The new WMUR Granite State Poll is out, and the people at the Paul Hodes for Senate campaign must be pulling their hair out. It shows Republican Kelly Ayotte now leading Hodes 50% to 35%. Looking deeply into the numbers, what strikes me is that Hodes saw his numbers tank as soon as the TV ads went on the air. I thought those ads made him look bad, but I chalked it up to my own bias. It seems my "negative vibe" about those ads was a shared experience. In the two congressional races, the poll shows former Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, the Republican, leading incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter 49% to 39% in the 1st CD, and former Congressman Charlie Bass, the Republican, narrowly leading Democrat Ann Kuster 43% to 38% in the 2d CD. Historically, the 2d district is the more liberal of the two, but Bass was able to hold the seat from 1994 to 2006 with the perception that he was a more moderate Republican. That moderation, and the perception that he is part of the GOP establishment, may not be helping him this time.

Stop the presses! Veteran Democratic political operative Bob Shrum says that, despite the polls, the Democrats will hold both the House and the Senate. Of course, Shrum is 0-8 in presidential campaigns since 1972, which is something of a joke within the community of political professionals.

Shrum dismisses the Rasmussen polls as being biased for the GOP, but he makes no mention of Gallup, which continues to release numbers that look bad for the Democrats, including this latest poll that shows the Democrats increasingly the party of young people and African-Americans. That is all very well, of course, except that the vast majority of the electorate is made up of people over the age of 30 who are not African-American. That Gallup poll also shows something that should be worrisome for the Democrats...a decline in Hispanic support.

A Pew poll shows the same trend of a Democratic Party shrinking to include only young people and minorities.

Truly, the day of reckoning for the Democrats could be just on the horizon.

Stuart Rothenberg thinks the Democrats could lose the Senate. Fred Barnes now seems convinced that they will, and he has made the list of which seats they will take.

Peggy Noonan sees a political tornado on the way, with lasting consequences for the country.