By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Trouble for Republicans deep in the heart of Texas.
It’s always been a bit of a reach for Democrats to contemplate winning control of the U.S. Senate in 2026, given a landscape heavily tilted to the GOP. Republicans have a three-seat majority that is functionally four seats thanks to Vice-President J.D. Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Of the nine Senate races rated as competitive by the Cook Political Report, however, seven are in states Donald Trump carried in 2024, and another seat is held by powerful Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Of the seven Trump states with competitive Senate races, moreover, five (Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas) are in states Trump has carried three times, and he carried four (all but North Carolina) most recently by double-digit percentage margins. These are red states. This is why the implosion of Graham Platner’s candidacy in Maine (one of the two blue states with competitive Senate races) was such a big deal. For a while there, the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket had Democrats as favorites to flip the Senate, but Platner’s troubles put Republicans back in the lead for Senate control, where they remain.
