With all the talk of 2014 being a big year for Republicans, it is easy to lose sight of what the coming election really looks like. Thankfully, Jonathan Bernstein has put together a useful primer on the next collection of Senate races. Up to now, I’ve just vaguely figured that the Republicans had a fifty percent chance of taking back the Senate. It turns out that their chances look a good deal worse than that.

Let’s start with the overview. Assuming that the Democrats get back the New Jersey seat vacated by Frank Lautenberg, they will start with an advantage of 55-45. That’s a very likely case. I often think that the Democrats are incompetent politically, but I don’t see how they could blow this one. Given that, the Republicans have to gain 6 seats in the Senate. That’s because Joe Biden would be the 51st vote for the Democrats if the Republicans only closed the difference to 50-50.

According to Bernstein, there are three Democratic seat retirements that are likely to go Republican: Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. These are all strong Republican states where strong Republican candidates are running. There are also four Democratic incumbents who are running in strong Republican states: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina. That’s a total of 7 currently Democratic seats that are vulnerable.

On the other side of the calculation, the Democrats have two decent opportunities to pick up seats. One is due to the retirement of Saxby Chambliss in Georgia. The other is Mitch McConnell’s race in Kentucky. Interestingly, his challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes is currently beating him in polls. So if the Republicans are to gain control of the Senate, they must hold these two seats and get 6 of the 7 good opportunities they have.

Let me put some numbers to this. As usual, I’m going to push hard to make this look as good as possible for the Republicans. Let’s assume that the 3 open races are almost sure things: 80% likely. Further, let’s assume that the 4 incumbents are favored to lose: 60%. Plus I’ll give George an 80% chance of staying Republican and McConnell a 60% chance of re-election. The statistics on this are a little involved because we have to look that the chance of the Republicans winning all and all but one of these races. Still, the chance turns out to be 17%. And even if I up the Republican chances to 90% for the likely cases and 70% for the favored cases, the chances don’t even break 50% (but they come really close).

So things look good for the Republicans, but they are definitely a long shot at taking over the Senate in 2014. Of course, this is just how it looks right now. But events could move in either direction. And as of now, I don’t see the Republicans doing anything to help their chances. Personally, I’m hoping for a Susan Collins retirement!