Labor Day traditionally marks the start of the real campaign. With a host of races to track this year, which ones are most likely to be indicative of the outcome? Here’s my list.
For Democrats, winning control of the Senate would be like drawing an inside straight in poker. Four seats on the ballot appear vulnerable to flipping based on prior election patterns: Maine and North Carolina are Republican-held, while Georgia and Michigan are Democratic. To get a majority, Democrats must win all of them and win two of four Republican seats that President Donald Trump won by at least 11 points in 2024: Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Alaska. That’s a tall order.
To gauge Democratic takeover chances, I’m watching two races in particular: Michigan and Alaska. Michigan is a purple state that leans slightly Democratic, and Republicans have not won a Senate race there since 1994. But this cycle’s Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, may be too progressive for the state’s normally moderate swing voters. Michigan will be a test of whether El-Sayed’s unconventional profile outweighs the year’s strong Democratic lean.
Alaska poses a different question. The Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, is not subject to legal trouble or personal scandal, yet polling shows he’s viewed unfavorably by voters all the same. Democrats, meanwhile, have a strong candidate in former congresswoman Mary Peltola, who outperformed the party baseline vote in both 2022 and 2024.
This year, Peltola finished first in the state’s all-party primary with nearly 50 percent of the vote, with other Democrats and Greens getting an additional 2 percent. That’s not a guarantee of victory in the fall — she won 50.9 percent in 2024’s House primary before narrowly losing the general — but it certainly shows that she’s got a real shot. A Peltola win would make the Democrats’ hand so much stronger, given favorable candidate matchups in Ohio and Texas.
The House offers many more seats to follow, but the same basic dynamics are at play. Democrats need to gain three seats for a narrow 218-seat majority, but they must also defend vulnerable incumbents (many of these a result of hardball Republican redistricting) while reaching deep into Trump territory.
My list is drawn from some of the most interesting races in three categories: Democratic incumbents in red seats, pure toss-ups and Republican incumbents in moderately red seats fighting off serious challengers.
Ohio’s 9th District comes from the first group. Rep. Marcy Kaptur has held a Toledo-based seat since 1982, but GOP gerrymandering has now put her in a district Trump carried by nearly 11 points in 2024. Kaptur beat Republican Derek Merrin by less than a percentage point in 2024, when Trump won that seat’s earlier iteration by seven points. The seat is also dominated by White voters without a college degree, a highly pro-GOP demographic in the Trump era. Kaptur’s strength in the face of these headwinds would suggest that Democrats will do well in other similar seats.
There are a bunch of interesting toss-up seats to watch, but I’m most intrigued by Colorado’s 8th District. This suburban Denver contest pits first-term Republican incumbent Gabe Evans against Democrat Manny Rutinel, a progressive who defeated a more moderate, establishment-backed Democrat in the primary.
Rutinel, who just resigned his seat in the Colorado House of Representatives to focus on this race, is not as left-wing as some Democratic nominees, but he is left-wing enough that Evans is making that his main focus. He’s one of several progressive Democratic nominees for seats the party has targeted who believe their views will not cost them. How voters react to Rutinel will be a good test of that theory in this blue-tinged year.
Longtime GOP representative Bill Huizenga holds my final watch seat, in Michigan’s 4th District. This is a historically Republican seat that went for Trump in 2020 and 2024. It would normally not be targeted for a pickup, but gerrymandering has tilted the House map so far into GOP territory that Democrats are forced to make plays for seats that are quite demographically unfavorable. I picked Huizenga’s seat because he has no particular problems — he’s not subject to scandal, nor is he a member of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus — yet Democrats have nonetheless placed their nominee, Sean McCann, on their “Red to Blue” list. A strong run by McCann would be a sign that Democrats are in for a very good night.
A thread that runs through this list: Can Democrats persuade White voters who supported Trump in 2024 to switch sides? A super-mobilized base and swings among non-White voters won’t be enough to deliver majorities; they need to attract White swing voters, too. As the weeks to Election Day count down, momentum for these five Democrats would suggest that they are accomplishing that crucial task, putting them on track to control Congress as Trump enters his final two years in office. Let the home stretch begin.
The post The midterm map’s most telling contests? These are my five picks. appeared first on Washington Post.
