Democratic Senate 2026 Longshots
And why I wouldn't rule them out.
While Democrats are probably more likely than not to win back a House majority in 2026, the playing field in Senate elections has looked pretty dismal for them throughout this cycle. Cook Political Reports lists two Democrat-held seats as Toss-ups and two as Lean D, while until recently there were only two GOP-held seats listed as Lean R and one are Likely R. All the rest have been rated as Safe for the incumbent party.
From that unpromising starting point, Democrats have had some reasonably good news. The most important is that Donald Trump is underwater. Not enough to reliably predict a big year for the out-party, but it’s still early, and it’s very unusual for a president’s approval to turn negative this early. Democrats also continue to overperform in off-year and special elections; again, that’s not an entirely reliable predictor, but it’s something to hang their hat on and, perhaps, help to put valuable resources (such as top-tier candidates) in play.
That’s now translating into some solid-ish signs of progress for them. Cook’s Jessica Taylor has moved one of those safe seats – the one held by Iowa’s Joni Ernst – into the Likely R column; meanwhile, with North Carolina’s Thom Tillis now retiring after this term, his seat has moved from Lean R to Toss Up. That’s not exactly a sign of a Democratic landslide. But it does mean that if Democrats hold all of their own difficult-to-defend seats that there are now enough at least mildly contested Republican-held seats to reach 51 with a clean sweep. That’s still very unlikely! They’re nowhere near drawing to an inside straight yet, but at least they now have a chance to reach that status.1
Could things get better than that for Democrats? Sure, and it’s not all that hard to picture it happening. A full-on recession, if that happens, would surely hurt Trump and the Republicans quite a bit. There’s also plenty of policy-based difficulties that could harm Trump. The megabill has plenty of items that poll badly, and with Elon Musk actively bashing it along with the House Republicans who support it, it wouldn’t be surprising if it rapidly becomes a real liability for Republicans. Indeed, we really can’t predict the electoral consequences of a bill this unpopupular, and with this many effects likely to be unpopular when implemented, because nothing like this has really ever happened before.2
So perhaps it’s a good time to check in on how Democrats could still do surprisingly well in 2026. To be sure: This is all speculative, and if Trump becomes popular Republicans would still be more likely to gain seats as to lose them. Most likely, a good result for the Democrats would mean winning in North Carolina and Maine while holding all four of their own contested seats. That’s hardly a sure thing even if it’s overall a good year for the party, but if they could achieve it they would be down only 51-49 in the chamber and enter the 2028 cycle needing only a single-seat gain plus the vice-presidency to recover the majority.3
But still, why not speculate a bit? Here are the longshot possibilities for Democrats next year:
Iowa (Trump +13 in 2024): It’s become a very Republican state, so even a +10 national swing towards the Democrats would still leave incumbent Senator Ernst with a bit of a buffer. But she hasn’t been particularly popular in the state, and a recent gaffe seems to have received a ton of attention – and at least two Democrats jumping into the race to challenge her. I’m pretty skeptical on this one, but I have to put it on this list.
Texas (+14) Incumbent Senator John Cornyn faces a primary challenge by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has survived indictment, impeachment, and other scandals and currently leads Cornyn in early polling. Democrats are eager to face the state AG, who almost lost to a no-name challenger in 2018, although he basically ran even with the Republican Governor and Lt. Governor in 2022. Right now every Democrat in the state with a pulse is looking at the race so who knows how strong the eventual challenger will be…but after a cycle where I thought Ted Cruz was safer than conventional wisdom had it, I can see Texas being better than expected for the Democrats this time.
Alaska (+13) Republican Dan Sullivan has never seemed particularly strong in this seat, and there’s a potentially popular Democratic challenger: Mary Peltola, who won the (statewide) US House seat in a 2022 special election and defended it in the regular 2022 election before losing narrowly in 2024. The catch? She’s rumored to be more interested in running for governor than for the Senate. But if she runs, and it’s a good year for Democrats, she’ll be at least somewhat competitive.
Ohio (+11) and Florida (+13) Ohio is the one that the Cook Report rates as only Likely R, probably because of the possibility that defeated longtime Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown could attempt a comeback. I’m grouping the two states together because of what they have in common: Senators appointed to fill vacancies are running in special elections to keep their seats. In Ohio it’s Jon Husted, who replaced Vice President JD Vance; in Florida it’s Ashley Moody, who replaced Secretary of State Marco Rubio. There’s a history of appointed Senators having problems when the run for re-election. I don’t particularly see any reason to expect that here, and like Iowa (but unlike Texas and Alaska) these states are trending hard to Republicans, but it’s at least something.
Alabama (+30), Kentucky (+31), and Louisiana (+22) No, I don’t expect any of these to be competitive at all. However! Alabama and Kentucky are open seats, and as we saw in Alabama relatively recently there’s always the possibility that Republicans when faced with a primary election will select a wildly inappropriate candidate, one capable of losing in even the safest districts. Again, I’m not predicting it or expecting it, but you never know. As for Louisiana, Senator Bill Cassidy has drawn a few primary opponents so far. He’ll probably be re-nominated, and if not the seat will probably be safe anyway, but I’m including this one both for itself and as a reminder that either here or in the other safe seats there’s always the possibility of a successful primary challenge by a candidate who could manage to run 20 or 30 or more percentage points below the GOP norm for the state. Likely? Not at all. A plausible possibility, somewhere? No one who has watched elections over the last two decades would absolutely rule it out.4
Just to underline it again: For the Democrats, picking up two seats in this cycle would be a solid success. Still, given the problems Republicans have had with nominating suitable candidates, the Democrats would be smart to make sure they find solid candidates everywhere – even if most of those candidates will wind up doomed.
For those who don’t play poker: Drawing to an inside straight is a notoriously low-odds bet. For those who do, I’d say that if 51 seats is winning, then Democrats aren’t even at the point of drawing two cards to an inside straight. So far.
At least in the polling era. We should be careful; plenty of bills that seem destined to dominate future elections wind up making little difference — even if they are, as the megabill would be, substantively very important to the lives of voters. But we really don’t have good precedents for this one.
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has openly hinted recently about the possibility of party-switching, but it still seems very unlikely to me. Unless she’s deeply surpressing a lot of her true views, she would still be the most conservative Democrat, and by a substantial margin.
It doesn’t work the other way; Democrats may not always choose the strongest candidates in primaries, butI can’t think of one where they nominated someone who gave away a safe seat.