CNN’s top numbers cruncher could barely contain himself over new polling that has Republicans sweating Senate seats they long took for granted.
Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, told anchor Kaitlan Collins on Thursday’s episode of “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” that fresh CNN surveys out of Texas and Kansas left him floored. “I saw these numbers come out today. And to me, they were bonkers. They’re nuts,” Enten said.
Collins opened the segment by noting that Democrats “might be within striking distance of taking control of the Senate” heading into Tuesday’s election, a prospect she said seemed out of reach even to Democrats a couple of months ago. Likely voters in Michigan and Texas, both of which President Donald Trump won in 2024, prefer the Democratic Senate candidates in their states, she reported, while races in battleground Maine and “ruby red” Kansas are too close to call.
Enten started in Texas, where Democrats have spent years hearing that the next cycle would be the one the state finally turned blue. He argued the polling never backed that up until now, with CNN’s survey showing Democratic nominee James Talarico ahead by six points.
“I went through the record books at this late stage of the campaign to try and find any Democratic Senate nominee who was up by as much as James Talarico,” Enten said. “To find that, you have to go all the way back to 1988.”
That was the year the late Lloyd Bentsen, then a Democratic senator from Texas, was also running for vice president. “That’s how long ago it was,” Enten said. “That’s 38 years ago. My goodness gracious.”
Enten then turned to Kansas, a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. He acknowledged there’s no clear leader in the race but pointed out that Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton sits at 49 percent in CNN’s poll. “You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know that 49 percent is a little bit higher than 45 percent,” he said.
He noted 1932 was the same year New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth supposedly called his shot against the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. When he tried to find the last time a Democrat polled this strongly in Kansas, Enten said, “my record books ran out.”
“It’s the Democrats’ best Kansas Senate poll in 30-plus years this late in the campaign,” he said. “It may be significantly longer than that, but I can only find polling going back to 1996, when Sam Brownback was running for the first time.”
Brownback, a Republican, went on to serve in the Senate before becoming governor of Kansas. Enten suggested the numbers point to a state “that has been ruby red for a long time” that “might actually finally turn blue.”
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