As President Obama campaigns today in Washington State and California, one can't help but observe that Senate races in those two states probably wouldn't be in flux for Democrats in a normal year.

But that's where Democrats find themselves this year.

One poll out yesterday about Washington has Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) only ahead of Republican Dino Rossi by one point.  In other words, not much.

"As it stands right now, the race for U.S. Senate in Washington State is very competitive," said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, who heads the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.  

"The road to a GOP majority in the Senate runs straight through Washington."

It also might run through California, which has not had a Republican Senator since way back in the early 1990's.  The name of that Senator is a pretty good trivia question.

Bzzzzt.  John Seymour was appointed by Pete Wilson, after Wilson was elected Governor of California.  Seymour lost the special election for the seat in 1992, defeated by current Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

No Republican has seriously threatened either Feinstein or Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) since that election, but this year, Boxer is getting a run for her money from business executive Carly Fiorina.

Depending on what polls you believe, Fiorina is either ahead or behind by a narrow margin.

"It's amazing that we're coming down to the West Coast and Democrats seats in the Senate," said political elections expert Nathan Gonzales.

"Just when you think that Sen. Boxer is starting to open up a little bit of a lead, the race seems to close," said Gonzales.

Democrats are still confident that both Boxer and Murray will win, and deny Republicans the chance to take over the Senate.

Gonzales thinks the whole battle for the Senate comes down to California, Washington and West Virginia - the party that wins two of those three, he says, will win the Senate.

Whether he's right or not, if I would have told you six months ago that President Obama would be campaigning late in October for Boxer and Murray, not many people would have believed me.

But if they did predict that, then they certainly would have been expecting big GOP gains.