The Hill News

The second-ranking Senate Democrat said Monday that his party has a better chance of holding its majority in the Senate than it did just two weeks ago.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) said that wins by Tea Party-backed candidates in the Alaska and Delaware GOP Senate primaries have lessened the chances that Republicans took win those races and therefore tamped down growing expectations that they have a shot at taking control of the upper chamber.

{mosads}“What you’re going to see the next six or seven weeks as we close down this election campaign, many of these races are going to get a lot closer and it’s going to be a late night," Durbin told Bloomberg News. "Who would have guessed two or three weeks ago that we’d be talking about Alaska and Delaware? States safely in the Republican column and are now front and center in terms of the contest we’re about to face."

Durbin, the top deputy to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid! (D-Nev.), pushed the argument that the Tea Party has hurt the Republicans in two key races leading into the November midterm elections, when the GOP is expected to make large gains in both the House and the Senate. 

Earlier this month, election observers and some GOP politicians began to predict that the GOP had a better chance of winning the Senate than some originally thought due to the struggling economy and other indicators. But the feat still would be a difficult one with Republicans needing to win 10 races, including virtually all competitive campaigns.

But in Delaware, Tea Party-backed candidate Christine O'Donnell pulled off a stunning upset of centrist GOP Rep. Mike Castle, who was the favored candidate of the! Washington Republican establishment. O'Donnell is polling beh! ind Demo crat Chris Coons whereas Castle was expected to win the general election had he won the primary.

Critics have pointed to a string of controversial statements made by the conservative activist O'Donnell several years ago in an effort to paint her as too extreme.

Meanwhile, the Alaska Senate race was complicated last Friday when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) decided to launch a write-in campaign after losing the GOP nomination to attorney Joe Miller, another Tea Party favorite. That move caused political handicappers to feel less confident about the GOP's chances of holding the seat, despite the fact Miller is still favored to win.

Durbin said that Republican leaders have privately told him that that they know the Tea Party movement could hurt them in the general election.

"I would say that a lot of Republican leaders, at least privately, say to me 'this is creating a problem,'" he said. "They thought Mike Castle, their stro! ngest candidate for the Senate in Delaware and now Ms. O’Donnell’s is someone who may or may not be a strong candidate."

Josh Holmes, a Senate Republican strategist, responded that Democrats are trying to deflect attention away from their own candidates and that the voting public is tired of the majority party's agenda.

"After 20 months of nearly unchecked power, it's pretty telling that the number two Democrat in the Senate won't pin his party's political prospects to anything their candidates have done or will do about the economy," Holmes said in an e-mail. "On the other hand, when his party's prospects are dependent on a slate of candidates who are subscribers to the same failed government solutions that have led us to persistent high unemployment and runaway debt you can't blame him for trying to change the subject."