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ANALYSIS — I have argued repeatedly that while the House is up for grabs — and indeed likely to flip to the Democrats in November — the Senate is not in play. I now believe that it is, so I must revise and extend my remarks.

Only about three weeks ago, I reiterated my view that Democrats didn’t have a path to a net gain of two Senate seats, which they need for a chamber majority. But a flurry of state and national polls conducted over the past few weeks suggest Democratic prospects have improved noticeably, giving the party a difficult but discernible route for control.

Republican Matt Rosendale led Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester by 2 points, within the margin of error, in a Republican poll of the race conducted this month. 

Rosendale, the Montana auditor, was ahead, 47 percent to 45 percent, in the survey conducted by WPA Intelligence for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Five percent were undecided. Rosendale won the GOP nomination in June to take on Tester, who’s running for his third term. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Tilts Democratic. 

In the final 12-week stretch to the midterms, expect to see President Donald Trump on the trail stumping mostly for GOP Senate candidates and Vice President Mike Pence campaigning for House Republicans, Corey Lewandowski said. 

The former Trump campaign manager and current senior strategist to Pence’s political action committee, the Great America Committee, said the political strategists in Trump’s orbit have determined that’s the best strategy for deploying the GOP’s executive leaders onto the congressional campaign trail. 

Updated 3:18 p.m. | Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s aggressive summer legislative agenda features floor time for bundles of spending bills, as well as three major authorizations.

The Kentucky Republican said he would prioritize the fiscal 2019 defense authorization, a new farm bill and updated water resources development legislation.

Sen. Claire McCaskill had choice words for Hillary Clinton over comments the former secretary of State made in India last month about people who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.

Clinton should “show respect to every American voter,” regardless of how they voted in the presidential election, the Missouri Democrat said.

For the first time this election cycle, the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched ads tying vulnerable Senate Democrats to a familiar GOP foe: Hillary Clinton.

New digital ads released Monday will run in the 10 states won by President Donald Trump in 2016 where Democratic senators are seeking re-election. The videos, which will be seen on Facebook, show footage of recent remarks made by Clinton in Mumbai, India, where she said Trump’s campaign platform was “looking backwards.” The videos also highlight her saying during the 2016 race that half of Trump’s supporters could be put into a “basket of deplorables.”

Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who recently entered the North Dakota Senate race, leads Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp by 5 points, according to a poll commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and shared first with Roll Call. 

First elected in 2012, Heitkamp is among the more vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election this fall, especially considering President Donald Trump won North Dakota by 36 points in 2016. 

For an exception to the rule that it doesn’t pay for a congressional Republican on the rise to cross President Donald Trump, the curious case of Cory Gardner may provide the current best example.

He’s in the tiny clutch of GOP lawmakers who have not only opposed the president’s policies, on issues from immigration to marijuana, but also have called him out for his rhetoric, especially on race.

Outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday dismissed Joe Arpaio’s bid for his Arizona Senate seat in 2018, laughing off the controversial former sheriff as a fringe candidate whose campaign will quickly fizzle.

“You’d better write about it and talk about it fast because it won’t last long,” Flake said in an interview with CNN.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee are theoretically supposed to be working toward a shared goal of growing the party. 

But the committees’ differently timed responses to allegations against Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore illustrate just how much President Donald Trump has complicated traditional alliances within the Republican Party.