nine over democrat joe sestak. it's a similar story in colorado where buck has an eight-point lead over senator michael bennett. up seven. in wisconsin, it's ron johnson up seven. over russ feingold. finally, to illinois and a glimmer of hope. a new chicago tribune poll as alexis giannoulias with a slight lead over mark kirk. lots of voters still undecided in that race. as you can see. we'll continue to check the "hardball" scoreboard each night leading up to november 2nd. let's right now go to the state of play with four weeks of campaigning yet to go, terry mcauliffe was chairman of the democratic national committee. and richard wolffe is an msnbc political analyst. gentlemen, thank you. lets look at this poll right now, what we call a generic who is going to control congress? the nbc's congressional ballot. nbc's latest poll has republicans at 46-43. it's within the margin of error, but look at this. but these are likely voters. look at this.