Republicans started the midterm cycle confident that they would keep control of the Senate. They are certainly much less confident about that now.
The GOP’s early confidence stemmed from the 2026 Senate map. Democrats needed to gain four seats to secure the 51 that would make Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) the majority leader again. To do that, however, they also had to hold on to three open seats — in Minnesota, New Hampshire and Michigan — seen as far from safe. Michigan in particular was viewed as a strong GOP pickup opportunity given that Elissa Slotkin (D) won it in 2024 by just 19,000 votes. Beyond those three was purple Georgia, where Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff would surely have to fight his way to reelection.
Then, assuming they held all four of those seats, where were the Democratic pickup opportunities? Maine, as the only GOP-held seat carried by both Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024, was an obvious one. North Carolina, a state President Donald Trump has carried three times but by thin margins, was another.
After that it was all uphill. The most politically favorable remaining states — Ohio, Iowa and Alaska — were all carried by Trump by over 10 points. Democrats have not won a Senate seat in a state that red since 2018, when Jon Tester prevailed in Montana and Joe Manchin carried West Virginia.
So while the House was iffy, the GOP didn’t seriously need to worry about the upper chamber, right?
Well, not so fast. Gravity has a way of flipping on you in politics. Suddenly, Trump’s extreme unpopularity, coupled with generally strong Democratic recruitment, means that Republicans are the ones with a hill to climb.
Right now, polls show Democrats leading or statistically tied in all of the seats they need to retain. They also lead or are statistically tied in six GOP-held states: Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. And there could be one more to add to that list: A Democratic polling firm in May showed the expected Democratic nominee in Florida, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, ahead of appointed senator Ashley Moody as well.
Some caveats: Republicans will surely argue that the campaigns have yet to start in earnest, and they are right to note that. It’s also true that the Democratic nominee in Maine, Graham Platner, has been beset by controversy, troubles that could yet sink his chances against the formidable moderate Sen. Susan Collins. Michigan Democrats could also buoy GOP hopes there by nominating the left-wing Abdul El-Sayed. Texas Democratic nominee James Talarico’s history of extremely progressive statements on cultural issues will probably cause him problems in the socially conservative state.
But surely no one in the Republican high command thought they would be trailing or tied in 10 critical Senate races at this stage. That sound you hear is a five-alarm fire bell at GOP HQ.
Plus, there’s a huge reason to take the current polling seriously: Trump’s abysmal job approval rating. Candidates do matter, but it’s an inescapable fact that the polarization of our era has greatly reduced any individual nominee’s impact — for good or for ill — on the outcome of an election. Today, most people vote based on either their party or their feelings toward the party in power.
Trump’s approval rating in registered or likely voter polls has rebounded somewhat recently, but it’s still just 41.6 percent nationwide. He does better in the highly Republican states where Senate control will be decided, but he remains underwater in Ohio and Texas (recent polls of Iowa and Alaska did not provide Trump approval or favorability numbers). It’s very hard to win anything in places where majorities don’t like your party’s leader.
During the president’s first term, Republicans won only two Senate seats in states where Trump’s job approval was under 50 percent: Texas (2018) and Maine (2020). His national job approval in each race was much higher than it is today: 45 percent in 2018 and 50 percent in 2020. It’s very possible, perhaps likely, that Trump’s job approval is currently below 50 percent in every Senate battleground state.
In 2018, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) beat Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke by about three percentage points because he won 94 percent of Trump approvers (49 percent of all voters) and 7 percent of Trump disapprovers. The first figure was the highest of all Republicans running that year, while the second was tied for second highest among GOP candidates. Had Trump’s job approval rating been only 46 percent, Cruz probably would have lost even with those favorable results.
In 2020 in Maine, Collins won because she attracted 23 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump’s performance. That was the second best cross-partisan showing of the Trump era, trailing only Manchin’s strong 2018 numbers with Trump supporters. Perhaps Platner’s troubles will allow Collins to equal or slightly surpass her earlier result, but even then, the vast majority of her support will come from Trump approvers. If that total is under 40 percent, as it surely is right now, Collins probably won’t win.
The Republicans’ Senate fortunes, then, are tied to the man in the Oval Office. If the president can recover his standing even a few points, the GOP will probably retain Senate control. But all bets are off if he remains as unpopular as he is now.
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