Senate Democrats still have difficult path to majority

Nathan L. Gonzales, Tribune News Service

Even with former Rep. Mary Peltola’s candidacy in Alaska, Senate Democrats still have a difficult path to the majority in November. The fact that Democrats may need to rely on Alaska — a state where Republicans have a 9.4-point Inside Elections Baseline advantage, where Donald Trump finished ahead of Kamala Harris by 13 points in 2024, and where Democrats have won just one Senate election in 50 years — to flip the chamber is evidence that it will be tough for the caucus to get to 51 seats this year.

Senate Republicans currently hold 53 seats, meaning Democrats would need a net gain of four seats to win control and bypass Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. And other races could pose more challenging for Democrats than Alaska. North Carolina appears to be the easiest takeover opportunity for them, given the current political climate and the fact that it’s an open seat with Republican Thom Tillis retiring. But a flip is not guaranteed. Trump won the Tar Heel State in all three of his presidential bids, including a 3-point win in 2024. And Democrats have won only one Senate race in North Carolina in the past 25 years (Kay Hagan in 2008). The last Democrat to win before her was John Edwards in 1998.

As a Republican in a Democrat-leaning state, Maine Sen. Susan Collins is supposed to be vulnerable. But while she’s been a consistent target going back a quarter century, Democrats haven’t been able to unseat her. Collins has five Senate wins under her belt, with an average margin of victory of 18 points. It’s remarkable that defeating Collins is supposed to be one of the easier races for Democrats. Winning Alaska, North Carolina and Maine would still leave Senate Democrats one seat short of a majority, assuming they hold all of their own seats. But that’s not a guarantee either. Georgia is a swing state that has voted Republican in almost all cases, except for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win, a pair of down-ballot statewide special elections last year, and three recent Senate races. Those more recent results are good news for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is up for reelection this fall. But he can’t take his race for granted.

Democrats are also trying to hold Sen. Gary Peters’ open seat in battleground Michigan, which Trump won in 2024 as Republicans came within a half a point of winning the state’s other Senate seat. And the race to succeed Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire could get tighter, considering it was the closest state Harris won and Republicans might nominate a former senator with a famous last name. Ohio looks to be the fourth-best takeover target for Democrats. Over the past decade, the Buckeye State has shed its swing-state status, and Republicans now have a 10-point Baseline advantage there. (Inside Elections’ Baseline metric measures a state’s political performance by combining all federal and state election results over the past four cycles into a single trimmed mean.)

Democrats are relying on former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost reelection by 4 points in 2024, to pull out a win. Such a feat is certainly possible under the current political environment, with voters dissatisfied with the status quo while Republicans are the party in power. But it will be yet another difficult race.

Other targets If Democrats lose one of their own seats — Georgia, Michigan or New Hampshire — or swing and miss in any of the races in North Carolina, Maine, Alaska or Ohio, they’ll have to win elsewhere to win the Senate majority.

Iowa, where Republican Joni Ernst is retiring, would be the next target. The most recent Democrat to win a Senate race in the Hawkeye State was Tom Harkin, when he secured a fifth term in 2008. But the party hasn’t won an open race there since John Culver in 1974. Ernst’s decision to not run again probably boosted Republican chances of winning now that they have Rep. Ashley Hinson in the race, while Democrats are wading through a competitive primary.

Without Iowa, the climb gets even steeper. Some Democratic strategists are so disinterested in investing in Texas and Florida yet again that they’d rather talk about their prospects in ruby-red Mississippi, where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since President Ronald Reagan’s first midterm election.

Flipping Senate seats in three states that voted for the other party’s presidential candidate just two years earlier looks like a daunting task on paper. But Senate Democrats can take some comfort in what Republicans did in 2010. While the GOP didn’t flip the chamber that year, they did notch a series of wins in states that had voted for Barack Obama two years earlier. Former Sen. Dan Coats won in Indiana, which Obama had carried by a single point. Republican Patrick J. Toomey won in Pennsylvania, where Obama had finished ahead of John McCain by 10 points. Obama won Wisconsin by 14 points in 2008, and yet Republican Ron Johnson knocked off Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold two years later. And GOP nominee Mark S. Kirk prevailed in the president’s home state of Illinois, which had backed Obama by 25 points. And that doesn’t count Republican Scott P. Brown’s early 2010 special election victory in Massachusetts, just over a year after Obama had won the Bay State by 26 points.

Republicans might try to explain away the comparison for any number of reasons, but certain midterm dynamics are the same as they were 16 years ago. At the time of the 2010 elections, Obama’s job rating was underwater, according to Gallup, with 45% approving and 47% disapproving. Trump’s current standing is undeniably worse. Gallup’s most recent polling had 36% approving of the president and 59% disapproving. There’s still time for things to get better for Republicans, but any improvement in Trump’s standing would likely be gradual. So simply saying, “There’s still time,” understates the challenge for Republicans as we march through the calendar. But a lot of things would need to go right for Senate Democrats to win the majority.