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Democrats, after suffering the indignity of losing their Senate majority in 2014, have high hopes of winning it back in 2016. That is in large part because the political map for Senate elections next year seems to be tilted in their favor, mirroring the GOP-favored battlefield of 2014.

What is more, Democrats expect to benefit from the fact that 2016 is a presidential election year and many of the states hosting marquee Senate contests such as Pennsylvania and Colorado will also be presidential battlegrounds. That is good news for Democrats because the partys key constituencies single women and minorities tend to turn out in much larger numbers for presidential elections than in midterm elections.

Democrats faced a dismal map in the 2014 midterms because they were defending 21 Senate seats while Republicans were defending only 15. Worse still, seven of the Democrats up for re-election were in hostile political territory states that Mitt Romney had won in 2012.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. In 2016, Democrats have only 10 seats to defend, and Republicans have 24 including seven in states that President Barack Obama won twice.

Among the most vulnerable incumbents: GOP Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, according to a preliminary ranking by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Among Democrats, only Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada and Michael Bennet of Colorado are expected to face competitive races.

With the Senate split 54-46, Democrats need to pick up at least four seats to win a majority (five if Republicans win the White House because the vice president casts the tie-breaking vote in a 50-50 Senate.)

Although Democrats have a much stronger hand than they did in 2014, the map isnt tilted quite as steeply in their favor as it was for Republicans last year. The Democrats who were vulnerable in 2014 were fighting in much more challenging terrain Mark Pryor in deeply conservative Arkansas and Mark Begich in Alaska, for example than the swing states Republicans are fighting on in 2016.

Ron Johnson starts with a better chance of getting re-elected in Wisconsin than Pryor started off with in Arkansas, said Nathan L. Gonzales, an analyst with the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. Arkansas is more red than Wisconsin is blue.

What is more, Republicans in 2014 benefited greatly from a wave of retirements by Democratic senators from conservative states like West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota, which were poised to fall to GOP hands. So far, no Republican has announced his or her retirement, although Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida may quit to run for president.

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Why Democrats Think Theyll Retake the Senate in 2016