DELAWARE- SENATE: Republicans got just the break they were hoping for in the Delaware Senate race. Republican Rep. Mike Castle will run, challenging the Vice President's son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden (D). Biden would have defeated any other Republican, but Castle is leading Biden in early polls. The Vice President has great sway, but the dynasty issue helps Castle.

With the off-year midterms just a year away, the Crystal Ball will focus on the statehouses. It gets us out of Washington and away from Congress--and that is refreshing in itself.

It was nearly twenty years ago. While assessing L. Douglas Wilder's 1989 victory for governor of Virginia, I first noticed that for four consecutive elections (1977, 1981, 1985, and 1989), the Old Dominion had voted for the gubernatorial nominee of the party opposite to the one controlling the White House. It merited a paragraph, but nothing more.

While the next slate of House elections does not occur until 2010, congressmen and their challengers certainly don't take off the "off-year." Instead, this year is a crucial one for the parties who must prove their recruiting chops, for the incumbents who seek big fundraising numbers and positive headlines, and for the challengers who have to prove their ability to take down a sitting member of Congress. And that doesn't even include the open races, 18 so far, where incumbents have announced they will not seek reelection. In those districts, both parties are scrambling to find candidates who can quash takeover hopes or, conversely, take advantage of this rare opportunity.

Something truly astonishing appeared in a Washington Post column on July 25, 2009. It was written by Frank Mankiewicz, former press secretary to Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) and the man who is perhaps most widely remembered for announcing RFK's death in June 1968. Mankiewicz was also the political director of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern's losing 1972 campaign. The column contained a two-fold revelation about the just-deceased Walter Cronkite, the longtime CBS News anchorman. Here are the disclosures, in Mankiewicz' own words:

In the mid-nineteenth century, a delegate to a Virginia constitutional convention argued against the office of lieutenant governor, calling it, "the fifth wheel of a wagon, and much more useless." Worse has been said about the vice presidency over the centuries. Franklin Roosevelt's first VP, John Nance Garner, declared his position was not worth a pitcher of warm spit. He actually cited another bodily excretion, but the press of the day cleaned up the language.

We are barely into the two-year term for the current House of Representatives, but you can be sure that the 2010 contests have already begun. That is especially true for members of the House who are in two-party competitive districts. For them, it is a permanent campaign.

We at the Crystal Ball must beg your forgiveness. With fewer than 1,300 days left until the next general election for President, we have failed to offer a single analysis of this historic upcoming battle. With humility, and hoping for mercy, we submit this first update on 2012.

We've had two good weeks of gubernatorial fun in the Crystal Ball, reviewing the early match-ups for the 2010 midterm Governor battles here and here. Now it's time to examine the remaining sixteen statehouses, all currently controlled by Republicans.

Last week the Crystal Ball conducted a historical overview of gubernatorial midterm elections in the past sixty years. Now we'll continue our initial analysis of the statehouse battles to come by assessing the situation in each of the 36 states hosting a contest for Governor in 2010. Let's start with the 20 Democratic statehouses on the ballot.