At the moment, there are two Republican-held seats that look likely to go to Democrats: Illinois and Wisconsin. Assuming that all three of those seats go Democratic, that's a three-seat pickup for the party. If Heck wins, Democrats would need two more seats to be in the majority — albeit with a Senate knotted at 50 seats apiece. What that means is that Democrats went from needing to win 40 percent of the true swing Senate seats for the majority to now having to win 66 percent of those seats. Strickland's struggles mean that what looked like a sure-fire majority for Democrats three months ago now looks like a slightly iffier prediction.

Source: Washington Post August 30, 2016 17:05 UTC