Much of DeWine’s work during his four terms in the House and two in the Senate has focused on transportation safety and children’s health—hardly lightning rod, partisan issues. He has co-authored bills with Democrats and defied Republican leadership on key votes, such as drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and certain gun control measures. And, he has remained unconnected to the corruption scandals bogging down Republicans in his own state and on the national level.

Nevertheless, DeWine is trailing his Democratic challenger Rep. Sherrod Brown by 11 points, according to an October 25 poll by Rasmussen Reports, an independent, non-partisan political polling company. His struggle is largely attributed to his party affiliation.

“At this point, having Republican after your name is like having horns and a tail,” said Peg Rosenfield, spokesperson for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which does not endorse candidates.

Spreading far beyond Ohio, this anti-Republican sentiment, springing from voter frustration with Iraq and Republican corruption scandals, has played a huge role in bringing Democrats within striking distance of the Republicans’ current senate majority. Democrats need a net gain of six seats to win the senate, and they appear slated to win in at least four races, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana and Rhode Island, according to recent polls.

Frustration with Republican policies on the war has been key in all of these races as well.

To win a majority, however, Democrats must also win two out of the three seats in tossup races in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia, while holding on to New Jersey. Although other issues such as stem cell research in Missouri and accusations of racism in Virginia have harmed Republican candidates, and voter resentment toward Republicans has helped make these races so competitive.

The continuing violence in Iraq has been particularly important. An October poll for McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC of ten states with contested Senate seats found that voters in all but Missouri rank Iraq as their top concern, followed by terrorism and the economy.

Even GOP leadership has owned up to the liability Iraq has become for Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the Concord Monitor on October 24 that Republicans need to “get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue.”

In Frist’s home state of Tennessee, Democrat Harold Ford is challenging Republican Bob Corker with a campaign designed to appeal to conservative voters and capitalize on the Republicans’ weak points. Ford prays in public, emphasizes his opposition to gay marriage and late-term abortion, but speaks of “my friend George Bush” before blasting Republicans on Iraq, homeland security and immigration. And seemingly trying to flip party loyalty on its head, Ford said in a recent debate that Corker’s changing Iraq policy made him sound “a little like John Kerry.”

Corker currently leads Ford by 2.3 percent, according to realclearpolitics.com’s poll consolidator, which looks at the top political polls across the country.

As of last summer, Republican Sen. Jim Allen of Virginia was so sure of his reelection against challenger Jim Webb that he started gathering support for a 2008 presidential bid. During the summer, however, Allen got into trouble for calling a Webb volunteer of Indian decent “macaca.” Former acquaintances then told the press that Allen had a history of using racial slurs and had once stuffed a dear head—Godfather-style—in the mailbox of a black family. Allen swiftly denied the allegations, and recently drew attention to sexually explicit sections of Webb’s novels, arguing that they are demeaning to women.

All of this has shrunk Allen’s lead to a mere 1.5 percent against Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former Republican who served as Navy Secretary under President Reagan. Webb says that a Democratic Congress is the only solution to the Bush administration’s failure in Iraq.

In the McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC poll, Missouri was the only state where health issues topped Iraq as the primary concern, perhaps because Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill has emphasized Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

McCaskill’s criticisms of Republican incumbent Jim Talent focus on his continual support for President Bush, while Talent has been attacking McCaskill for her record as state auditor. The candidates remain neck-in-neck, each carrying 47 percent of the vote, according to a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll.

The only hope Republicans have for gaining a seat appears to be in New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez leads challenger Thomas Kean Jr. by 2 points, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. The race has grown fierce by all accounts, with Menendez trying to link Kean to Bush administration policies and Kean repeatedly mentioning a U.S. District Attorney’s probe into a rental deal Menendez had with a community organization that also received federal funds.

Like the DeWine race in Ohio, the New Jersey contest may have more to do with whom the candidates are connected to than with who they are. The New York Times/CBS News poll found that 58 percent of Menendez supporters described their votes as against President Bush. Ninety percent of those who support the senator disapprove of the president’s performance.

Kean, on the other hand, has benefited from the reputation of is father, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean. Thirty-three percent of Kean’s supporters said the first thing they thought of when asked about Kean was his father. With Menendez’s lead still in the realm of statistical insignificance, and 39 percent of voters saying they could change their minds before election day, guessing the outcome will be impossible before the night of Nov. 7.