Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have reached a tentative agreement that would give Democrats a three-seat advantage on most committees during the 111th Congress. [...]

The major sticking point of the lengthy and sometimes difficult ratio negotiations — whether to count the still-unresolved Minnesota Senate election as a Democratic pickup — appears to have been resolved in Democrats’ favor.

[Sen. Debbie] Stabenow (D-Mich.) said the ratios she disclosed Tuesday assume Democrats will enjoy an effective 59-41 edge in the Senate as a whole, a margin the party would achieve only if they win Minnesota.

Would the Republicans have folded if they thought Coleman was going to win?

Of course not.

The longtime senator, who is up for reelection Tuesday, has been pressured by some national Republicans to bow out of the race. Alaska officials have urged him to fight on.

Earlier this week, Stevens released a statement claiming he is innocent, but he’s taken it a step further with his comments to the News-Miner:

“I’ve not been convicted yet,” Stevens said Thursday in a meeting with the editorial board of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “There’s not a black mark by my name yet, until the appeal is over and I am finally convicted, if that happens. If that happens, of course I’ll do what’s right for Alaska and for the Senate. … I don’t anticipate it happening, and until it happens I do not have a black mark.”

According to the latest poll, Stevens is down by eight points to his Democratic competitor, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

But Stevens could still pull it off.  Like Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore told me yesterday, “weirder things have happened in Alaska.”