J.B. Poersch, longtime top aide to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, has signed on for another election cycle as executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Poersch, a Providence College graduate, is in the unusual position of running the political arm of Senate Democrats for the third cycle in sucession. So far, he and his campaign allies have been quite sucessful. In 2006, Democrats narrowly took control of the Senate. And in 2008 the party widened its margin in the chamber. There are now 58 senators who caucus with Democrats (56 Democrats and 2 New England independents:  Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut) versus 41 Republicans. There is one Senate vacancy _ the never-ending recound in Minnesota where Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman and still locked in a disputed election.

In the 2010 cycle, 17 seats held by Democrats will be up for grabs and 19 GOP seats are at stake. In New England, the only Democratic seat that appears close at this juncture is that of Connecticut's Christopher Dodd, another PC grad, who has been battered by the banking crisis.