The Democrats' new State Senate majority is a fragile one.

Though some races haven't been called yet, Democrats will have, at minimum, a 32-30 majority in the Senate come January. They picked up a couple of downstate seats, and held onto some important upstate and Buffalo-area seats.

But there's already trouble in the ranks. Four New York City Democrats haven't committed to supporting a Democrat for Senate leader - and the New York City papers report that there's a possibility that any of them could defect to the Republican Party. The same reports say that those Senators won't attend a Democratic conference meeting today, which is being called by current Minority Leader Malcolm Smith.

There's talk, too, that some Senators may try to topple Smith as the conference leader.

Democrats didn't pick up any State Senate seats in the Rochester area. Rick Dollinger was seen as the best chance to unseat a Republican, but incumbent Republican Joe Robach was re-elected by a four- point margin. That's much narrower than the double-digit advantage that polls gave to Robach, but it's still a significant gap for such a hard-fought race.

Republicans Jim Alesi, George Maziarz, and Mike Nozzolio will also return to their seats.

But now that they're in the minority, these local Republicans will have less clout and will get less member item money - pork - to bring home. For Robach and Alesi, who have built careers around bringing resources back to their districts, that's a big setback.