Delaware Now the 2010 Senate Race to Watch

GOP Rep. Mike Castle just made Delaware’s 2010 senatorial election interesting, writes Nate Silver. The former governor threw in yesterday against “hypothetical” opponent Beau Biden for his father’s open seat, and the odds are decent it will change hands. Though the popular moderate Republican could run into the right wing of his party and the White House campaign apparatus, Silver thinks his chances are “somewhere north” of 55%-60%.

A Rasmussen poll released before Castle’s decision—and remember, Biden hasn’t yet declared—has him 5 to 8 points ahead of Biden, the state's attorney general. Castle’s age of 70—Biden is 40—could work against him, though his opponent’s name “could be a fundraising magnet for Republicans” as well as a rallying cry for Democrats. Still, Delaware notwithstanding, “some of the gloomier analysis” predicting a rout of Democrats nationally is “overwrought," Silver writes at FiveThirtyEight.com. (More Rep. Mike Castle stories.)