r/politics • u/_May26_ • 2h ago
Possible Paywall Yes, the Democrats Have a Real Shot at the Senate This Time
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-senate-2026-midterms/•
u/The-Curiosity-Rover Kansas 2h ago edited 2h ago
Maine, Michigan, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, and Iowa. Democrats have to win 4/6 of those races to win a Senate majority (or 5/6 if you’re not counting Fetterman).
The fact that all of those states are even in play is a remarkable indictment of the Trump administration.
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u/drobits 2h ago
At this point it wouldn't be shocking at all if Fetterman switched parties if the Democrats were to regain a majority
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u/ennuiinmotion 1h ago
He's 100% going to flip. Any electoral math had to be built with this in mind. It's an extra seat to overcome.
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u/DownWithSpectrum 50m ago
As much as I hate the guy being a pennsylvanian its extremely unlikely he flips solid R
Despite being a jagoff he still is generally on the democratic side when it comes to lgbt and environmental issues, just with the added caviat of being a trump sympathetic war hawk
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u/ennuiinmotion 37m ago
I think he goes independent and votes against every meaningful reform.
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u/Ut_Prosim Virginia 31m ago
Do you think he would he still caucus with the Dems? I bet the GOP lures him away with some warhawk bullshit.
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u/ennuiinmotion 22m ago
Not sure. I doubt it but in the end it doesn't matter. He'll make his money and get screen time on Fox every time he's the deciding vote on anything good. Reforming ICE? Not with Fetterman as the deciding vote. Health care? Not a chance.
It's true he's mostly a Democrat but that's only if you count percentage of votes. Most votes are fairly non-political. Does anyone think he'll fall in line on treating Trump as a criminal?
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u/OswaldCoffeepot 1h ago
Depends. I'm convinced that Sinema and Manchin threatened as much, which would have given the Senate back to the Republicans without an election.
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u/Beneficial-Rip6624 56m ago
I think he votes like 90% with the Democratic caucus. He hasn't been the progressive that voters thought he would be, but he's not really close to be a Republican either.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 2h ago
The REpublicans in my state (NC) are on full blast sending out mailers attacking Roy Cooper as weak on crime and 'dangerous for your family'.
I despise them. They're real scared of losing everything.
Vote Roy Cooper in NC! Vote as much as possible! They've been soft on the true criminals in this country for far too long and have given absolutely nothing to show they care about fighting crime.
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u/Cautious_Condition82 1h ago
They are also going all out on voter supression.
Making it harder to vote early, closing tons of polling stations (especially on or near colleges), voter roll purges, making it easier to challenge votes (I'm sure you can guess who will be challenged). I'm sure there is more I'm not think of but the auditor is doing his best to swing the election.
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u/Sloth_Brotherhood 37m ago
I will genuinely be shocked if Roy doesn’t win. He’s insanely popular and has name recognition.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 25m ago
They're attempting to pull out as many stops as possible. And they will still fucking lose.
VOTE!!!
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u/TubercuLicious-OO- 1h ago
Iowa was maybe the most difficult on the list but there was just a poll that put Turek up 6.
edit: Funny that Trump's last minute trade war with Canada is really going to throw into disarray senate races in states that border Canada, especially Maine and Michigan.
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u/phoenix64mbr 2h ago
I'm hearing that KS, LA, SC & possibly FL are now in play or at least not firmly in the red anymore. 🤞
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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Kansas 2h ago
That’s very true, although those are the more long-shot races.
I live in Kansas, and a lot of people are excited about Adam Hamilton. Combined with how unpopular Roger Marshall has become, it could end up being a surprisingly close election.
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u/wrosecrans 35m ago
Individually they are long shots. But when you have four long shots, the odds of something unexpected happening in any one of them aren't nuts. And every dollar that the Republicans spend in places like KS and FL to make sure they don't flip, is a dollar they aren't spending in another place.
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u/Stoned-Capone 1h ago
Florida Republicans have been trying to get that good PR by removing ALPRs from highways but they'll have a hard time ignoring that $10mil DeSantis stole from the state via his wife's charity
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u/phoenix64mbr 1h ago
The grifting is out of control. Not saying all Dems are honest brokers but compared to Republicans they look tame.
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u/Stoned-Capone 1h ago
Positions of power will always attract those seeking to use it for abuse and personal gain, but we're at the point where one party is begging for basic human decency and the other laughs at them while commiting crimes against humanity
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u/Ashamed-Artichoke-40 2h ago
Those are unlikely.
But TX, OH, AK and ME are.
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u/Sweets-2026 2h ago
Florida is much more likely than we think.
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u/PopBulky7023 2h ago
Florida is drenched in about as much voter suppression as Texas, if not more.
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u/citizen42069101 1h ago
Miami Cubans give Florida a mismatched Latino demographic.
One radio ad saying socialista and Miami turns red quicker than trump around a small child.
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u/PopBulky7023 1h ago
You would think living under tyranny would make you better at identifying actual tyranny, and not being so easily fooled by buzzwords often used by tyrants.
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u/Rentun 0m ago
Florida spent the last four years aggressively importing everyone's racist uncle from California, New York, and New Jersey. Most reasonable people that were able to have done everything they can to leave for places that aren't run by an actual clown. I personally have multiple friends who have moved to other states just because they can no longer in good conscience raise children in this state.
I wish Florida could flip, but based on the polling, and also the general vibe here... I don't think it's very likely.
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u/bucknut4 Illinois 2h ago
I think the only outlier here is Kansas where the polls are close, but otherwise I'm seeing GOP candidates are way ahead in polls, analyst models, and markets in all 4 of those states.
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u/phoenix64mbr 1h ago
Here's hoping the enthusiasm gap widens as Trump keeps tripping over his tiny dick.
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u/Odd_Independence_833 1h ago
I can't believe it will go that way, but my coworker from SC said that the democrat is doing well there and nobody like Graham.
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u/The_Confirminator 2h ago
It would have to be a pretty bad polling error and a lot of Republicans sitting out with a lot of Dems mobilized.
Not to say it's impossible, just not particularly likely.
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u/phoenix64mbr 1h ago
The prediction markets are more accurate than any poll IMHO. Greater than zero chance of it happening is all I ask. Things are certainly trending in a favorable direction!
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u/alabasterskim 1h ago
The prediction markets should not be compared to individual polls; they should be compared to polls in aggregate. Otherwise, you'd be comparing individual polls to the bets of each individual person on Kalshi/Polymarket. (But also, no, the prediction markets are not more accurate than polls)
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u/phoenix64mbr 1h ago
I'm just saying polls are not necessarily a reflection of the electorate, people lie. But they also tend to put their money where their mouths are. At the very least it's another data point.
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u/alabasterskim 1h ago
People lie, and people mislead, as they can by putting more money on different outcomes to influence who people think is leading. It is a remarkably poor data point to use because you can't assess the methodology of bets; you can with polls.
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u/phoenix64mbr 1h ago
Alright. I give. I'm not a pollster, so what do I really know anyway, lol. I'm just wistfully dreaming of a blue wave.
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u/alabasterskim 1h ago
It will be a blue wave. Without worrying about the very unlikely KS, MS, FL, etc., picking up 5-6 states was still not seen as possible on this map after coming out of the 2024 election. I mean Texas and Iowa are seriously in play, as are NC and OH again. These aren't swing states, these are firm red states in the Trump era.
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u/MrBigglesssworth 1h ago
I can’t remember where but a couple months back there was a blue swing that went 31 points in their favor from trump. It was like +15 trump but now +16 for the blue candidate. That is DAMNING.
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u/AleWatcher Illinois 1h ago
I bet $100 that if we managed to win four of the six, then fetterman will officially swap party designation and become a Republican.
This will prevent a true control of the Senate and theDemocrats having the majority control of committees.•
u/BadLuckBlackHole 22m ago
Maine's fucked, Michigan should be a sure-win, Alaska's a weighted coin-flip in favor of being fucked, Ohio is fucked because gerrymandering but feels like it should be a win in a normal reality, Texas should be a win because Talarico is an actual human being instead of three vampiric pieces of shit in a skin suit but it's still fucked, and Iowa is fucked because it's Iowa.
Odds don't feel great...
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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Kansas 19m ago edited 8m ago
Maine's fucked
It’s close, but I’m not sure split-ticket voting will save Susan Collins this time. Her major role in overturning Roe v. Wade will galvanize some voters.
Ohio is fucked because gerrymandering but feels like it should be a win in a normal reality
It’s a Senate race, though. Why would gerrymandering affect a statewide election?
Iowa is fucked because it's Iowa
It’s the most difficult pickup of the states I mentioned, but I disagree that a Democrat can’t win there just because it’s Iowa. It’s definitely a red state, but no redder than Ohio or Alaska.
I still think the Democrats have an uphill battle to retake the Senate. It might not happen this year. But the map has unexpectedly become very competitive.
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u/AsherGray Colorado 1h ago edited 1h ago
I don't see Sherrod Brown reclaiming his seat in Ohio; goes to show the problem of the democratic establishment and loyalists. He's facing a stronger republican than last time, and if he loses again in November when the favoritism toward democrats this year is massive will speak volumes. Also, the dems running candidates in states like Montana where you have viable independent candidates shows the hubris of the democratic party. Ohio's race will also need to be re-won in 2028 since it's a special election for James David's seat. If Brown loses in November (which I believe is likely to happen), then he needs to disappear from politics permanently. I think Texas has a greater chance of electing Talarico than Ohio does electing Brown. I feel like Michigan is assured with El-Sayed (though there will be a lot of money entering the race to combat him), North Carolina for Roy Cooper (which isn't a state you listed), then Maine, then Texas, then Alaska, then Iowa and Ohio I see as tied for the most unlikely.
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u/_Felonius 57m ago
Why do you think Brown can’t pull it off? He was always fairly popular, even when Ohio started turning red. I anticipate a lot of anti-Trump voters will vote blue this cycle.
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u/AsherGray Colorado 39m ago
People say Brown is popular but I think it's just the DNC messaging. I really don't think anyone cares for him nationally, which can't be said for other dems, but he did lose as the incumbent and is facing an incumbent. Ohio doesn't strike me as a state with much anti-Trump sentiment and I think for that to change, Trump would need to do something that affects Ohio directly. Just under 800k voters took part in the Democratic primary in Ohio, whereas the Republican primary had about 20k more voters. For an "energized" democratic base to have less involvement than the republican primary is not a good sign for enthusiasm in voting for the Democratic nominee in the general. Look at Michigan where you had 1.5 million voters in the Democratic primary and just 880k voters in the Republican primary (granted I'll bet a lot of otherwise Republican voters in the general took part in the Democratic primary because the Republican nominee went uncontested). Unmotivated Democratic voting in the Ohio primary is not a good sign for the general.
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u/Persellianare Ohio 41m ago
As an Ohioan I disagree, a lot of the republican base is really hating on Husted because of his stance on data centers which is one thing that everyone in Ohio is in an agreement on that are terrible. Even polls (granted you can't fully trust them) are showing Brown leading, fox news for example had him 8 points ahead of Husted.
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u/FBS351 2h ago
We need at least 52. Fetterman is all but declared Republican.
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u/EBITDAminusCAPEX 2h ago
But 51 is enough to control Senate committees, subpoena witnesses, and drive the annual reconciliation process. Hugely important.
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u/StupudTATO New Jersey 2h ago
And thats when a Fetterman switches.
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u/_Felonius 53m ago
Surprisingly, Fetterman votes with democrats around 91% of the time. He does break with them on some key issues, to be sure, but I’m cautiously optimistic he’ll mostly be reliable if we regain the majority.
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u/LurkytheActiveposter 1h ago
The point they are making is Fetterman switches sides for contentious votes
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u/Historical_Hall3950 2h ago
Let's be real - we need at least 67. We need to be able to overrride presidential vetoes, or we're just going to end up in a stalled mess where he still gets to do whatever he wants and then too much of the electorate will blame the Dems for not magically overriding him.
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u/NickCostanza California 2h ago
That’s not possible yet, so let’s go vote and start with a simple majority 😎🌊
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u/The_Confirminator 2h ago
I'm not so certain. We haven't really seen the real power of Congress exercised at all during this term. That is, to withhold funding from the executive. The power of the purse can be quite coercive.
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u/Historical_Hall3950 2h ago
Not having funding for things hasn't actually stopped the administration from doing them yet, so I'm skeptical that it would work now.
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u/drmike0099 California 1h ago
The other power we haven't seen is that the Executive branch cannot spend money on things that Congress didn't allocate money for. The existing Congress could have sued on separation of powers grounds to stop those, but chose not to. The next Congress could do that.
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u/matthieuC Europe 1h ago
><Let's be real - we need at least 67
This is not happening this cycle. Republican would need to crash very hard for 3 consecutive cycles for it to be possible.
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u/koreqwzfp 44m ago
Don’t worry Democrats will miraculously win a majority in 2026 just to get voted out in 20208 because they didn’t fix everything
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u/Fried_puri 50m ago
Well that’s not going to happen so in the meantime let’s focus on a simple majority.
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u/oldutnotdeadinside 2h ago
Yup. Needs to be more wiggle room than being able to pass anything by one or 2 votes
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u/Beneficial-Rip6624 49m ago
I hate defending Fetterman but he votes with Dems like 90% of the time.
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u/patientpetite 2h ago
Glad to see the 2018 comparison called out, because that’s exactly why I’m not buying the hype until Peltola, Brown, and Talarico all clear 50 in independents’ polling.
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u/curien 1h ago
2018 had a really bad Senate map for the Dems. They were defending ND, IN, and MO, which were all but lost causes. They needed to defend all their other seats and pick up 3 more just for net-zero. It's a completely different situation this time.
So sure, remain skeptical, but the situation is very different from 2018.
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u/Valahiru Illinois 2h ago
The conversation went from focusing on the house and maybe gaining a couple senate seats to there being a core seven senate seats that are fully in-play with another like three longshots that might become in-play. This happened over like a year. Doesnt mean much, but it means something to me.
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u/Significant_Cup_238 2h ago
In a normal year, I would be happy if they could gain even a single seat with this map. Now I'm cautiously optimistic about gaining 4, with the chance of even picking up more.
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u/Feisty-Pattern-951 2h ago
Trump and his minions are trying their hardest to make sure it doesn’t happen.
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u/Chambanasfinest Wisconsin 2h ago
It’s definitely possible, but what really matters is taking at least one chamber if not both in 2027.
The President and his cronies need to be held accountable while they’re still in the White House, not after they’ve had the chance to scatter in 2029.
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u/Avoidtolls 1h ago
With how dismantled Voting (mail In voting) has become, major news organizations have a real responsibility to repress just how citizens should vote.
Google, Meta, Reddit are actually news outlets now. Watch the repression happen in realtime.
Vote in person.
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u/sugarbabeea 2h ago
The annual tradition of political op-eds promising “ this time is totally different” is officially right on schedule
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u/LabRat_X 2h ago
Maybe if they stop stabbing their own candidates in the back?
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u/Lophius_Americanus 33m ago
Which candidates are being stabbed in the back and by who specifically?
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u/ShrimpieAC 2h ago
Well if those candidates would stop promising to help the voters instead of donors maybe they wouldn’t have to. >:(
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u/thatnameagain 2h ago
That’s a made up excuse for shitting on democrats because you are playing internal intramural sports with politics.
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u/ShrimpieAC 2h ago
I’m sorry. Are you saying the current swath of Democrat leadership DOESN’T prioritize donors over voters?
Excuse me while I hold my sides in advance.
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u/thatnameagain 1h ago
They don’t, because if they did, they’d be voted out. Donor relationships with politicians are largely based upon their existing policies. You’ll easily be able to point to a couple key examples of leaders who are now very unpopular who are out of step with their voters, but for recent decades, they weren’t, which is why they kept getting reelected.
In general, if you’re going to spend all your energy talking about why you think most people are progressive, and the Democratic leaders are evil for not recognizing that even though most people don’t vote that way, you’re not participating in a real world political engagement you are playing fantasy football.
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u/ShrimpieAC 1h ago
Okay, do Kamala and AIPAC. Hell do any leadership Dem and AIPAC. Or how about them caving to the Crypto industry? AI stances? Biden fucking over the rail unions? Obama corporate bailouts?
Why don’t YOU spend your energy researching what people say instead of coming up with cutesy ways to insult people who disagree with you. But I guess that’s another way centrist corpo Dems are exactly like Republicans.
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u/wrestlingchampo Wisconsin 2h ago
Great
The real question is: What will they actually do with it this time around? Will they allow John Fetterman to be the boogeyman that keeps them from passing meaningful legislation?
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u/fred11551 Virginia 57m ago
Unless they get 67 seats which is virtually impossible, they don’t need him to be a boogeyman. Trump can veto whatever he wants and so no meaningful legislation will pass anyway until he is out of office
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u/_Felonius 50m ago
All depends if they have 51 or 52. If we have 51 democrats, Fetterman would unfortunately be a swing voter on a lot of things (since Vance breaks a tie). If we get to 52, there’s more breathing room to stall Congress and have demands met.
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u/YDALTARYZARC 1h ago
There's always 1. Which is annoying because as we've seen, it's actually a 33/66 split for/against the right.
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u/truthputer 2h ago
They’d do even better if they came out against doing an illegal war and war crimes.
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u/-Great-Scott- 1h ago
Dems can sweep all closely contested seats but I see no future where the results of those elections are actually honored.
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u/Nearbyatom 1h ago
But will we have enough to remove from office if impeachment comes?
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u/Hilldawg4president 1h ago
Virtually impossible. The president orchestrated an attack on our government and intentionally withheld the national guard for hours to help the insurrection succeed, and still only a bare handful of his party voted to remove him. Short of lining up prominent democrats and executing them in the street, I don't know what he could do that might convince them... And probably not even then
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u/OswaldCoffeepot 1h ago
Unless it's a majority of five or more seats, it's not a real majority.
The Dems had a one seat majority a couple years ago and it was damn near a propaganda mill for kept thinking the Dems could whatever they wanted, but didn't want to.
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u/I_am_Zuul I voted 1h ago
We need to set a precedent toward current conservatism of legal and social accountability - same with certain Democrats, but let’s be honest: one side is holding the entire deck so to speak.
The fact that we have Democratic leaders saying: “We’re not going to go after Trump or the Trump administration because Americans are more concerned with money in their wallets and tariffs. Why not both? Why is it, with potential control of senate or anything else, we can’t restore the economy to common sense and hold a pedophile and his cabal of co-conspirators and enablers legally accountable?
A great example is this article. Democrats famously vote much less than Republicans due to age etc. (different sociological reasons) so why would a left-leaning website act like we have “a real shot” when they should be heavily focused on driving up voter awareness and participation?
It’s almost as if one side wants to ruin us and the other side is just content it’s not “one of theirs” - almost as if everyone’s in on it together to fuck us.
We’re not going to get a fair midterm. You know, they know it, and it’s by design. Think and act accordingly.
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u/CancelThis2077 2h ago
Shut the fuck up. Just go out and vote.
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u/E_Mohde New York 1h ago
genuinely you need to stop this. “treat every race like we’re one point behind” means use that to as a motivation to get five more people to come vote with you, not “immediately kill any sort of positive vibe or momentum”
i get the sentiment, but this is very clearly “we have a shot” and not “it’s in the bag” (which is where things CAN end up getting dicey)
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u/inkblotpropaganda 1h ago
Guys, back up. We aren’t getting a legit election in the mid terms. Dem leadership are not prepared in anyway to protect our votes.
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u/PoulanWeedEaterBowl 1h ago
There is going to be the biggest shit show of an election week ever. They're going to rat fuck this every witch way they can. Starting with the mail ballots. I do not expect my mail ballot to count. They will illegally stop me and millions of other Americans from legally voting by mail.
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