By Lisa Mascaro, Michael Mishak

Thu, Oct 9, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Washington — As slim as Republican Sen. John Ensign’s chances are of stopping Senate losses this fall as head of his party’s election committee, his counterpart, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, isn’t predicting Democrats will hit the coveted 60-seat threshold yet.

But the math shows Democrats are getting awfully close.

Democratic candidates have a significant lead in five races — Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia. Seven more are polling close, and some are “even-steven,” Schumer said Wednesday.

Among the close races are Georgia, which wasn’t initially competitive, and Kentucky, where the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is up. The Maine seat, however, is not as close as Democrats had hoped.

Democrats now have a slim 51-seat majority and face one difficult race, defending the seat in Louisiana.

Getting to 60 seats would give Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a filibuster-proof majority, making it more difficult for opponents to block bills.

Schumer won’t go there yet, except when he says “prayers at night, maybe.”

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Former Sen. Tom Daschle joined a long line of Obama surrogates to visit Nevada, stumping Wednesday for the Democratic nominee at a Las Vegas union hall on the heels of a new poll showing the candidate in the lead, outside the margin of error for the first time since the campaign began.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano campaigned on Obama’s behalf in Reno on Sunday. Montana Sen. Jon Tester is set to hold economic roundtables across rural Nevada today and Friday. And New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will appear in Las Vegas on Friday.

On Wednesday, Daschle, the former Senate majority — and then minority — leader, contrasted Obama’s health care plans with those of Republican Sen. John McCain before about 35 seniors gathered at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 4041.

Obama, he said, supports enabling the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prescription drug prices and closing the “doughnut hole” in Medicare drug coverage. Daschle said Obama has vowed to achieve universal health care by the end of his first term and to “protect Medicare.”

McCain, on the other hand, supports a market-based approach to bring down costs, and thus, in theory, cover more people. He supports giving tax credits — $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family — to purchase insurance on the private market in lieu of employer-based health care. A top aide has said McCain would fund the tax credits with major reductions in Medicare and Medicaid.

In an interview, Daschle said Obama’s surge in Nevada, and his lead in battleground states, could be attributed to the Democrat’s performance in the presidential debates.

“He’s demonstrated a capacity for leadership,” he said. “People are becoming more comfortable with Barack Obama.”

Daschle called Obama’s ground game “the best in history,” but said the onus was still on the campaign to turn out voters in unprecedented numbers on Election Day.