The key to the majority may be in Ohio.

New data from national pollster Glen Bolger sure seems to indicate that's the case.

The generic ballot shows Republicans leading 44%-39%. Besides all of the usual regional crosstabs, we also broke it out by the type of district. We looked at the sample in the 66 Democratic INCUMBENT districts that Charlie Cook lists as either toss-up or leaning Democratic at the time of the survey. In that key crosstab of Swing Democratic Incumbent Seats, the Republican lead grows to 49%-31% on the generic ballot. That is a very powerful crosstab that says the wave is coming.

It should be noted that Charlie Cook currently lists SIX congressional seats in Ohio as toss-up or lean Dem - Kilroy, Driehaus, Boccieri, Space, Sutton, Wilson.

Among the remaining Democratic districts (Likely/Safe Dem, and open seats), the generic ballot is an unsurprisingly 33% GOP/51% Dem — a sign that the historically safe Dem seat will remain so, while the swing seats will be a bloodbath. By the way, all of in the GOP held seats, the generic is the reverse of the base Dem seats — 52% GOP/32% Dem. Very few, if any, Republican incumbents will be defeated.


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Regionally, the Republican wins 47%-39% in the South, 47%-35% in the Midwest, and 46%-36% in the West, while trailing 36%-47% in the Northeast. The Midwest is going to be a killing field for Democrats this year — from western PA through to the Plains, Republicans are going to sweep a LOT of Democrats right out of office.

This comes on the heels of NBC's First Read listing Tom Ganley's race against Betty Sutton as a "majority maker" - ranking it 43rd in their field of 64 vulnerable House seats.

In addition, Bob Gibbs' race against Zack Space was qualified by POLITICO as a "make or break" race if the GOP wants to win the majority.

Without question, both of these races will be a prime focus from each side over the next 5 weeks. If we want to win the net gain of 39 seats necessary to make John Boehner Speaker of the House, Republicans in Ohio need to be working their tails off to make sure these two have all the help they can get.