Polls show Democrats have little hope of holding on to the Senate

With two days to go before the midterm elections, a slew of new polls suggest Republicans are on their way back to a Senate majority.

Three NBC News/Marist surveys released Sunday found Republican candidates leading Senate races in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. One day prior, a big PPP poll found the Republican candidates in Kentucky and Louisiana likely headed toward victories well, and it showed Republican Tom Cotton staking out a sizable 8-point edge in Arkansas. And then there's the final Des Moines Register poll of the Iowa race, released late Saturday, in which Republican Joni Ernst opened up a 7-point lead.

As a result, FiveThirtyEight's election model now pegs the GOP's odds of flipping the Senate at 73 percent, with the most likely outcomes resulting in Republicans holding either a 52- or 53-seat majority come next year. "It's still a close election," FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver said Sunday on ABC's This Week, but "the polls are clear enough that the GOP will probably win the Senate."

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