Senate power shifts: with bills like the antigay Federal Marriage Amendment dominating the current Senate's attention, 2004 races will determine whether next year's senate could be friendlier.

The politically charged contest between President George W. Bush and Massachusetts senator John Kerry isn't the only 2004 election with the potential to have wide-ranging impact on gay men and lesbians.

In the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, the election of just a couple of new Democrats could return that party to power and stop the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning stone-sex marriage. (The Senate is scheduled to debate and vote on the amendment the week of July 12; whether supporters can get the 67 votes needed to pass it remains uncertain.) It could also jump-start a gay-friendly agenda that has stalled under conservative leadership. Law-makers and groups that support gay and lesbian rights "would then have control of the committees and move far more legislation," says Winnie Stachelberg, political director for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.

Of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs this year, about a dozen--in states including Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Alaska--are considered in play. Democrats need to net two seats to become a majority of 51, a goal that was considered a long shot at the outset of this election cycle but could become a reality due to some unexpected retirements on the Republican side and strong candidate recruitment on the part of the Democrats.

In its endorsements so far, HRC's priorities include eight Senate candidates, most notably Senate minority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. The three-term veteran is locked in a fight for political survival against former GOP representative John Thune. Although Daschle does not support marriage rights for same-sex couples, he has blasted the Federal Marriage Amendment. His Republican counterpart, majority leader Frist, has come out strongly in favor of the amendment and is campaigning for Thune.

HRC's priority candidates include four other incumbent senators, only one of whom--Washington Democrat Patty Murray--is at this point considered vulnerable. Murray, a two-term incumbent, faces a challenge from conservative representative George Nethercutt, the man who, in the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994, made Democrat Tom Foley the first sitting speaker of the House to lose his seat since 1862.

HRC, which picks its candidates based on their dedication to the equality of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered citizens as well as their ability to win, can expect help in their endeavors from the National Stonewall Democrats, a political action committee devoted to electing gay-friendly Democrats to office. The Stonewall Democrats group has not officially endorsed any candidates at this point but will "definitely" be working on behalf of Daschle, Murray, and several other embattled Democratic incumbents, says executive director Dave Noble. The gay rights group Log Cabin Republicans has so far stayed out of most Senate races.

Both HRC and Stonewall Democrats are eyeing the seat being put in play by the retirement of Illinois Republican senator Peter Fitzgerald. HRC has endorsed Barack Obama, a state senator who is currently leading in a fierce race against investment banker-turned schoolteacher Jack Ryan, the Republican. Obama opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment and has led the fight at the state level to implement employment protections for gays and lesbians; Ryan embraces the amendment and also repudiates same-sex civil unions and partnership registries.

The Stonewall Democrats may also wade into the hotly contested race in Colorado, where state attorney general Ken Salazar, a centrist against the marriage amendment, has effectively cleared the field for the Democratic Party's nomination. Republicans Bob Schaffer, a former member of Congress, and Peter Coors, the beer magnate, are the leading contenders for their party's nomination. Schaffer is regarded as the more conservative of the pair, though Coors appears to be moving to the right in advance of the state's August 10 primary race. Coors, for example, endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment in a recent debate; earlier in his campaign he said he was not sure it was necessary.

Neither HRC nor the Stonewall Democrats has shown much interest in backing candidates in a handful of open races in the culturally conservative South--not because the races aren't competitive but because most candidates have shied away from strong opposition to the marriage amendment. Gay rights activists say they cannot justify backing candidates in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and South Carolina who, in Stachelberg's words, are bent on "writing this kind of discrimination into the Constitution."

Both groups have thus far held back in North Carolina and Georgia. In North Carolina, Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Clinton, is making a second go at a Senate seat after losing in 2002 to Elizabeth Dole. Bowles--who hopes to succeed retiring senator and former presidential contender John Edwards--has taken pro-gay stances and is running a solid campaign against GOP representative Richard Burr. In Georgia, activists are holding their fire until they learn the outcome of the crowded July 20 primary.

That leaves Florida, which will almost certainly see intervention from gay rights groups. Not only is the state a crucial battleground in the presidential race--one of the factors the Stonewall Democrats considers when deciding where to direct its money--but it is also the site of a fierce struggle to replace another presidential also-ran, Sen. Bob Graham. The three leading Democratic candidates in the August 31 primary are strong progressives, any one of whom would probably win ringing endorsements from gay rights groups.

Two potentially vulnerable Republican senators are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Christopher Bond of Missouri. HRC backs Democratic challengers Tony Knowles, the former governor of Alaska, and Nancy Farmer, the state treasurer of Missouri. One of the Democrats' strongest candidates this year, Knowles has a gay rights record that dates back to 1975, when, as a member of the Anchorage city council, he lobbied for employment protections for gays and lesbians. Farmer has a tougher challenge ahead against Bond, but she too is considered a viable candidate and staunch gay rights advocate. As a member of the state legislature in the mid 1990s, Farmer opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

A third potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent, in Pennsylvania, is Arlen Specter, a moderate backed by the Log Cabin Republicans. Specter looks like he will be at the center of a showdown between Log Cabin and the Stonewall Democrats, which is supporting upstart challenger Rep. Joe Hoeffel. One of the last of a dying breed of socially liberal "Rockefeller Republicans," Specter, a member of the Senate leadership and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, wields considerable clout in his caucus and is favored to win his bid for a fifth term. During his quarter century in office he has built a record largely in support of gays and lesbians, including opposing the marriage amendment. But Hoeffel, a three-term Democrat, has expressed more vocal opposition to the amendment.

The topic of same-sex marriage has generated much publicity, yet voters care much more about the economy and the war in Iraq, says Jon Delano, a political analyst affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "I don't think most people are going to go to the polls on November 2 [to] vote on gay marriage."

Stevens is a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly.