At the Washington Post’s The Fix blog, Chris Cillizza has a good post with three charts showing how Democrats are in trouble in the 2014 Senate contests. The charts go back to the 2006 cycle when Republican Senate candidates, in Cillizza’s view and mine, faced a similar problem: an unpopular president from their own party.

The first chart shows how Republicans in seriously contested races failed to win percentages much above George W. Bush’s job approval in their states, with the single exception of Lincoln Chafee, who lost anyway in heavily Democratic Rhode Island. The other two charts show how late-deciding voters swung toward the out party’s challenger and how Republicans had a money advantage that year (as Democrats do this year).