US Elections 2012 Feature: The 7 Senate Races to Watch --- and Why They Are Important for the Next President

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The overall picture for the Senate then is that the Democrats should win Virginia, Wisconsin and Massachusetts to give them 52 seats. There are enough reasons to doubt Republican chances in Indiana and Nevada to suggest a Democrat might win one of those states, leaving a 53-47 majority.

But this is a Presidential election year, where Senate races are not as safe to call as in off-Presidential campaigns where the candidates stand or fall a bit more on their own merits. Republican faith in their theory of a lacklustre Democratic turnout may be nothing but a fantasy, but until the results start to confirm Obama's lead in the polls as reality, then Democrats face the possibility of losing the Senate as well as the White House. It is unlikely, but stranger results have happened in recent American political history.

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US Politics: Why There Will Be No DREAM Act, No Repeal of "Don't Ask and Don't Tell", and No New START

There will be partisan bickering in Congress, despite this season's message of peace and goodwill over tax cuts;  however, the likelihood is that some kind of measure will be cobbled together to keep the government funded by the deadline of 1 January.

The real casualty of the discussions over a continuing resolution and the contentious floor battle over tax cuts will be three other issues that the Democrats wanted to address: the DREAM Act, the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" restriction on gays and lesbians in the military, and the "New START" nuclear treaty with Russia.

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