Will Elizabeth Warren Help Democrats Keep the Senate?

The past couple days have been good to Elizabeth Warren, with four polls showing her in the lead in her race against incumbent Scott Brown. The Warren campaign shouldn’t be cracking the champagne yet—Brown excels at the likable aw-shucks routine on the campaign trail and the two face off in a debate tomorrow night—but the polling must be easing Democratic concerns about her ability to connect with voters.

Warren’s lead in the polls also has Democrats breathing a little easier on the national level. With so many Democratic seats up for grabs, this year was going to be a hard year for the Democrats to maintain control of the Senate, regardless of how Obama performed.

The latest forecasts from electoral-vote.com, though, show the Democrats taking 52 seats, the GOP 46, and two still up for grabs. Nate Silver of the New York Times is seeing slightly different results, but they still favor the Democrats:

“…the Democrats are in the best shape they’ve been in all year in the Senate. The model now gives them the equivalent of a one-seat advantage, meaning that the most likely composition of the new Senate is 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans, although some seats are almost certain to change hands on both sides.”

Good news for Democrats. Bad news for the Republicans. But back to Brown-Warren: Will Brown or conservative-leaning super PACs start going negative in order to even up the race?