Charlie Cook (of Cook Political Report) is in that group of pundit analysts that tries to have an up-to-date opinion on every race for Senate, Guv and the U.S. House. Of that group, he's been the one most often predicting that the Repubs have a serious chance for the net pickup of 39 seats they would need to take control of the House. He started saying this was possible before the others, and he's still saying it, but his latest views offer a crumb of hope to the Dems to end the year with control of the House by a very small margin.

Earlier this week, he went over the Dem plan to retain control. It's all laid out here (although I'm not sure if it's available to non-subscribers). No, Cook does not anticipate any changes in Minnesota. The bottom line (obviously all subject to change) is that Repubs will have a net gain of between 32 and 42 seats. The midpoint of that range is 37, and the Repubs need 39, which is why I put "maybe, barely" in the headline on this post.

Then, in his weekly National Journal column just out (it's actually dated tomorrow) Cook notes that, for the first time this year, the Dems have enjoyed a 4-6 point lead in Gallup's weekly poll on the generic ballot question (you know, the one where they ask whether the voter would vote for a generic Democrat or a Republican for the House, without any names attached). Cook says that is possibly, maybe, evidence that the Republican wave, which had seemed to be gathering strength over the last many weeks of successive polls, has crested.