2 winners — 1st place wins $100, 2nd place wins $50, and both receive glorification on the Council for a Livable World website
• Five points each for guessing who wins the Senate and the House
• One point for every correct answer in the Senate, House and Governors’ races
• Two tie-breakers
• One entry per person
• Races not decided by November 16 will be discarded from consideration of the contest, including races that affect the tie-breaker questions (in 2008, we would have waited until June 2009 to know the Minnesota Senate result)
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Send this contest to your friends, colleagues and fellow political pundits (even though we know you probably don’t want the added competition). This year’s races are too interesting and too contested to sit on the sidelines.

Cast your votes now!

The stakes in the Sestak-Twomey Pennsylvania Senate race reach well beyond the far reaching differences between the candidates. In this race the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), led by neo-conservative William Kristol and Gary Bauer head of the F…

United States Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder made a presentation today about the upcoming NATO summit  on November 19-20 at Lisbon, Portugal.

He pointed to three separate meetings in less than 24 hours:

1.  A NATO summit of the 28 member countries
2.  A meeting to focus on Afghanistan
3.  A meeting of NATO with Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev

The first meeting will adopt a new strategic concept that will call for collective defense and cooperative security.

According to news reports, the summit will endorse a NATO-wide theater missile defense system while punting to the future any decisions about NATO’s estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons (that Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman James Cartwright admitted no longer had any military utility).

While many of us believe it is long since time to get rid of these weapons, some NATO countries believe these weapons serve some sort of political purpose.

I agree with a wag who suggested we deploy Walmarts rather than nuclear weapons to reinforce ties.

The meeting on Afghanistan will focus on the Obama’s Administration plan to begin the transfer of military authority during the first half of 2011 from NATO forces to Afghan forces.

Good luck in that effort – which the Afghan Study Group recently suggested should be accelerated to get all U.S. troops out as promptly as possible.

The last meeting will work on resetting NATO’s relationship with NATO, a relationship that has been placed in a freezer after the Russian-Georgia conflict in 2008. The effort will be made to turn the strategic relationship to a strategic partnership. There may be talk about exploring cooperative missile defense between Russia and NATO – a development long talked about but short on implementation.  

AK Senate: Murkowski (R) 34%, McAdams (D) 29%, Miller 23%, Hays Research Group, 10/25-26, 500 likely voters, 4.4% margin of error

AR Senate: Boozman (R) 54%, Lincoln (D) 35%, Univ. of Arkansas poll – 10-8-20, 566 likely voters, 3.5% margin of error

CA Senate: Boxer (D) 49%, Fiorina (R) 41%, Field poll, 10/14-26, 1,092 likely voters, 3.2% margin of error

CT Senate: Blumenthal 52%, McMahon (R) 44%, Merriman River Group poll, 10/24-26, 1,846 likely voters, 2.3% margin of error

DE Senate: Coons (D) 51%, O’Donnell (R) 41%, Monmouth University Poll, 10/25-27, 1,171 likely voters, 2.8% margin of error

FL Senate: Rubio (R) 47%, Crist (I) 27%, Meek (D) 23%, Sunshine State News poll, 10-26-27, 1,576 voters, 2.5% margin of error  

KY Senate: Paul (R) 52%, Conway (D) 43%, Survey USA, 10/24-27, 637 likely voters, 4% margin of error

NV Senate: Angle (R) 49%, Reid (D) 45%, Mason-Dixon Polling, 10/20-26, 625 likely voters, 4% margin of error

PA Senate: Toomey (R) 47%, Sestak (D), 42% Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion and the Morning Call, 10/25-28, 470 likely Voters, 5% margin of error

WA Senate: Murray (D) 47%, Rossi (R) 47%, Survey USA, 10/24-27, 678 likely voters or already voted

WI Senate: Johnson (R) 53%, Feingold (D) 44%, Public Policy Polling, 10/26-28, 1,372 likely voters, 2.6% margin of error