With five weeks to go until Election Day, the national political environment seems to have stabilized enough to conduct some regional analysis of what’s likely to happen on November 2.  Let’s start today with the West, where highly competitive gubernatorial and Senate contests are occurring in at least seven states.

Much of the Pacific Coast seems relatively impervious to the Tea Party movement.  In California, hard-core conservative activist Chuck DeVore finished a relatively poor third in the Republican Senate primary, and gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, who tried to run to the right of Meg Whitman, was beaten badly.  Conservatives could not even mount a strong challenge to the much-derided RINO, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado.  In Washington state, another TP favorite, former pro football player Clint Didier, barely broke double figure percentages in a Senate Republican primary challenge to Dino Rossi.  And in the same state, one of the more moderate new House candidates in the country, Jaime Herrera, won her primary easily.  Alaska, of course, is the exception on the coast, since its long-powerful conservative movement knocked off Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a write-in candidate in the general election.

In any event, Republicans have at best mixed prospects for major gains on the Pacific coast.  In CA, recent polls have given Barbara Boxer a significant lead over Carly Fiorina for the Senate seat, and despite Meg Whitman’s unprecedented spending, Jerry Brown is at worst tied with her as he begins his own media campaign in the governor’s race.  Republicans have a realistic shot at just one Democratic House seat in California, and Democrats are sure to hang onto control of both chambers in the state legislature.

In Washington state, Patty Murray appears to be opening up a modest but consistent lead over Rossi, who led her in some early polls.  While Herrera has a good shot at picking up an open Democratic House seat, only one incumbent Democrat, Rick Hansen, seems to be in jeopardy.  In Oregon, former Gov. John Kitzhaber is in a close race with Republican Chris Dudley for the governorship.

In Hawaii, Democrats have a better than even chance of flipping control of the governorship, with former congressman Neil Abercrombie a solid favorite over Lt. Gov. Duke Aoina, and of retaking Abercrombie’s House seat, which was lost in a special election earlier this year thanks to multiple Democratic candidates.

In Alaska, Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams remains underfunded and little-known; his fate almost certainly depends on the viability of Murkowski’s write-in campaign down the stretch.

Moving eastward from the Pacific, Colorado is another hotly disputed state.  Tea Party favorite Ken Buck has been leading Sen. Michael Bennet in early general election polls, but this race is likely to tighten up.  John Hickenlooper is almost certain to hold the governorship for Democrats thanks to the conservative split between Republican nominee Don Maes and former congressman Tom Tancredo, who is running on the Constitution Party ballot.   Republicans think they have a shot at taking two Democratic House seats, though their best chance is against freshman congresswoman Betsy Markey.   Turning south to New Mexico, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez has recently taken a steady lead in the polls against Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who once looked invincible, and two Democratic House members, Harry Teague and Martin Heinrich, in some peril.  In Arizona, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer look safe to hold onto their seats for the GOP, and though Republicans have visions of picking up as many as three House seats, all three Democrats—Gabby Giffords, Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell, are in reasonably strong condition.

Finally, in Nevada, one of the top national races looks almost certain to go right down to the wire, with Sen. Harry Reid and Tea Party champion Sharron Angle running neck and neck in virtually every post-primary poll.  Reid would probably be doomed against any other Republican opponent, but Angle’s long history of eccentric issue positions has given him a new lease on life.

All in all, the West could prove to be a national bellwether. A true Republican tsunami in the region could produce a net gain of four Senate seats (Washington, California, Colorado and Nevada), two governorships (Oregon and New Mexico), and nine House seats.  On the other hand, a stronger-than-expected Democratic performance could keep Republicans from gaining any net Senate seats, and could actually give Democrats a net gain of one gubernatorial seat (Wyoming looks to be a certain Republican gubernatorial pickup, but that could be offset by a Jerry Brown win in California and an Abercrombie win in Hawaii). None of the Western House races in which Republicans now look strong is a slam-dunk.

One regional factor that use to bedevil strategists is now of declining importance: the hope or fear that early returns from the eastern and central times zones could influence final turnout in very close races.  That’s because voting by mail is increasingly important in the West, with all ballots in OR and WA; most in Colorado; and over half in California, now being cast by mail.  The dominance of voting by mail will also significantly limit the impact of very late campaign activity in many states.  If Meg Whitman’s going to hit her target of spending $150 million in personal funds in the CA gubernatorial race, she’ll probably hit it well before November 2.

As the battle for November continued to unfold this week, House Republicans unveiled their long-awaited, long-debated version of the 1994 classic Contract With America.  This one was called the Pledge to America.

In figuring out where to fall between cautious national GOP figures who basically would like to overturn the 2006 and 2008 elections and bring back the splendors of the Bush administration, and the elements of the conservative base, radicalized into the Tea Party Movement, who would like to turn back the clock quite a few decades further, the authors of the Pledge struck an interesting balance.  The Preamble and Forward of the document are full of fiery Tea Party rhetoric suggesting the illegitimacy of the Obama administration and the need for a radical restructuring of the federal government and the immediate abolition of deficits and debt.

But when the Pledge gets into is specifics, it immediately retreats into limited demands for total repeal of the Obama administration’s initiatives, along with a return to Bush tax and economic policies, and notably abandons the fiscal radicalism that so many Republican candidates this year are campaigning on.  There’s no balanced budget promise; no endorsement, even, of a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment (now, as once before, boilerplate for GOP candidates); and certainly no mention of plans to take on major structural reforms, much less phase-outs, of Social Security and Medicare.

Indeed, the Pledge gives the impression that if the clock could be turned back to August of 2008, before the enactment of TARP, everything would be fine.  It will be most interesting to see how that approach squares with candidates and activists who think a return to 1933 is the only possible solution.

The Pledge does create a sort of whack-a-mole problem for Democrats seeking to exploit it.  Do they focus on the radical rhetoric that suggests a willingness to go after the basic New Deal/Great Society safety net?  Or do they focus on the details that suggest a more modest but equally vulnerable determination to bring back the policies that voters repudiated in 2006 and 2008?

In any event, the very existence of the Pledge offers some hope for Democrats struggling to make the midterm elections something other than a straight-up referendum on the status quo.  Under Republican governance, they will be able to argue, things could get worse, unless you really do pine for the salad days of 2006 or 1933.

The other big political development this week, which is still unfolding, is the decision by Senate Democrats against taking the lead on extending middle-class tax cuts and forcing Republicans to champion the extension of upper-class tax cuts, at least until after November.  There is still a chance the House will move first, but it’s unlikely given vocal Blue Dog opposition, and the decision is being widely derided as evidence of Democratic over-cautiousness, if not surrender, going into the midterms.  It’s an issue that will likely come up, however, in a lame duck congressional session after the elections, though with Republicans, who want to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, holding a stronger hand.

There’s been some craziness in the polls this week, most notably a Quinnipiac survey showing the very off-the-wall Republican nominee for governor of New York, Carl Paladino, suddenly closing to double-digits against prohibitive Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo.   The Q-poll did not exactly reinforce its credibility by then releasing a survey showing another lowly-regarded Republican, Joe DioGuardi, trailing Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, by just six percent (Siena, meanwhile, had Cuomo up by 33percent and Gillibrand up by 26percent).

Most survey results this week were more conventional.  Mason-Dixon showed Democrat Alex Sink with a 47-40 lead over Republican Rick Scott among likely voters in Florida.  The respected Field Poll, also moving to a likely voter model, showed a dead heat between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman in the California gubernatorial race.  And a new national Pew poll showed an unusually large 10-point swing in the GOP’s favor between registered voters and likely voters—though interpretations of such results as reflecting an “enthusiasm gap” often ignore the structural reasons for a Republican advantage in midterm elections.

Finally, Google has come up with a very useful series of maps comparing some of the most credible handicappers’ projections of Senate, House, and gubernatorial elections.