With two weeks now until Election Day, many are forecasting big gains for the GOP in the U.S. House, but conventional wisdom is now that the Democrats will hold the Senate.  Maybe.

Polls over the past week shifted towards the Democrats ever-so-slightly in a couple of important states, which could end up tipping the balance in the race for the Senate.

But basically, we are where we were last week - Republicans on the verge of major gains, and still threatening to gain the 10 seats needed to take charge of the Senate.

The race for the Senate pretty much comes down to a group of seats that are still fairly close:

CALIFORNIA - Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has held a fairly solid lead in this race for some time, but there was a Reuters poll last week which showed her only one point ahead of Carly Fiorina.  This one still seems like a longshot for the GOP.

COLORADO - Will Ken Buck's chatter about homosexuality on "Meet The Press" cause him any problems, or just be a blip on the way to getting elected?  The polls here have tightened, though Buck is ahead in a number of them.  This is a seat that Republicans really need to draw their inside Senate straight.

ILLINOIS - This Senate race has been very tight for months, mainly because both candidates have blemishes on their records.  Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) would seem to have the slight advantage, simply because of the existing political environment, but Alexi Giannoulias (D) is still making a race of it.

NEVADA - Even though Democrats kept saying that Sharron Angle was a complete nutjob who could never win, here we are two weeks from Election Day where an Angle victory is within reach.  A poll from Rasmussen out on Monday gave her a three point lead, still within the margin of error, but in the lead.

WASHINGTON - This is another race that Republicans would love to grab on Election Day, as Dino Rossi has stayed near Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) in the polls.  A new Rasmussen poll out on Monday showed Murray ahead by 3 points.  This race might not even be settled in two weeks because of the large number of mail-in ballots that must be counted.

WEST VIRGINIA - The last week saw a good amount of movement in the polls in favor of Democrats and Gov. Joe Manchin, who was behind in the polls for several weeks.  Republican John Raese is trying to capitalize on a very favorable election argument for the GOP in a state that was easily won by John McCain.

For the sake of argument, we will assume that Republicans don't lose any of their seats, and win Democratic Senate seats in Indiana, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Arkansas and Wisconsin.

That's five, which would put the GOP halfway to their goal of 10.

It looks like Connecticut and Delaware are no longer viable possibilities, so the next five would have to come from the half dozen Senate races listed above.

That would mean Republicans would have to win five of those six.  It's still possible, but the oddsmakers in Las Vegas might not like those odds.

We'll see what happens in two weeks.