The battle for the Senate won’t be decided for another year and a half. But the key questions that will determine who wins the upper chamber are beginning to come into focus.
For Democrats to flip the chamber, everything needs to go right. They have to net four seats, and a wave of retirements earlier this year is expected to make a handful of Democratic-held seats more competitive. There are also relatively few openings for the party to make pickups — only two of the 22 Republican seats up for reelection next year are in states President Donald Trump either lost or won by less than 10 points in 2024.
Yet Democratic leaders have projected confidence, fortified by the retirement of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) shortly after he broke with Republicans over concerns about their signature legislative accomplishment.
Here are the five biggest questions still hanging over the Senate race:
Can Democrats get their dream recruits?
Democrats are holding their breath for Roy Cooper and Janet Mills to decide if they’ll run for Senate in North Carolina and Maine — a former and current governor, respectively, who could dramatically improve their party’s chances to flip those swing seats. Their outstanding decisions have frozen recruitment in both states, signaling the party’s strong preference for them.
The odds look better for Democrats in North Carolina, where Cooper’s top political strategist told POLITICO earlier this month that the former governor was “strongly considering a run” and “will decide in the coming weeks.” North Carolina Democrats have argued that Cooper’s aw-shucks brand coupled with his strong fundraising network would instantly transform the now-open race.
Tillis announced that he was not running for reelection last month after clashing with Trump over his tax-and-spend megabill. That “puts a lot more pressure on Cooper to run,” said Democratic state Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, as he is “heads and shoulders above every other candidate.”
But Cooper hasn’t cleared the field yet. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel entered the Senate primary in April, and he demurred when asked if he’d exit if Cooper jumped in. Rep. Don Davis is also eyeing the race.
Republicans have yet to see a major candidate step up, although the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump has expressed interest.
National Democrats are still working to woo Mills, but her interest in challenging Sen. Susan Collins is less clear. Mills, who is 77 and won reelection in 2022 by 13 percentage points, told a Maine outlet in April that “I’m not planning to run for another office” but added that “things change week to week, month to month.”
Jordan Wood, the former chief of staff to former California Rep. Katie Porter, has already raised $1 million in his bid against Collins. But some Maine Democrats are concerned that the race hasn’t yet attracted bigger name contenders.
Can a bloody Republican primary in Texas put the state on the map in November?
Republicans have a messy — and expensive — primary on their hands down in Texas.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed the high-stakes intraparty brawl with Trump — as part of a broader discussion on the 2026 midterm map during a recent White House meeting — where state Attorney General Ken Paxton is primarying Sen. John Cornyn.
GOP leaders have been privately trying to sway Trump for months to back Cornyn, arguing that his conservative bona fides match the president’s agenda and he would be a safer bet in November.
Cornyn got a break after Paxton’s wife announced she was filing for divorce on “biblical grounds,” with his allies quickly seizing on the news. And he was able to get in some face time with Trump on Friday when he traveled with the president back to Texas.
But so far, Trump appears poised to remain on the sidelines for a while longer as polling has shown Cornyn consistently trailing Paxton in a primary. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is also mulling a Senate run, traveled with Trump on Friday as well.
Asked whether he was concerned about Cornyn’s standing, Thune told reporters Thursday, “We’re working on it.”
Democrats believe, and some Republicans fear, Paxton would be a weaker general candidate that could finally put the Lone Star State in play. Former Rep. Colin Allred is already in the race, but Democrats could face their own packed primary.
Who will Republicans run in Democratic-held battlegrounds?
Democrats have two super-competitive Senate seats to defend — and losing either could all but extinguish their dream of retaking control of the Senate.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp struck a blow to Republicans’ hopes of defeating Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff when he passed on a Senate bid in May.
Now, Republicans face a potentially messy primary, as several potential candidates eye a bid to challenge Ossoff, who already has a $15 million head start in fundraising. Rep. Buddy Carter is already in, and other members of Congress are considering a run, including Rep. Rich McCormick and Rep. Mike Collins.
Kelly Loeffler, the former senator and current head of the Small Business Administration who lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2020, wouldn’t rule out another Senate bid when asked earlier this year. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, who also ran in the state’s Senate primary in 2020, has also not ruled out a Senate bid.
One potential wild-card candidate has passed on running: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial firebrand and close Trump ally.
Unlike in Georgia, Republicans have successfully recruited their top candidate in Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters made a surprise retirement announcement earlier this year. Former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers decided to take another shot at winning an open Michigan Senate seat after he lost out to Sen. Elissa Slotkin last year.
All eyes are now on Rep. Bill Huizenga, who is openly weighing a Senate run despite Republicans’ worries about a competitive Senate primary and the fate of his battleground House district.
Democrats are grappling with their own competitive primary in Michigan, as progressive former Michigan public health official Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens jockey for position.
New Hampshire is also an open-seat race in a Democratic-held state, but Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas starts as the favorite over former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, both of whom appear for now to have a straight shot to the general election.
Is there even a fourth state for Democrats to capitalize on?
Democrats believe they’ll have strong national headwinds by next November, but they are still facing a difficult mathematical reality.
To flip the chamber, Democrats have to net four seats. But they have only two clear pick-up opportunities right now: North Carolina, especially if Republicans shift further to the right in their primary, and Maine.
Beyond that the map gets exponentially harder: Sen. Joni Ernst is mulling retiring in Iowa, which would give them an open race in a state where House districts are increasingly competitive. But some Democrats believe their chances would be better if Ernst was on the ballot, especially after she opened herself up for attacks by saying “we all are going to die” to an angry constituent concerned about potential Medicaid cuts.
Schumer recently had dinner with former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is quietly mulling a comeback bid against Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican who was appointed to fill now-Vice President JD Vance’s seat. But many Democrats believe Brown is more likely to try to run for governor than return to his old stomping ground.
The pickings get slimmer elsewhere: Democrats will try again for their white whale of Texas, and Florida Democrats are desperate to show any signs of life in a one-time battleground that has become a dark shade of red.
In Nebraska, in-state Democrats are blessing, but not formally endorsing, independent candidate Dan Osborn’s second Senate bid, though Republicans are confident he won’t be able to catch them off guard after a close call last year.
Can Democrats weaponize Trump’s megabill successfully?
Democrats have spotted an opportunity to go on offense after Republicans passed their sweeping domestic-policy bill earlier this month. The bill polled unfavorably as it came together — particularly the cuts to Medicaid — even as significant percentages of voters across several surveys said they knew little about its contents.
“It’s going to raise insurance costs even if you don’t have Medicaid,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told The New York Times on Thursday about Democrats’ message on the megabill. “Your electricity costs will go up by 10 percent. Even not poor people, it goes across the board. And it’s hitting at the same time that your costs are going up because of tariffs.”
Some Republicans in Congress acknowledge they’re concerned about the political consequences of their landmark legislation.
“You would be foolish not to worry about it,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) told POLITICO shortly after the bill passed. “If you don’t keep the voters right with you, you’re going to awaken to a bad, bad, bad day.”
The White House is pushing polling suggesting some parts of the bill — implementing work requirements for Medicaid recipients and eliminating taxes on tips — could be part of a winning message next year.
TV ads across the nation will soon help determine who was right.
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