Democrats are expanding the Senate map. Can they keep it up?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/10/800035012/elections/senate-2026-democrats-republicans-map-expanding/
Democrats are expanding the Senate map. Can they keep it up?
It’s been over a month since we first checked in on the 2026 battle for the Senate. Democrats face an incredibly hostile map and, in a normal year, would be all but guaranteed to remain in the minority. But this isn’t a normal year, and Democrats have a slim but growing chance to win back the majority on a map that runs through Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas.
That’s how badly President Donald Trump and his party have f’d things up.
This month, we’re upgrading two states:
- Texas moves from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
- Iowa enters the list at No. 8, moving from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.
Republicans are still favored to hold the Senate at this point, but the trend lines are moving in Democrats’ direction, and there are still six months to go.
1. North Carolina (R-open, Lean D)
Democratic nominee Roy Cooper, a former governor, has won all six statewide races he’s run in, and he has yet to trail in a single poll of his Senate race. All three surveys released since our previous update show Cooper comfortably ahead, including one that has him up 50% to Republican nominee Mike Whatley’s 41%. Not one poll has shown Whatley above 44%.
There’s still plenty of race left, but this one is itching to be upgraded to “Likely Democratic.”
2. Maine (R-incumbent, Lean D)
The big news out of Maine this past month was Democratic Gov. Janet Mills ending her primary campaign in anticipation of a blowout loss to insurgent Democrat Graham Platner.
This is the only GOP-held Senate seat this year in a state Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election, underscoring just how brutal the map is for Democrats. But Republican Sen. Susan Collins has long been a political survivor in a state that often ignores traditional partisan rules.
Over the past several months, polling has shown Platner leading Collins by 4 to 9 percentage points. He has a checkered past, to say the least, but attempts to spotlight it have seemed to make him more popular. Maybe Collins will be more effective than Mills at that task, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Trump has rewritten the rules of political acceptability, and Platner appears to be benefiting from it.
3. Georgia (D-incumbent, Lean D)
Georgia remains a light-red state, but Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is aiming to win his second Senate race this November.
Polling for the general election has been sparse, but an Echelon Insights/NetChoice survey from early April had Ossoff leading likely Republican nominee Mike Collins by 7 points and, importantly, sitting above the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
4. Michigan (D-open, Lean D)
With primaries not until August, pollsters seem largely uninterested in testing the field. The two most recent polls of the general election, both conducted in January, show either party with an edge depending on which survey you look at.
The Democratic primary features Rep. Haley Stevens, progressive Abdul El-Sayed, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. El-Sayed performed weakest in those early polls. On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers is back for another run after losing to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by fewer than 20,000 votes in 2024.
5. Alaska (R-incumbent, Toss-up)
My favorite Senate race of the cycle features former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola taking on incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan.
As I noted a month ago, Alaska may regularly vote Republican at the presidential level, but its politics are far more collaborative than modern MAGA politics. The state legislature is currently controlled by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans that has sidelined MAGA lawmakers.
There’s one pollster that matters here: Ivan Moore’s Alaska Survey Research. Its March poll had Peltola ahead by 5 points in the final round of ranked-choice voting, and its April poll showed her up by about 7 points.
Sullivan’s biggest problem is that Alaska voters simply don’t like him very much. The March poll showed his approval rating 10 points underwater, while Peltola’s was +8 points, though Republicans will spend heavily trying to chip away at Peltola’s numbers.
Peltola may also benefit from the gubernatorial candidacy of former state Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich, brother of former Democratic Sen. Mark Begich and uncle of Republican Rep. Nick Begich, who defeated Peltola in 2024.
The most recent gubernatorial poll showed Tom Begich leading by 8 points in the final round of voting. Meanwhile, Nick Begich is cruising toward reelection in the state’s lone House seat.
So, we have a Republican Begich and a Democratic Begich, both drifting toward statewide victory, while the Democrat whom the Republican Begich beat is well positioned in her effort to oust an incumbent Republican, in a state that Trump won by 14 points in 2024. Make sense?
You see why I love this so much?
6. Texas (R-incumbent, Lean R)
Corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn remain locked in a Republican primary battle, while Democratic nominee James Talarico gets a race-rating upgrade and jumps ahead of Ohio on this list.
The two most recent general-election polls, both from April, show Talarico leading in the general election, no matter whom he faces. Slingshot Strategies found him ahead by 5 points against Paxton and by 3 points against Cornyn. YouGov had Talarico leading by 8 points against Paxton and by 7 points against Cornyn.
Still, those numbers look better than they probably are. In both polls, Talarico’s support sits between 40% and 46%, and undecided voters tend to break toward their state’s partisan lean. Texas Democrats already know who they’re voting for, while the undecided vote probably includes mostly conservative-leaning voters unhappy with their choices, but when Election Day arrives, they are still more likely to come home to the GOP than defect.
In other words, Talarico still has real work to do to get over 50%.
Could pollsters be missing angry Latino and younger voters? Possibly. Can we assume that? Absolutely not.
The fact that this race is even competitive is remarkable, but Republicans remain favored—though less so if Paxton wins the nomination in the May 26 GOP primary runoff.
7. Ohio (R-incumbent, Lean R)
Former Sen. Sherrod Brown is probably the only Democrat capable of making this race competitive.
So far, he trails narrowly, while appointed Republican Sen. Jon Husted has been polling at 50% or above in the most recent surveys.
8. Iowa (R-incumbent, Likely R)
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is retiring since she couldn’t politically recover from telling a town-hall attendee worried about Medicaid cuts that “we all are going to die.”
In the previous update, I wrote that “there’s a plausible scenario where Iowa joins this list as well.” But I didn’t expect it to happen this quickly.
A new Echelon Insights/NetChoice poll has Democratic state Sen. Zach Wahls and state Rep. Josh Turek narrowly leading Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson in hypothetical general-election matchups. The primary is June 2.
The problem for Democrats is that both Wahls and Turek are sitting at just 46% in a red state, meaning undecided voters are likely to shift toward the Republican nominee. But tariffs and mass deportations have hit Iowa hard, and voters may decide to punish Trump’s party for that.
Iowa should not be on this map. But it is.
9. Nebraska (R-incumbent, Likely R)
Dan Osborn, the independent former union leader who nearly stunned Nebraska politics in 2024, is back for another Senate run. Last cycle, he came within 7 points of defeating Republican Sen. Deb Fischer—53.2% to 46.5%—even as Trump carried the state by more than 20 points. That’s what can happen when voters in a deep-red state are offered an alternative that doesn’t come with a “D” attached to it.
This time, Osborn faces incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts, heir to the TD Ameritrade fortune and about as perfect a symbol of the country’s ruling oligarchy as Democrats could ask for. In a political environment dominated by economic anxiety, tariffs, deportations, and cuts that are hammering rural Nebraska, Ricketts is the perfect villain.
There hasn’t been much public polling, and what little exists comes from the Osborn campaign, so take it with the appropriate grain of salt. But the race appears competitive.
The challenge for Osborn remains the same as it was in 2024: Undecided voters in Nebraska tend to drift Republican once it comes time to cast a ballot. But if there’s anyone capable of overcoming that gravitational pull, it’s Osborn—especially in this political climate.
Other states to watch
Republicans are trying to make New Hampshire competitive, and they could if former Sen. John Sununu wins the GOP primary, as is expected. The likely Democratic nominee, Rep. Chris Pappas, led Sununu by 7 points in the latest University of New Hampshire poll, though other surveys have shown a much tighter race. I suspect this contest joins the list within the next month or two.
And did someone say Kansas? No one did, but I’m saying it.
Education remains one of the strongest predictors of partisan alignment. Of the 20 states with the highest percentage of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, only two voted for Trump in 2024: Utah and Kansas. Utah politics are heavily shaped by the Mormon church. But Kansas should be bluer than it is, and it does have a Democratic governor in Laura Kelly.
I’m not saying this is the year Kansas flips at the Senate level. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race there since 1912. But in this environment? Weird things may happen.
(Incidentally, among the 20 states with the lowest percentage of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, only one voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024: New Mexico.)
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