Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Deciding the Senate on a coin flip

With the presidential race in a bit of a holding pattern (especially with most of us waiting a few days to see what sea change, if any, emanates from the president's historic announcement on Wednesday), today's Wrap discussion will focus on the Senate.

Markos noted earlier this week that the conventional wisdom on where the balance of power in the Senate will come to rest after November has shifted markedly. Whereas once a Republican majority post-2012 was a foregone conclusion, a series of shifts in key races (case in point: the Mourdock nomination in Indiana) have put some races back into contention.

However, champagne corks should remain unpopped: not only are victories in those shifting races still far from guaranteed, but there are also some Democratic races that everyone presumed would remain in the "D" column that are right on the edge of concern. Two of those races had polls drop today that underscore that point: Ohio and New Jersey. Democrats are still the betting favorites in both, but neither incumbent is likely to feel very comfortable right now.

On to the numbers:

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-44)

NATIONAL (North Star Opinion Research for Resurgent Republic--R): Obama d. Romney (49-42)

NATIONAL (Public Religion Research Institute): Obama d. Romney (47-38)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (49-45)

OHIO (Quinnipiac): Obama d. Romney (45-44)

WASHINGTON (SurveyUSA): Obama d. Romney (50-36); Obama d. Romney and Ron Paul (40-27-20)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

FL-18 (Frederick Polls for Murphy): Patrick Murphy (D) 45, Rep. Allen West (R) 45

MA-SEN (MassInc): Elizabeth Warren (D) 43, Sen. Scott Brown (R) 41

NJ-SEN (Fairleigh Dickinson): Sen. Robert Menendez (D) 42, Joseph Kyrillos (R) 33

(2013) NYC-MAYOR (Quinnipiac): Christine Quinn (D) 48, Ray Kelly (R) 33; Bill DeBlasio (D) 46, Kelly 34; William Thompson (D) 46, Kelly 34

OH-SEN (PPP): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 45, Josh Mandel (R) 37

OH-SEN (Quinnipiac): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 46, Josh Mandel (R) 40

TX-SEN--R (Perception Insight for a pro-Dewhurst SuperPAC): David Dewhurst 57, Ted Cruz 16, Tom Leppert 12, Craig James 4

WI-GOV (Rasmussen): Gov. Scott Walker (R) 50, Tom Barrett (D) 45

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...