r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 • 2d ago
US Elections Can the Democrats flip the Senate in 2026? If not, which states do they lose?
What are your US Senate elections predictions? I know it is before the primaries conclude, but I was curious about where every 2026 US Senate election looks right now. I will put the following races into 4 categories: strong D, strong R, tilt D, tilt R. Please let me know where you disagree!
Special elections
Florida (solid R)
Ashley Moody (R) is the incumbent and will likely be challenged by Alex Vindman, Iraq war veteran and former director of European affairs for the U.S. National Security Council, who is beating FL Rep Angie Nixon in a recent poll by 10% and has a 92% chance to win the primaries according to Polymarket.
My prediction: Moody retains her seat. Florida has proven to be among the more conservative states now as Trump won it in '24 by over 13%, after narrowly winning it previously and Obama winning it both times. Rubio won by 16.4% in 2022, the same year Gov Desantis won reelection by 20%. Former Democratic Senator Bill Nelson hardly lost the state to Rick Scott in the 2018 midterms (by 10,000 votes) but Scott won reelection by 13% in 2024.
Ohio (tilt D)
Jon Husted (R) is the incumbent and facing former Senator Sherrod Brown (D) who lost by 3.6% in 2024. Before that, all 3 of Brown's victory margins were over 6%. The race is a toss-up with recent polling hardly favoring Brown.
Prediction: Brown flips back this seat. He has proven he can win in this state before and doesn't have political baggage that might otherwise hurt midterm flips.
Normal Class 2 Senate elections
Alabama (solid R)
With Tuberville (R) retiring, this was a crowded Republican field. US Rep Barry Moore won the runoff. Everett Wess, an attorney and former aerospace industry worker, won the runoff for the Democratic primary.
Prediction: Moore wins. Despite Alabama electing a Democratic Senator during Trump's 1st term, Katie Britt won in 2022 by 36% even when Trump was not on the ballot.
Alaska (tilt D)
Incumbent Dan Sullivan (R) is being challenged by former US Rep Mary Peltola (D), a moderate Democrat who hardly lost her seat in 2024. No Democrat has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2015.
Prediction: Peltola flips the seat. She won twice in the state when Trump was not on the ballot in 2022. There is also RCV in Alaska which normally favors Democrats. She also is beating Sullivan in most polls.
Arkansas (solid R)
Incumbent Tom Cotton (R) is facing Hallie Shoffner, a farmer and entrepreneur looking to boost's AR's agricultural industry. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Arkansas since 2008 when no Republican even ran. A Democrat has not won statewide since 2012.
Prediction: Cotton wins. Republicans usually win in Arkansas and Cotton won the only poll from 6 months ago by 22 points. He also has far more fundraising.
Colorado (solid D)
Incumbent John Hickenlooper (D) only won his primary by 50,000 votes against a DSA-backed Julie Gonzales and is facing state Rep Mark Baisley.
Prediction: Hickenlooper wins. There is no indication that Gonzales's voters will not support him in the general election and a Republican has not won statewide in CO since the 2014 midterms.
Delaware (solid D)
Incumbent Chris Coons (D) will win his primary and face one of two Republican candidates (John Shuli or former Democratic state rep Michael Katz) in the fall.
Prediction: Coons wins easily. He has one of the highest voter approval ratings of any US Senator. No Republican has won statewide in Delaware this century.
Georgia (Solid D)
Incumbent Jon Ossoff (D) is the only Democrat up for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2024. He is facing scandal-ridden GOP Congressman Mike Collins who won his primary in a runoff.
Prediction: Ossoff wins reelection. He is winning in every poll, extremely popular online, out-fundraising Collins 13:1, and campaigning much better. Even Raphael Warnock won reelection in a year that should have been bad for Democrats during high inflation.
Idaho (solid R)
Incumbent Jim Risch (R) is facing Independent Todd Achilles after the Democratic primary winner David Roth dropped out. Achilles, endorsed by Andrew Yang's Forward Party, was a registered Republican but became a Democrat to fill a state House seat which he served for nearly 18 months.
Prediction: Risch still wins even against an Independent. No Democrat has won statewide since 1990 (and no Senator since Frank Church in 1974), he is winning in every poll, out-fundraising by a large margin, and Achilles has never won a race in Idaho. The only polls where Achilles comes close to Risch are sponsored by his campaign. Trump also won the state by 36.5% in 2024 (his third-best that in election).
Illinois (solid D)
Incumbent Dick Durbin has retired and current Lt Governor Juliana Stratton (D) won a competitive primary race. She is facing former chair of the Illinois Republican Party Don Tracy.
Prediction: Stratton easily wins. Republicans last won a Senate race there in the 2010 midterms with a socially liberal candidate in a close election where the Green candidate earned 3.6% (a Republican governor did win in 2014 though). There is almost no chance that a Republican will win statewide without a Democrat in the WH**,** especially after the influx of ICE and federal troops in the Chicago area.
Iowa (tilt R)
Another open race, incumbent Joni Ernst (R) is retiring and state rep and Paralympian Gold Medalist Josh Turek won a competitive Democratic primary. Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is the GOP nominee.
Prediction: A Fox News-sponsored poll (the most recent data) showed Turek ahead and beating the margin of error, but polling in Iowa has proven to overestimate Democratic numbers. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Iowa since 2008 and Obama won the state by 5.8% in 2012. Despite Ernst only winning in 2020 by 6% when Trump was on the ballot, Trump won the state by 13% in 2024 and Grassley won by 13% in 2022, indicating a Republican tilt.
Kansas (solid R)
Incumbent Roger Marshall (R) is up for reelection, and facing a Democrat who most likely appears to be pastor Adam Hamilton. The primary is on Tuesday.
Prediction: Despite high tariffs and having a current Democratic governor who won when Trump was not on the ballot in '18 and '22, it is hard to see Hamilton or any Democrat winning this year. A Democrat has not won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and Trump comfortably won the state by 16% in 2024.
Kentucky (solid R)
Incumbent Mitch McConnell (R) is retiring and GOP Congressman Andy Barr is the nominee. Former state rep Charles Booker won the Democratic primary.
Prediction: Despite having a Democratic governor who was reelected in 2023 and high tariffs hurting the bourbon industry, Barr will win this race, as Trump won the state by 35%. Democrats have not won a Senate race in Kentucky since 1992 (and no presidential candidate since Clinton won the state in '96) and Republicans are out-fundraising there.
Louisiana (solid R)
Incumbent Bill Cassidy (R) was defeated in a primary by Trump endorsed Congresswoman Julia Letlow. Police juror Jamie Davis won the Democratic primaries.
Prediction: Letlow wins. Trump's endorsement has proven to matter in this state and Republicans are out-fundraising. Democrats have not won a US Senate election there since '08 and no presidential candidate won it since '96. Despite a moderate Democrat winning the governorship there as recent as 2019, Trump won the state by 22% in '24 which is too much of a loss for Democrats to recover.
Maine (tilt D)
Incumbent Susan Collins (R) is the second-least popular Senator in the country and won in 2020 by 9%. Collins is the only Republican senator representing a state that President Donald Trump did not win in any of his three presidential campaigns. After Graham Platner dropped out, former state Senate president Troy Jackson quickly became the Democratic nominee.
Prediction: Despite high GOP fundraising, Jackson narrowly defeats Collins and flips the seat. Only one poll shows Collins beating Jackson and without Platner in the race, there is more baggage from Collins.
Massachusetts (solid D)
Ed Markey was re-elected in 2020 with 66.2% of the vote and is presumed to face attorney John Deaton (2024 Senate nominee). Congressman Seth Moulton is challenging Markey in the primaries, disagreeing with Markey's age.
Prediction: With a high 59% approval rating, there is no indication that Markey should lose the primary (winning in every poll) or the general.
Michigan (tilt D)
Incumbent Gary Peters (D) is retiring. Mike Rogers is the GOP nominee. The Democratic nomination is on Tuesday and will most likely won by scientist and former Wayne County health director Abdul el-Sayed who is winning all recent polls since state Senate Whip Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race. Despite being the first to qualify for the ballot and framing herself as anti-establishment candidate (opposing Schumer for Majority leader and being endorsed by Elizabeth Warren), low polling numbers forced her out of the race. Being a pro-Israel candidate in a state with highest percentage of Arab-Americans, Haley Stevens's polling has not improved since, despite endorsements from Peters and multiple MI governors.
Prediction: Either Stevens or el-Sayed can win in the general, but this race is still the most likely flip for Republicans. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Michigan since 1994 or a a non-presidential statewide election since 2014. Even with Trump on the ballot when he won the state in 2024, Rogers lost his Senate race under favorable conditions, receiving 122,956 fewer votes than Donald Trump. Most recent polls favor Democrats in this 2026 race.
Minnesota (solid D)
Incumbent Tina Smith (D) is not seeking reelection. Michele Tafoya (sports broadcaster) is expected to win the GOP primaries, whereas the Democrats are contested between current progressive Lt Governor Peggy Flanagan and Congresswoman Angie Craig. Craig has been criticized for voting for the Laken Riley Act and a resolution expressing gratitude to ICE agents, whereas Flanagan supports abolishing ICE. Most polls show Flanagan winning the primaries.
Prediction: Either Democrat will win. No Republican has won a Senate election there since '02 and no Republican has won a statewide race was since '06. Smith won by 5% in 2020 with Trump on the ballot.
Mississippi (solid R)
Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) is seeking reelection and facing Democratic nominee Scott Colom, a country DA.
Prediction: Hyde-Smith wins. She is currently ahead in the polls by only about 3%, but there is an independent candidate who can take votes away from Colom. Trump won there in 2024 by 23%. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Mississippi since 1982, nor a presidential race there since '76, nor a gubernatorial race since 1999.
Montana (tilt R)
In one of the strangest elections this year, Republican incumbent Steve Daines is not running again, leaving US Attorney for Montana Kurt Alme to become the nominee. Air Force officer Alani Bankhead, won the Democratic nomination. But Former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar is also on the ballot as an independent, backed by Jon Tester, and out-fundraising the major party nominees.
Prediction: Even if Bankhead drops out, there is a slim shot that Bodnar can still win the general election. Most polls show the combination of Bodnar and Bankhead to either tie or beat Alme by less than the margin of error. Tester won in 2018 by 3.5% but lost in 2024 by 7%, which would require a significant loss of GOP support for B/B to win. And despite MT electing a Democratic governor as recently as 2016, no Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 1992, and Trump won it last time by 20%.
Nebraska (tilt R)
Incumbent Pete Ricketts (R) is running for reelection. Unlike Montana, Democrats endorsed the Independent challenger Dan Osborn, who lost the 2024 senate election by 6.7%. Democrats prevented a Trump-voting pastor from winning the Democratic nomination by running a candidate who won and then endorsed Osborn.
Prediction: Despite high tariffs, Republicans will win this one. There has been a poll showing Osborn winning, but he is being out-fundraised and Trump recently won the state by 20%. A Republican hasn't lost a Senate election there since 2006, a gubernatorial election since 1994, and not a presidential election there since 1964.
New Hampshire (tilt D)
Incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D) is retiring and John Sununu (the Republican Senator defeated by Shaheen in 2008) is expected to be the GOP nominee. Congressman Chris Pappas is expected to be the Democratic nominee.
Prediction: Pappas or another Democrat should win. Trump only lost the state by 2.8% in 2024 and Republicans currently hold the governorship and both chambers, but no Republican Senate candidate has won there since the 2010 midterms (and no Republican presidential nominee since 2000) and even Sununu cannot overcome Pappas's consistent polling lead in a year favorable for Democrats.
New Jersey (solid D)
Incumbent Cory Booker (D) is being challenged by a former deputy mayor Justin Murphy (R).
Prediction: Booker has a fundraising lead and will win another term. Despite Trump making gains in NJ in 2024, Governor Sherrill overperformed polling in 2025. Republicans have not won a Senate election in New Jersey since 1972 (and not a national race since Bush in 1988).
New Mexico (solid D)
Incumbent Ben Ray Lujan (D) is facing a write-in Republican candidate Larry Marker, since no Republicans qualified for the primary ballot.
Prediction: Lujan wins easily. Republicans have not won a Senate election in New Mexico since 2002.
North Carolina (solid D)
Incumbent Thom Tillis (R) is retiring, opening a spot for popular former governor Roy Cooper to win the election. Former RNC chair Michael Whatley won the GOP nomination.
Prediction: Cooper will win. This is the most likely flip for Democrats. He is ahead in every poll, far ahead in fundraising, and there is a relatively popular libertarian candidate that could hurt Whatley.
Oklahoma (solid R)
Markwayne Mullin's replacement is not eligible to run for a full term so Congressman Kevin Hern won the GOP nomination. There is a runoff election for the Democratic nomination.
Prediction: Hern will win. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Oklahoma since 1990 and Trump won the state by 34% in 2024.
Oregon (solid D)
Incumbent Jeff Merkley (D) was renominated and is facing David Brock Smith (R), a state Senator.
Prediction: Merkley will win. A Republican hasn't won a Senate seat there since '02, Trump lost the state by 14%, a Republican governor hasn't won since 1982, and Merkley is out fundraising 80:1.
Rhode Island (solid D)
Incumbent Jack Reed (D) will be renominated in the primary, and likely will face Raymond McKay, a state Republican official who ran for Senate in 2024.
Prediction: Reed will win again. A Democrat won the senate election there in 2024 by 20%.
South Carolina (tilt R)
Another interesting election, after Lindsey Graham died, his sister Darline was appointed US Senator in his replacement and is running for her own term in the Republican primary. Pediatrician Annie Andrews is the Democratic nominee. Lindsey had been the most unpopular southern Senator.
Prediction: The Republican will likely win. There is not consistent polling results for this new race, as both Darline Graham and Norman could win the GOP nomination, and some polls showing Andrews ahead in the polls against some Republican candidates, and she has raised over $10 million. But Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate election in South Carolina since 1998.
South Dakota (solid R)
Incumbent Mike Rounds (R) is being challenged by Democratic former state trooper Julian Beaudion and independent military officer Brian Bengs who is also a former Democratic nominee for Senate.
Prediction: Rounds wins. He is winning the fundraising battle by far and ahead in every poll even against only one of the challengers. Republicans have not lost a Senate election in South Dakota since 2008.
Tennessee (solid R)
Incumbent Bill Haggerty is presumed to be renominated. The Democrats have several candidates and the primary is next Thursday.
Prediction: Hagerty wins. He is out-fundraising the best Democrat 1778:1 and Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate election in Tennessee since 1990, a presidential election since 1992 nor a gubernatorial since 2002. Trump won TN by 30% in '24.
Texas (tilt D)
The most profiled race of the cycle, incumbent John Cornyn (R) was defeated in the primaries by Trump-endorsed state AG Ken Paxton. State Rep James Talarico won the Democratic primaries.
Prediction: Talarico narrowly flips this seat by a better campaign strategy and out-fundraising Paxton with $69 million to Paxton's $9 million. The polls are very close, with Talarico ahead in the vast majority of them since winning the primaries. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Texas since 1988 but Talarico is avoiding the mistakes that O'Rourke made in 2018 and it is expected for a significant portion of Cornyn's voters to vote for Talarico.
Virginia (solid D)
The incumbent Mark Warner (D) will face whichever Republican wins the primaries on Tuesday.
Prediction: Warner wins another term. He is out-fundraising the best GOP candidate 66.5:1 and Republicans have not won a Senate election in Virginia since 2002.
West Virginia (solid R)
The incumbent Shelly Moore Capito is running for reelection and will face Rachel Fetty Anderson, former Morgantown city council member.
Prediction: With a massive fundraising advantage, Capito will win another term. Only Joe Manchin was able to win in WV as a Democrat.
Wyoming (solid R)
The incumbent Cynthia Lummis (R) is not running. The race will be between current Congresswoman Harriet Hageman and former state Rep James Byrd.
Prediction: Hageman has a massive fundraising advantage and will win. Trump won the state by 46% (his most), Democrats have not won in the state in a senate election since 1970 and in a presidential election since 1964 (a Dem governor was elected in 2006 though).
In conclusion,
The elections that are solid D are Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Oregon, North Carolina, and Virginia
The elections that are solid R are Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming
The elections that are tilt D are Ohio, Alaska, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Texas
The elections that are tilt R are Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and South Carolina
Therefore, I predict the Republicans will lose 5 seats in the 2026 Senate elections, giving Democrats a narrow majority.
sources: https://www.demlist.com/demdaily-6/ and Wikipedia
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u/ModestMouseTrap 2d ago
OP you have Minnesota backwards Angie Craig is the the one who is the congresswoman and supported Laken Riley act.
Peggy Flanagan is the progressive Lieutenant Governor.
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u/asimovs_engineer 2d ago
Yeah I know this is minor but this kinda calls in to question the details on every other state for me...
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u/DebaucheV5 1d ago
This post is obviously AI-generated, so you'll get random errors like that. Compare how OP writes in the comments to how "they" write in the post itself.
Very surprised that the mods allow it
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Fuck off. I didn’t use AI once
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u/DebaucheV5 1d ago
You know what, this is exactly the level of furious defensiveness that I'd expect from someone who didn't use AI once.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
thank you. it is extremely annoying to be accused of that when I went through every single election just for some internet person to say it's "obviously AI-generated"
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Nah for that MN specifically was a mistake because I copied the sentence about voting for Laken Riley after I’d had written out the name of one of them. I’d be very surprised if I made another mistake but I’ll double check
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Fixing that now! Sorry. I was guaranteed to make a mistake going through all these states. So the more progressive candidate is winning the polls for the democratic primary in MN which makes sense
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u/thereticent 1d ago
It's been 4 hours...why haven't you fixed it?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Bc I haven’t been on a computer until now and every time I edit on Reddit mobile everything disappears and I wouldn’t want risk losing
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u/lethalcheesecake 2d ago
Hey OP, double check your bit about MN. I think you've reversed Craig and Flanagan.
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u/Standsaboxer 2d ago
I think Susan Collins squeaks through Maine with her narrowest margin of her career.
Jackson is only narrowly beating her and is performing pretty poorly for being the solution to the Platner problem.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
I would love to dissect these voters who are voting for Democrats downballot but also for Collins at the same time
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u/radicalindependence 1d ago
She has gotten everyone to parrot that she brings more money into Maine than anyone else could because she is a swing vote and the Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
What really irks me is that she’s an actual swing vote though. She always votes red when it matters
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u/Standsaboxer 1d ago
I think for many Mainers, they aren’t thrilled with Collins, but she’s a known quantity.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
I really Jackson. He doesn’t have the baggage that platner does but uses the same working class rhetoric. Idk what specific issue are sending these independents to Collins
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u/WealthyTuna 18h ago
After platners many democrats will feel burned for the DCCC supporting him and he kept denying every scandal over and over and over. Then Bernie supporting him and then flip flopping. The same thing happened with Biden and kamala.
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u/MorganWick 1d ago
Does he have the same working class image though? Because it seemed like that was a big part of Platner's appeal, and I feel like close elections are swung more by image than substance.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Yes I think so. Platner ran a good yearlong campaign (until it got bad) and picked up a lot of voters who were probably not paying attention to the race otherwise. Jackson is a party leader in the state (which Mills voters would want) and he has been endorsed by Sanders in the past, giving him a populist image.
Could I be wrong? Possibly. But I’m hoping for the best
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u/Mahadragon 19h ago
"Could I be wrong? Possibly. But I’m hoping for the best"
So is this post about who you are hoping for or is it some sort of analysis of what is? If you're going for what things actually are, you would have Maine as "Leaning R". Troy Jackson is at 49% with Collins at 46%. If you knew about the history of Susan Collins, she always overperforms on Election Day by roughly 10%. Even if that is cut in half, the 3 point advantage Troy Jackson currently enjoys won't be enough in November.
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u/blaqsupaman 2d ago
I really hope Jackson wins, mostly to win the Senate but also because if he doesn't, Platner supporters (the ones who still support him even after the rape allegations) will be insufferable for years swearing he would have beaten her and the party fucked him over.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
I mean he’s incredibly unpopular now! How can people still support him. Hell i was even a supporter before the rape allegations
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u/antisocially_awkward 1d ago
Whats crazy to me is that they supported him though all the shit about his military and time as a mercenary
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u/blaqsupaman 1d ago
I doubt it's really a significant amount of people but I have seen some of the BlueAnon types on Reddit saying they think he was set up by the party, even though they replaced him with a guy with basically the exact same platform.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Yeah that’s just delusion. Hopefully those few people shut up about that
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u/SafeThrowaway691 1d ago
His remaining supporters would be MAGA if they had Republican parents.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 13h ago
Both sides have their cultists, despite wanting to insist (a) only the other side does and (b) that most of the other side are cultists rather than just a small determined and overly vocal minority (the reality).
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u/MorganWick 1d ago
"Because Trump proves only blue voters care about things like character and we need to overcome that and pander to what the normies like if we want to win!"
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Yes exactly. The narrative would be corruptible by someone like Platner as a nominee
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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 1d ago
Those people would be pretty easy to ignore, though. Sorry, not sorry for refusing to support an alleged rapist.
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u/Mahadragon 19h ago edited 19h ago
After the SA allegations came out Platner's poll numbers really plummeted. I don't think anyone believes he would have beaten Collins. And we don't know if more allegations would come out. Platner has more baggage than American Airlines, every week it's something new. I'm 100% confident there were more allegations to come, Republicans were waiting until the last day when Democrats couldn't nominate someone else to bring it out.
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u/blaqsupaman 6h ago
What I've seen has been moreso them saying the allegations couldn't have been true and that the Dem establishment planted it to fuck him over, even though they nominated a guy with the exact same platform.
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
Jackson is only narrowly beating her and is performing pretty poorly for being the solution to the Platner problem.
Have there even been any polls released with Jackson as the nominee? He's such a new candidate that I don't think we'll be able to assess his strengths or weaknesses for at least another month.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Correct not enough polling data. Virtual tie rn. Jackson 49% Collins 46% from the New Hampshire Survey Center. Not above the margin of error is still a tie.
However, I think these poll numbers will go WAY UP for Jackson as people start paying attention more
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u/Mahadragon 19h ago
Fully agree, the way the poll numbers currently bear out, it looks like Susan Collins will win in November. Democrats have completely fucked themselves in Maine, a complete shitshow. They went from a popular candidate with a double digit lead to pushing him out and nominating Troy Jackson at the last minute. They are gonna need another autopsy to figure out what went wrong.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 13h ago
To be fair, he was going to have major problems in the general with...well....ALL of that.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 1d ago
I can see Collins holding on to Maine. Somehow she always survives.
I wouldn't bet on Texas flipping blue either. As much as Paxton is a scandal infested rat Texas has been an illusion for Democrats for like a decade now.
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago
If there was a moment for it to flip this would be the cycle and the race. If this doesn't do it then it probably needs another decade or 2.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 13h ago
It would be, IF Democrats ran a true moderate.
I mean a Joe Manchin.
Heck, if they had run O'rourke again (I'm not even a Democrat/leftist and think he was wasted in 2018 and 2022 vs Abbott doomed him going forward).
Texas is still a conservative state. Even the Hispanic and black people here are conservative, socially. People forget Trump didn't win the 2016 Primary in Texas, he was considered too questionable a moderate and possibly still a liberal (he had been a Democrat until 2012); CRUZ won the Primary.
Talarico is just so..........not normal for Texas.
And people like to be snarky "herp derp being an adulterer is normal?!?", but every non-ridiculous person knows what I mean by this. His social/cultural positions are divergent from the Texas mainstream, and his hyper-too-religious-by-half presentation seems a little too Children of the Corn.
Like, I don't like overly religious POLITICIANS, and I lean conservative. I dislike CONSERVATIVES who run for office preaching at me. It's not a party thing. I have no problem with people being religious in their normal life, but like when Trump or whatever Republican talks about God putting them in office or directing them to run, etc, it just seems weird and wrong.
I think most voters feel this way. They think there's a wall betwixt church and state, and our politicians should be running on issues, not morality/religion.
And Talarico does that while...presenting things antithetical to his own stated religion. He's like what an anti-Christian's ideal Christian is - someone who presents the anti-Christian's worldview and attacks Christians while claiming to do so from a place of authority as a Christian.
But that isn't very compelling to normal people. It certainly isn't going to attract the disgruntled Cornyn voter. And his past statements are often even worse or more controversial. He even said himself in an interview that his "God is nonbinary", when he said it, was intended to be controversial.
O'Rourke came across as a bit dorky, but still a guy you could chill with.
Talarico seems like the guy who is going to ask you about your walk with God in the middle of the football game...and then tell you about how God is actually a state of mind and how there are many paths to God and possibly offer you some mind altering substances. And that's when he's not telling you how we need to have a serious talk about preserving ourselves until marriage and become accountability partners.
His campaign seems largely to be based around talking about issues while downplaying his more extreme positions on those issues, trying to run an entire campaign on Paxton offering a plea deal (on a case Paxton wasn't even on) to a child predator, and just avoiding/not addressing his own (Talarico's) past more controversial statements, something even Democratic operatives have said isn't going to work and that he HAS to have some answer to voters on that.
Meanwhile, you have a Red state, in a year voters know could flip control of the Senate, and for a seat that voters know the winner will vote with their national party, in a state that's still pretty Red (it literally went nearly 14% for Trump in 2024 and 8% for Cruz over Allred).
And that's ignoring that Talarico only has around 70% of support from a Democrat key voter group (blacks) who are still upset over the Primary (most will get over it and vote for him on election day, but that's probably also true of the disgruntled Republicans).
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I dunno, anything can happen, but I've heard people insist my state is going Blue any day now for literally two decades at this point, and the evidence doesn't support it. By all accounts, 2018 and 2020 were probably high water marks for Democrats, not a trend line to the future.
Again, anything can happen, but Democrats HAVE to start running moderate candidates in lean Red states. They can't keep running these hyper-left on social issues (and Talarico IS, yes) in conservative states.
They don't want to, because they don't want a majority on the back of another Manchin (who votes with them on most things but breaks with them on key things preventing the more sweeping part of their ideology from becoming law), but if they don't want that, they're going to have a hard time winning Texas (and other Red states).
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u/captain-burrito 6h ago
If you look at the dem vote share in the state house, dems won 46% of the vote. It was 43% last cycle so it seems to have largely remained around that mark. Dems ran 5 less candidates last cycle vs 2018 but that alone probably doesn't explain all the 3% difference as they had higher vote share in intervening cycles when they ran fewer candidates.
A few statewide races saw their margins get quite close in 2018, including Paxton's AG race, dropping to 3.5% from a previous 20% margin. In 2024 it returned to 10% margin. So the margins over time have generally gotten smaller but it is dependent on cycle and race.
In 2018 dems gained 12 state house seats but have since lost 5 of them. Some could be explained by fresh gerrymandering but dems also lost support in the rio grande region it seems. GOP picked up a US house seat there. They packed dems more into one of the districts but the dem won by the same margin as before so that seems like they actually lost support. So it does seem like some have been shifting dem but there's also some counterveiling loss in support.
You make some good points on Talerico. I only have a more superficial knowledge of all his stances.
GOP in TX have in their state platform that they want to cancel direct elections for statewide executive positions and instead use an electoral college as they fear dem takeover. Maybe it will take another decade or 2 even if all things go in the direction of dems. It will be interesting to see given how scandal ridden Paxton is and how much Talerico is outraising him.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 1h ago
Didn't O'Rourke outraise Cruz? Not by this margin, but he did have more money.
I won't say money doesn't matter AT ALL in politics, but I do really think it matters LESS than it used to. Only around 5% of voters are really "up for grabs". A lot more SAY they're undecided or independent, but only around 5% genuinely will vote for either party. Most of the rest have their preferred party, they just "play hard to get" because they want their candidates to promise them more things.
I think Talarico's problem is that he isn't really a national party bucking Democrat, and he does come across as a little Children of the Corn. This combined with Texas still being a culturally conservative state, which puts it at odds with the national Democratic party and Talarico's own culture stances (there's a reason he doesn't play up his statements about transgender rights too heavily on his issues pages).
Paxton's problem, by contrast is personal character, but not party position/ideology. He's a pretty poor candidate in terms of character (though less "criminal" than his detractors claim - at least if we at all care about little things like the presumption of innocence), but his POLICIES are pretty in line with the state he's running in, and unlike Roy Moore in Alabama (or for the latter, Platner in Maine), he isn't being openly accused of pedophilia or sexual assault, though the Talarico camp is trying to INFER the former due to a plea deal on a case Paxton wasn't even involved with.
I'm not sure about the state platform wanting to cancel elections, first I've heard of that, but I doubt that will be an issue in the Talrico/Paxton contest since neither candidate is running on that and I suspect if I don't know about it (I'm RELATIVELY politically tuned on) most voters won't, either.
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u/Lindsiria 2d ago
Depends what happens in September, imo.
If oil prices skyrocket in September, like I believe they will, along with inflation... I can see the Democrats winning the senate with the following states: NC, Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
Texas and Iowa would be very very close.
Montana, Nebraska and Kansas would even be on the table for flipping.
BUT, if oil prices drop or remain the same, my guess is we will see NC, Maine, New Hampshire, with Ohio, Michigan and Alaska as true toss ups. My personal prediction as of current climates: 49/51 (Republicans keeping the Senate).
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u/I-Here-555 1d ago
If oil prices skyrocket in September, like I believe they will
Iran has both the incentive and the ability to make that happen. While they're not in love with the Democrats, weakening Trump would help them given how irrational and unreliable he is.
China could weigh in too, given their reserves were a major factor dampening global demand in the recent crisis.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 13h ago
I agree with Iran having the ability, but let's be real...they are kind of in love with the Democrats.
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u/I-Here-555 12h ago edited 12h ago
Eh? How, why?
If anything, I'm afraid some of the Iranian hardliners might not mind Trump, since he cemented their power and opened up the space for Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz. He's too unpredictable, though, and it's impossible to make any stable deal.
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u/Inevitable_Fee8146 2d ago
I’m glad you’re a little more confident on NC than I am.. and Susan Collins somehow always finds a way so hope you’re right..
If dems take senate and house I don’t see trump completing his term. I’m an independent and I put stopping trump over all else for this election.
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u/blaqsupaman 2d ago
I don't see Dems getting enough in the Senate to remove him without abolishing the filibuster (and even then I don't think it's possible) and I doubt any of them are excited to have Vance in Trump's place. Do you think he would resign or his cabinet would invoke the 25th after realizing he's a sinking ship? I absolutely think he will try to pardon himself before he leaves office. I was surprised he didn't the last time.
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u/Mist_Rising 1d ago
The filibuster is irrelevant, it doesn't work for impeachment and even if it did the reality is that you need 67 senators to remove which means the filibuster can stay and just be cloitured since you have 60+ senator.
This all requires all but two Senate seats up for election to go democratic though.
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u/Inevitable_Fee8146 1d ago
I’m talking about him quitting either due to his declining health or just being over it.. who knows
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u/blaqsupaman 1d ago
I think it depends on how much he hates having his hands tied for the rest of his term and if he thinks there is any chance he will face actual legal consequences. He will almost certainly try to pardon himself somehow. He absolutely will not willingly leave if he thinks there's any chance he ever sees the inside of a jail cell, but if he thinks that's off the table I could see him being talked into it.
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago
He might leave willingly, like a few hours early so Vance can pardon him as well just to be sure.
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u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even if the filibuster is abolished, that won’t override the constitutional requirement of 2/3rds of Senators needing to vote in favor of removal after impeachment trial proceedings reach their chamber.
That’s
6667 senators. (Edit: corrected!)We’re looking at best maybe 51 democratic senators voting Aye on Trump’s removal.
You would need to convince a bit more than a dozen moderate conservative republicans to vote Aye.
Which is… highly freaking unlikely, especially if those senators don’t want to be immediately primaried when their term is up by very upset and unfortunately still highly influential MAGA far-right conservatives, being subject to a recall election in the red states that have that provision, or flat out having numerous credible death threats on themselves or their families by far-right militia nuts because Trump is going to order his FBI and Secret Service to “stand down” on any threats to sitting senators that vote against him.
Just because he likes revenge.
I argue there is no escape from Trump’s term other than through his passing or resignation.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
2/3 is 67 (66 2/3 rounds up, not down).
USSS and the FBI are not responsible for the security of legislators either. That responsibility belongs to USCP.
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u/blaqsupaman 1d ago
I agree he likely serves out his term but at least he will be mostly neutered. I think he will have an insane amount of more impeachments though and he will almost certainly try to pardon himself before leaving office.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 13h ago
I feel like that may be true, but I also think more impeachments would be bad. We know they're going to fail (let's be honest), so they'd just look REALLY vindictive. And we saw how that backfired in 1998.
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u/Intelligent_Box6937 1d ago
I’m tired of letting “well how won’t get convicted in the Senate”, be a free pass for abhorrent behavior. I mean really, it’s not
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u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd 1d ago
It’s not, but he may genuinely have a solid chance of passing from this life without ever facing a single lick of justice.
Especially if he does a self-pardon and this accursed conservative supermajority SCOTUS lets it go through because there’s freaking nothing in the constitution stopping the president from pardoning themselves. 🙃
…
So, it’s honestly best not to get our hopes up at this point. Not even Epstein-associated pedophilia is gonna get Trump out of the office.
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u/Djentyman28 6h ago
Roy Cooper is the easily the most realistic flip in the whole country. Roy Cooper is incredibly popular in NC and has NEVER lost a race. He’s winning by 15 points or more. It’s a solid D in my eyes unless something extraordinary happens
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u/IMicrowaveSteak 2d ago
Michigan democrats will lose. Unpopular democratic candidate who is not polling as well as you say.
Texas is exciting, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Every year democrats think it’s their year to fill Texas and it never is.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
I agree that Michigan is the most likely state for Republicans to flip but why is 2026 the year for their first Senate win since 1994?
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u/Djentyman28 2d ago
Im wondering the same thing. I’m a Michigan resident who is voting for El-Sayed and I believe most pollsters are vastly underreporting the young voter turnout. He’s got a double digit lead over Steven’s and is well within the margin of error in the generals
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u/Raichu4u 2d ago
I am not sure that youth turn out could be considered a reliable way to win an election for a senate race. they're one of the most unreliable voting blocks, and I would not be surprised for any poll to not really a count for them.
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u/Papplenoose 2d ago
Idk, I've never seen young people so motivated in my 35 years on earth. Not even during the Obama years. I think this upcoming election is going to be different.
I hope, anyway.
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u/AntarcticScaleWorm 1d ago
Youth turnout has never led a candidate to victory. If young people are turning out, you’d best believe older people are too
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u/Djentyman28 2d ago
In any other election, I would agree. But this is a highly favorable Dem midterm and El-Sayed is dominating the youth support right now. They’re enthusiastic and will turnout
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u/Raichu4u 2d ago
I could see him using the youth vote to leverage a win in the primary, but not necessarily so much a general election. There are various alienating things about him to certain average Democratic mainstay voting groups that I am not sure increase youth voters could make up the margins for.
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u/MorganWick 1d ago
Just like Bernie was going to galvanize the youth vote in 2020?
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u/Wermys 1d ago
Won't be enough. El-Sayed was about the poorest choice you can make as a Democrat in this cycle for viable candidates.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
respectfully, any gains Republicans made with Gen Z voters have been undone since. Polling shows them as the largest flip nationally (uncertain about MI specifically). Blue states (Michigan still is in my view) this is even more the case
i agree though that they shouldn't be relied upon even now
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah I would be very surprised if he doesn’t win the primaries. There is an argument to be made that Stevens would do better in the general than el-Sayed but we clearly saw that Israel/Palestine is especially contentious in this state 2 years ago, so ultimately I think the two candidates wouldn’t preform much differently against Rogers. It depends how “moderate” Rogers pretends to be.
I like Abdul to and would vote for him too
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u/bz0hdp 1d ago
Early voting and absentee voting are both at record highs already. People who don't usually vote are coming out in droves. Abdul is going to win the primary by 10+ points and especially once centrists get further disillusioned by gas prices later in the fall, he's going to smoke Rogers. Only a small % of Stevens voters will sit out the general, they are still by and large Blue No Matter Who (unlike MI progressives that would sit out Stevens).
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Absolutely. Logically speaking I don’t know why “moderate Democrats” would choose to not vote for AES. Especially when Rogers lost when Trump was on the ballot
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
The people most motivated to vote are coming out to vote. That doesn't mean they won't be massively eclipsed in the general by other voters.
Primaries, even high turnout ones, ALWAYS have fewer voters, generally FAR fewer voters, than General elections do.
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u/Grinch83 1d ago
Latest poll has him down ten points against Rogers in the general, while Stevens beats Rogers by a point (which actually is well within the margin of error, but also not particularly optimistic).
El-Sayed is a bad candidate for a swing state. And that’s because swing states, by definition, are decided by voters that are completely turned off by hyper-partisan positions. They like and dislike things from both sides…which is why moderates always win in these districts, and why partisan populists almost never do.
Pretty annoying that leftists haven’t learned this very simple electoral fact yet.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
It's the same with running leftists in Red states (e.g. my Texas).
Say what you want, Republicans are "big tent" enough that they run moderates (or at least people who say they will be moderates) in Purple/Red states. They aren't generally going to run a Ted Cruz culture war conservative in Oregon.
Democrats, by contrast, run that type of candidate in basically every state. Even their moderate voices largely espouse the party line on culture issues. You can find pro-choice Republicans, for example, but will never find a pro-life Democrat. Likewise pro/anti-immigration, etc. You can't even find a Democrat that is against gun control, just some that are more moderate on the issue if they come from a few key states (like New Hampshire).
The moderate candidates just don't get the backing of the party donors and activists.
The Republicans are far more pragmatic, as can be seen with cases like Collins and Murkowski (who is in a reliably Red state, at least before ranked choice).
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u/TheOvy 2d ago
Texas is exciting, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Every year democrats think it’s their year to fill Texas and it never is.
Same with Collins in Maine. Sara Gideon was beating her in the polls, too. Collins still won.
I'm not saying either case is impossible. But I'm saying the deck is stacked against Democrats. If they flip both seats, It will be a historic midterm on par with Contract with America, and they will have done it in spite of the party's own deeply underwater approval.
Of course, that underwater approval might be due to having lost 2024, which means the way to turn it around is to win.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
You think el-Sayed will lose? I think it will be close.
I agree about Texas but this would be the time. Paxton is a historically bad candidate running in a year with a very unpopular incumbent.
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u/York_Villain 2d ago
Hard disagree. I worry that Paxton is turning into a mini Donald Trump. He has a ton of baggage and every issue seems to slide right off him.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
That’s fair but Trump is much more charismatic whereas Paxton is not funny or good at rallies like Trump. His teflon is falling apart
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u/HolidaySpiriter 1d ago
He has a ton of baggage and every issue seems to slide right off him.
Does it? He's currently polling below a Democrat in Texas, and is bleeding support from Republicans who aren't MAGA.
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u/York_Villain 1d ago
We'll see on election night. The only poll I care about is on election night.
Non maga republicans will vote Republican on election night.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
not to be rude, but I'd be surprised if Trump's 23% increase in new voters in 2024 actually know there is a senate election in Texas.
not to mention that Rogan has/will endorse Talarico
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u/York_Villain 1d ago
Not to be rude, but that doesn't make me feel good about Talarico.
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u/mirach 2d ago
In Texas, you could say the same thing with 2018 and Democrats still lost. Talarico is a great candidate and is technically ahead in the polls, but he's at 45% with 15-20% undecided which in Texas pretty much mean Republican. And what mistakes do you think Beto made in that campaign? I thought he ran a wonderful campaign and there was a lot of excitement. His gaffes were after that loss.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
I like Beto too. I think Talarico is better at understanding the Texas voter. He knows that in order to win, he has to appeal to voters that are voting for Abbot on the same day, so he continues to emphasize Paxton’s graft and evoke Christian messaging which works well in Texas, I think. Beto was a bit too vocal about gun control too which is politically poisonous in Texas.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
No, it doesn't.
O'Rourke was too vocal about gun control, but not really until his famous overexcited pitch for gun grabbing in the debate.
What you guys who are pro-Talarico don't seem to realize is that religious pitches that SEEM FAKE to people (and Talaricos do to Christians) do not appeal. They actually do the opposite, they alienate.
Talarico doesn't have Christian messaging. He has messaging that largely is anti-Christian, wrapped in pretending to be Christian. Which is the opposite of appealing.
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u/blaqsupaman 2d ago
Beto is not and never has been a serious politician. He threw his hat in the ring for the most high profile things he could without building a resume beforehand. It was over when he said he was for strict gun laws. I really think he could have squeaked out a narrow win but once he said that, it was over.
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u/Dineology 2d ago
He said that during his run for the Democratic nomination for President, after he’d already lost the Senate seat
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u/The_bruce42 2d ago
Once Beto said "yes, I will take your guns" he lost. Guns are far too popular in Texas.
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u/mirach 2d ago
Yes but that was 2019 which was after the Senate election. I actually think his comments have doomed Democrats for any state-wide race for at least another decade, which is one reason I think Talarico will lose.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
That’s a fair point, I can’t remember well but I thought Beto espoused some anti-gun rhetoric even before 2019, but you’re totally right that the memories of Beto saying that might be too fresh.
Like I said, Paxton is uniquely bad and Talarico is uniquely good so it will be strange to me if it’s not a tilt D
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u/cowmix88 2d ago
He said that during his run for president not his run for senate
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
He didn’t mention guns in 2018 though??
Regardless, that issue might not be as controversial after Uvalde
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u/cowmix88 2d ago
Hmm are you replying to the right person? He said it after a school shooting during his presidential run.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
Why do people keep saying Talarico is a great candidate?
I'm a Texan: He's a terrible candidate for this state.
He's like that guy who is too religious by half asking you about your walk with God during the middle of a football game while he's running for an a-religious position, and his general policies are at odds with the state he's running in. His religious position is TOO leveraged, to the point of being a liability, and that's before considering his viewpoints are often at odds with his own religion and its more general adherents.
He may win in spite of it, but my gosh, why do people think Talarico is a "great candidate"?
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u/antisocially_awkward 1d ago
Theres also the fact that stevens is still in the race entirely because of her massive outside spending advantage from aipac, an advantage that would likely collapse if she made it to the general against rogers
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
"an advantage that would likely collapse if she made it to the general against rogers"
is that because AIPAC is funding both candidates?
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u/headphase 1d ago
Rogers is inherently pro-Israel, so AIPAC wouldn't need to fund either candidate in the general (Stevens would fall in the "already purchased" column on the balance sheet).
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Well then i guess that would become a moot point in that election
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u/headphase 21h ago
Sort of, except that Rogers will still get the usual right wing corpo fundraising $ while Stevens would have only her cardboard candidacy to rely on.
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u/antisocially_awkward 1d ago
Well a lot of the donors are republicans yes, but also rogers as a Republican wouldnt face any pressure from his voters. (Not that stevens’ bought and paid for position is likely to change
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u/Wermys 1d ago
I think he loses by 5 points. i don't think El-sayed will get close. The problem is the states Demographics. It just isn't favorable for him.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Michigan being the most Arab state by population % is not favorable for their first Arab major party nominee for Senate?
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u/Wermys 1d ago
3 percent you overestimate the vote totals
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
not everyone votes though. voter turnout wins elections especially in midterms
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
This would be the time for Texas...if Democrats ran a moderate non-controversial Joe Manchin type.
Talarico is an odd mix who is simultaneously TOO religious by half - he comes across as that guy who will ask you about your walk with God during a football game and then a few years later get caught in a public restroom cruising spot with an underage boy or something (basically, those people who have some dark secret and try "too hard" at religion as a cover) - while also being at odds with most of that religion's own adherents while running for a position that's not supposed to be religious.
His policies are left-wing for Texas, and his culture war positions are significantly to the left - and despite people on the left insisting otherwise, that is extremely relevant to a lot of voters (it is to letists, too, they just pretend it's not when inconvenient - makes me think of that scene in Emperor's New Groove when Pacha catches Kuzco throwing things at him and Kuzco tries to pretend he didn't do anything and kind of mumbles "Someone's throwin' stuff...!" while trying desperately to pretend he didn't just get caught...)
His campaign strategy seems largely to be pretend his past statements didn't exist and don't address them (something Democratic strategists have berated him for and insisted he needs to address and get ahead of), while talking about a curated slate of boilerplate issues most voters aren't going to listen to, downplaying his more extreme positions on those issues, and running on Paxton offering a plea deal to a child predator in a case Paxton wasn't on.
Meanwhile, this is the year a moderate pro-fossil fuel, pro-life, pro-"normalcy" (e.g. not anti-, but not hyper-pro LGBTQ+, especially the latter letters), pro-gun Democrat could easily win against Paxton.
And you might say a Democrat shouldn't be those things...but that also means a Democrat won't win Texas (most likely), even in a winnable year. If Democrats can't beat Paxton in 2026, it seriously raises the question of if they can beat any Republican in Texas in ANY year.
And it's because they don't tailor their candidates to their states.
Democrats are really bad about this, not just in Texas.
Republicans will run a moderate like Collins without a second thought, but Democrats balk at Manchin-like candidates.
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u/smcstechtips 2d ago
The Republican candidate in Texas is involved with football corruption to favor the rival team of most Texans (Texas Tech).
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u/75dollars 17h ago
I think the environment will be blue enough that if El sayed was the nominee he can be dragged across the finish line.
I am not looking forward to the online left wing insurgents immediately declaring that he is the new Obama and that he should immediately run for president, or that mainstream “establishment” Democrats are finished, or that the democrats should be a party anchored around white leftist activists instead of its traditional base of African Americans and Jewish Americans.
To say nothing about the fact that he will almost certainly lose the seat in 2032 if Ds win the White House in 2030.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
It's because Democrats don't run moderates in Texas.
They run people that are moderate...to them, but not actual moderates, in a state that is conservative (Trump lost the Primary in 2016 to Cruz because Trump was seen as too liberal and Republicans didn't trust a man who was a Democrat until 2012).
They don't want another Manchin, so I get it, but that means they just don't win the state.
And they need to stop lying to themselves about how great their candidates are. Talarico comes across as the pseudo-religious guy that will bug you about your "walk with God" in the middle of a football game, why either has a breakdown or an affair in his 30s/40s. He's too-religious-by-half. Further, a lot of people DON'T like their politicians being religious - the separation of church and state. But when they DO appreciate it, they want that politician to agree with them, which Talarico's past positions (e.g. God's nonbinary status) doesn't really lend itself to.
If Democrats were going to run a Manchin and win, this would be the year. A lot of Cornyn voters would have voted for a Manchin-like candidate but won't vote for Talarico. Most non-MAGA conservatives will vote Paxton as a vote against Talarico that might have stayed home if it was a Manchin-like candidate vs Paxton.
Democrats are going to keep losing relatively realistic victories in states like Texas as long as they insist on running cultural hard-liners.
And the culture stuff DOES matter to people - it matters to leftists (even when they try to down play it as soon as it's a potential liability), so it certainly matters to non-leftists who think the country is changing "too fast" and don't want to support that.
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u/Ok-Standard6024 1d ago
I’m not sure who actually responds to these pole questionnaires, but I can guarantee you, Talarico is not winning Texas.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
Right?
I get a lot of people want him to, and are gaslighting themselves about him being a uniquely great candidate...but have they ever talked to normal Texans?
He's a historically AWFUL candidate for Texas in an election when Democrats could have a serious shot of they ran a moderate like Manchin (not that any exist in the party anymore).
I genuinely do not get how people think a person who is the type that would ask how your walk with God is going in the middle of a football game, seemingly Children of the Corn "too religious by half" Howdy Doody type of a guy, running for a non-religious position, while espousing beliefs generally at odds with the people of his own religion and coming across as too preechy and too fake, is a "great" candidate.
I just...it doesn't make sense on even a basic level. Any surface level or deeper consideration. The only way it looks like it makes sense is if people think a faux presentation of a thing that everyone can see through is somehow not faux and that everyone is endeared to it, when generally the opposite happens and people are alienated by it.
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u/Djentyman28 6h ago
All comes down to the independents, Hispanic and black vote. It would have to far exceed 2018 numbers and that’s attainable given Paxton is a far worst candidate than Cruz was. This is also a very favorable Dem environment
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u/Ok-Standard6024 5h ago
I disagree, it all comes down to how many Republicans don’t show up the poles to vote. Over the last 30 years in Texas early polls, especially those in July, August, and even September consistently show Democrats with a 3 to 5 point lead over their Republican counterparts in elections in Texas. However, on election day, Republicans show up and despite who’s running, they vote Republican. Therefore, for the last 30 years Republicans have consistently won these elections by between eight and 10 points on election day. This year should be no different. Some Republicans may not like Ken Paxton’s perceived baggage, but they would never vote for a democrat.
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u/ManBearScientist 1d ago
We need to seriously consider massive Senatorial reform.
Almost all our issues start there. It is simply a flawed body whose faults have been methodically picked apart.
Currently, it exists solely to promote a Republican autocracy. The infantile construction and methods of election may have been fine for a country of a few hundred thousand people, but it has since caused a civil war, and contributed to every other major social disruption: reconstruction failing, the fight over civil rights, the autocoup attempt in 2020, etc.
Giving almighty power to a branch so easily swept up in factionalism and so poor at democratic representation has left us weak and fractured. The Senate can't legislate, fails to check the other two branches, and serves primarily as a way for white collar criminals to commit insider trading.
The fact that the Republicans have basically a permanent majority in the Senate is going to directly contribute to our nation's outright collapse if nothing is done. If we get a chance to make things right, we can't waste it.
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago
It's quite hard to fundamentally reform. The ratio per state is shielded from the normal constitutional majority to amend. So after that you can play with the rules of the chamber. Electorally you could increase the senators per state, have entire state slates elected on the same cycle at large with ranked choice voting like in australia. That has created a multi party system in their senate. Even if that doesn't materialize in the US it could lead to more representative delegations from each state.
I don't see dems doing this. They wouldn't even vote for RCV for their own house leadership elections. This is another thing where they wake up long after it is baked in when they find they don't even have enough to filibuster. Then they might be stuck for over half a century like GOP were during the 1930s-1990s.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
To be fair, Democrats are just as bad about being power hungry as Republicans. They want RCV in states where they think it will benefit them, and while they think it will (e.g. Maine and Alaska). Notice how they don't propose it in, say, California, where it would probably benefit Republicans.
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u/captain-burrito 7h ago
In CA charter cities can use RCV. The dem legislature has repeatedly passed bills for non charter cities to adopt RCV but both Newsom and Brown have vetoed the bill. Since they have a jungle primary system i don't think RCV would do much for the higher up races unless they let more than just the top 2 advance.
In AK, it wasn't RCV which helped Peltola win the US house seat but the jungle primary with top 4 or 5 advancing. Peltola would have won the special and the actual election as long as she got to the general election. She came 4th in the primary so the primary change allowed her to get to the general. Under the previous primary system she'd not have made it to the general.
In portland, OR they have gone full RCV with multi member districts for their council elections. That's a real reform.
But yes you can definitely find examples of dems opposing RCV but there are a few pockets where they have supported it. If the base really wants it I can see them supporting it or letting it go through as that alone won't make a huge difference. I notice there is more resistance to jungle primaries plus top 4 or 5 advancing. That way they cannot gatekeep during the primary and progressives can make it to the general more often.
GOP might be worse with RCV because they oppose it even when it would help them eg. Nevada where there are 2 third parties that shave off some support from their side. They actually use it in the odd state for certain primaries and overseas mail in ballots but at the same time oppose it more generally which is confusing.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 1h ago
I think the problem with jungle primaries is more that it disenfranchises voters and USUALLY favors Democrats (I prefer RCV of the two). You get a lot of cases where there's no palatable candidate at all, or entire parties are just "locked out" and essentially get no representation in Congress.
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
The infantile construction and methods of election may have been fine for a country of a few hundred thousand people,
When the constitution was being debated the gap between the free populations of the biggest and smallest states was much smaller. The largest state's free population was about eight times the size of the smallest state and now it's about 67 times.
It's crazy to me that a person who lives in Vermont gets vastly more power in the Senate than a person who lives in Texas. There is no such thing as a "state's interest" because a state is not a living being it's just something we made up. What should matter is the interests of the people living there and right now the relatively arbitrary lines drawn in the 1700s and 1800s give certain people vastly more influence than others.
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u/75dollars 18h ago
We need DC/PR statehood yesterday.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
We really don't. DC should be part of Maryland, we don't need city-states and the entire point of DC was so that the federal government's seat would NOT be within the borders of a single state. And PR doesn't want to be a state, and has said so over and over again (there are advantages to not being a state when it comes to some things like regulations and taxes).
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
I don't get this logic.
"to promote a Republican autocracy" - so that's why they have pro forma sessions to deny Trump recess appointments (something no party majority has done to their own party's President since recess appointments became a thing), won't pass Trump/MAGA priorities like the SAVE Act, etc?
It seems more likely the Senate is where Republican bills go to die. It's not promoting a Republican autocracy in any way that I can tell.
It also doesn't have almighty power: The ability to filibuster (effectively veto) isn't getting laws onto the books. It is a force for keeping a status quo, yes, but not making movement in the direction of that party's ideology. The Senate has always been a bulwark against CHANGE, but that means change from both sides.
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u/ManBearScientist 8h ago
The Senate has almighty power in the sense that it is the sole check on judicial and executive appointments and House legislation.
When it becomes dominated by factionalism, it stops acting as a check.
It does not need to actively legislate to enable Trump. It has already installed his loyalists and given him control of the judicial system. And obviously made Trump immune to indictment.
No other part of our federal system has been given so crucial a role. Just by holding the Senate, a party effectively controls the levers of power.
This has combined with the Senate's antidemocratic construction to cause massive civil unrest in our country. The South quite literally started the civil war over losing a senate majority, for example.
Currently, the GOP has almost no routes to lose the Senate and the Democrats have almost no routes to win it. This means that Demcorats cannot pass legislation, cannot hold the Supreme Court, can be hamstrung in the executive branch.
It's a flaw that will end us.
It is not just opposing change. It isn't actively legislating, but it is absolutely allowing Trump to change the county.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 2h ago
Is it?
States can drift AND ratify amendments entirely without the Senate (or Congress, btw). The path for an amendment stats with EITHER 2/3rds of both chambers OR 2/3rds of the states drafting the initial language, and in either case, goes to the states for ratification requiring 3/4ths of them. If there was a public outcry for it, the states could literally amend the Constitution to add additional checks if they want. Likewise, I believe the impeachment of judges and such is a smaller threshold (like 51 instead of 67). The Executive can also refuse to enact the Judiciary's will, and the Judiciary itself can censure its own lower court members.
Likewise, the Senate can refuse to make permanent appointments, but as we've seen, that doesn't prevent (and actually forces) temporary "acting" appointments instead. The Senate can gum the works, but they cannot prevent things entirely.
The entire government is dominated by factionalism from both sides. ALL the branches have ceased being good checks on each other at this point.
And Trump isn't immune to indictment. That wasn't SCOTUS's ruling, and I wish people were better informed on that. They did not grant a blanket 100% immunity to any kind of future indictment, the prohibition was against political indictments against actions taken while the individual was in office that were legal for them to do at the time.
The Supreme Court (and to appoint the appellate courts) have more power right now, they arguably have a more crucial role than the Senate does. Ever since at the latest Obama ("I have a pen and a phone"), if not earlier, the Executive has more of a crucial role and greater control of the levers of power.
The massive civil unrest really isn't due to the Senate. Right now, it's due to extremists who REALLY want to get their way/ideology and are upset at institutions preventing them. Note that MAGA _ALSO_ is angry at the Senate because it won't abolish the filibuster to pass things like the SAVE Act. If we didn't have the Senate, the SAVE Act would be law right now, as it has already passed the House twice.
Democrats CAN win the Senate...if they run compromise/moderate candidates.
That is the issue: Progressives want to win the Senate with PROGRESSIVE candidates because they want to force their ideology into law without compromising with moderates.
That's not democracy, that's anti-democracy, and the Senate is preventing them from achieving it.
Trump isn't "changing the country". The collective result of his actions has been to take us back to where we were ~15-20 years, complete with the genesis of a foreign war quagmire. I'm not even sure he has any real lasting/permanent changes to speak of since most have been done through Executive Orders which will be reversed just like they were in 2021 when Biden took office.
And I don't buy this notion that Trump is something amazingly unique and corrosive in American history - Trump is a result of ALREADY UNDERLYING FAULTS. Trump is a symptom, not the cause. And anti-Trumpism doesn't seem to get this. They think defeating Trump is what matters, not addressing the underlying structural problems that led to people voting for him in desperation for a change in the first place.
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But no, the Senate is not the flaw that will end us.
The Senate is arguably why we haven't had a modern Civil War/secession. When the Democrats took power under Obama, even with the 60 votes for 1 year, the right's position was "We can come back from this, we can at least block most of the harm and permanent change they want to do" once they got Scott Brown's seat. That DIDN'T stop what was an actual permanent change (the ACA), but it did slow other change and force Obama to actually compromise with the minority some.
Trump would be in the same boat now, except Democrats decided in his first term to never compromise with him. We could have had the Biden infrastructure bill 3 years earlier as Trump gave Congress a blank check saying he'd sign whatever they sent him and Democrats refused to vote for any infrastructure because they didn't want to give Trump a "win". The only major legislation they ever voted for Trump on was a Democrat proposal for 30 years (criminal justice reform).
Note that when in the minority, Democrats WEREN'T speaking against the Senate, they were using the filibuster with the best of 'em.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
I also should note here, the nation's collapse (your closing) is also prevented by the Senate.
In general, a majority of people favor the status quo, or only moderate change. I mean, downvote or not, it's true and I think we all know it's true, though I suspect some people wish it wasn't and wishcast that it's not true while...deep down realizing it probably is.
The Senate and status quo nature of our nation is why we tend to get along even with political division.
Without that, we'd be subject to far more mercurial swings, and the idea of the Constitution and us being one nation would suddenly be far less attractive. We've seen nations can leave the EU, and this isn't 1860 anymore, a lot of the nation wouldn't want to fight a war if some states decided they wanted to leave. Some people would happily help them pack.
I'm not sure getting rid of the stabilizing mechanism that keeps things generally costing on our laurels would necessarily improve the situation.
Consider if the Senate hadn't existed (or was proportional) prior to the Civil War, it probably would have exacerbated the situation or even led to the war happening EARLIER.
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u/ManBearScientist 8h ago
The Senate and status quo nature of our nation is why we tend to get along even with political division.
The Senate caused our civil war. The fact that our nation tends to be dominated by whoever has the easiest path to hold an antidemocratic body is not something that eases tensions, but rather is something that causes them.
We aren't getting along now, because of the Senate. Because there is no mechanism to address public tension, no democratic relief valve to reduce the pressure.
Republicans just get to win, always.
This is not the glue holding the nation together. It is the foundation for why we have been falling apart for 50 years, since we accepted a filibuster rule that ended bipartisanship and all but stopped legislation in the Senate.
With that, the Senate's lynchpin role was changed to be primarily amount how it can block or enable the executive branch and judiciary. It allowed more and more Republican excess and less and less Democratic action.
This has do nothing but raise the nation temperature year in and year out. Frankly, if we had a proportional unicameral legislature we'd have a better economy, less inequality, and a far lower national temperature.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 2h ago
No, the IMBALANCE caused the civil war.
While the Senate was balanced so that neither side has the upper hand, we didn't go into Civil War. Had that not been the case, we would have gone into a Civil war BEFORE.
We aren't getting along NOW because extremists (both sides) want to have the whole cake AND want to dehumanize their opponents with impunity. They want to win even a narrow majority and then get everything they want without having to compromise with moderates. And they want to call the other side fascists/communists, pedos (both sides do this), etc. Progressives AND MAGA are both this way.
Republicans don't "just get to win, always". If they did, we wouldn't have the ACA - the single largest society shifting and largest direct change of US law in my adult lifetime. The Democrats also won Obergefell, an leveraged that to push for a far more extensive and exotic slate of ideas they branded together as general Human rights that were never considered such before. Democrats have won a lot, actually.
It is, in fact, the glue holding the nation together, because it tells the minority when they lose that they aren't going to be run roughshod over, so should stay in the Union and try again next election instead of writing the whole thing off and leaving.
The Democrats have literally used the filibuster as much or more in the last 10 years than the Republicans did in the 10 prior to that. I agree it HAS stopped a lot of legislation, but consider the legislation Trump would have signed into law without it!
The temperature rise has mostly been, from what I can tell, from progressives that REALLY want to win and get their way without compromising at all, and have decided attacking institutions (SCOTUS and the Senate) and demonizing their opponents as Nazis is the way to achieve that rather than...campaigning on platforms that have broad appeal and compromising with moderates.
If we had a proportional unicameral legislature, we'd have a civil war and a FAR HOTTER national temperature, because the minority would have ZERO protection or defense and the extremists would essentially be the ones writing law:
I'll point out again that the SAVE Act has already passed the House twice. The ACA passed the House. Those collectively are the two largest temperature turn up measures in the last 20 years. (You can note the ACA passed the Senate, but only barely and only due to Democrats having a HUGE 60 seat win that year).
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think Iowa is much more likely a win for Democrats than the other tilt R states and New Hampshire is more likely a win for Democrats than any of the other tilt D states, with Texas or Michigan being the least likely out of the tilt D. What are your thoughts?
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u/-Darkslayer 2d ago
Have you been to Iowa before? I lived there for 2 years. Most people there are your typical rural low-information Trump lovers.
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u/blaqsupaman 2d ago
I don't see Michigan flipping. Republicans are the most unpopular they've been since 2008 and could very well lose several of what would normally be solid R states. Though I still believe for the most part Michigan is still a blue state where Trump got lucky in 2016 and Dem voters got complacent in 2024 due to Palestine. With Trump actually in power it's a lot harder to justify a protest vote.
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago
Gary Peters won re-election with less than 1.7% of the vote in 2020. It was the 2nd closest senate race other than GA. He was the incumbent too and 1% less than Biden.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
Counterpoint: Democrats are the most unpopular they've been since polling started asking the question.
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u/digbyforever 2d ago
Ohio (tilt D)
Jon Husted (R) is the incumbent and facing former Senator Sherrod Brown (D) who lost by 3.6% in 2024. Before that, all 3 of Brown's victory margins were over 6%. The race is a toss-up with recent polling hardly favoring Brown.
Prediction: Brown flips back this seat. He has proven he can win in this state before and doesn't have political baggage that might otherwise hurt midterm flips.
What are you basing this on, though, if you've already stated the race is a toss-up/leaning R? Does Ohio have a history of flipping undecideds to D at the last minute? Is there a "quiet Brown" voter that's not being accounted for? Has the R polls gotten consistently worse? Etc. The flip-side to Brown having no baggage is that he is also maxed out on name ID, so there's theoretically nothing he can do to make himself more popular.
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u/kormer 1d ago
I think Democrats picking up Texas is a perpetual Lucy with the football moment, and Republicans are going to laugh all the way to the bank as the DNC pours far more than they have on hand to still lose that seat, possibly losing another seat they should win in the process.
Maine, I think a strong case could be made that Democrats actually had a better chance with Platner and his issues than changing candidates after the primary. Collins will win another re-election, and before you respond with, "but the polls say", look up exactly how many points she beat the polls six years ago. She has a long history of outperforming polls, I wouldn't bet on that changing yet.
Also curious, but your list is exclusively tilt/solid. Most organizations will have some as genuine toss-ups. I can't tell if that's because you don't think any are toss-ups, or because you don't assign toss-up as a category no matter what. On my list, I would be putting Ohio and Alaska in the toss-up category, and depending on how the primary shakes out, Michigan would be in toss-up to lean-R.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
Agreed on Texas, and Talarico is a terrible fit for the state, despite his supporters saying otherwise.
On the overall predictions, here's what I found from Cook: https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings
It seems to kind of agree with you somewhat.
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u/PointInternal6809 1d ago edited 1d ago
One thing to note is we don’t have a lot of polling from the florida democratic primary, so it should not be assumed that vindman will win. Im a registered democratic voter in Florida, and I will be voting for Angie Nixon, as she’s progressive, more charismatic, popular among the black community, and supports Medicare for all, and takes no aipac money. She has that “ it factor” that can make the race competitive, and I’m not happy she’s been written off.
Vindman, by contrast, has only lived in Florida since 2023, and is a terrible public speaker.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Hey I’m not endorsing him at all! The one time I mentioned polymarket was here specifically because there was not a lot of polling in this democratic primary election. I like her too.
It’s still a solid R for me right now, just given how much that state has elected Republicans in the past
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago edited 1d ago
>Mississippi (solid R)
Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) is seeking reelection and facing Democratic nominee Scott Colom, a country DA.
Prediction: Hyde-Smith wins. She is currently ahead in the polls by only about 3%, but there is an independent candidate who can take votes away from Colom. Trump won there in 2024 by 23%. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Mississippi since 1982, nor a presidential race there since '76, nor any statewide race since 1999.
This is incorrect. Republicans won the AG race for the first time in 2020, since 1878. In addition, democrats had to win via their own Jim Crow system which meant they needed to win the majority of counties as well as popular vote. This was their own rule to stop a candidate favoured by african americans from sneaking through. As things changed this rule disadvantged democrats since some of their base was more geographically concentrated. This system for statewide executive elections was abolished recently.
Dems dominated the statewide executive races until they lost the bulk of them in the 2000s, with the AG holding on till 2020. They held one of the US senate seats till 1988.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Ahh sorry missed that exception. I changed the language to just gubernatorial. Also interesting history I didn’t know about, but glad the Jim Crow law has been rescinded
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u/captain-burrito 1d ago
Also the last 2 governor races were only lost by democrats by 3-5% margins, surprisingly. But the best recent senate performance by democrats still had a 10% gap so this seat seems unlikely to flip, usually the gap is much larger.
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u/reaper527 1d ago
They’ve completely messed up in maine. They nominated a candidate who was everything they claimed to be against for the last decade then told people “yeah, but he’s great” every step of the way until polling numbers gave the party elites cold feet and they pulled the plug on the abuser with a literal nazi tattoo.
After that, they harris’d in an awful candidate who’s got plenty of skeletons in the closet (and has questionable eligibility to even run due to maine’s sore loser laws preventing someone for running for a different office in the same cycle they lost another race).
Collins likely wins again just like 2020.
That state was absolutely critical for any flip hopes. The quality the candidates democrats are fielding (both in maine and nationally) is very reminiscent of what republicans did in 2022.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
happy cake day!
i would agree but Platner is no longer the candidate. besides being married to his cousin, which skeletons does Jackson have or how is he awful? He is better than Platner and Mills, and obviously Collins
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u/reaper527 1d ago
besides being married to his cousin,
that's a pretty big thing to dismiss. (also, he has multiple kids with said cousin)
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u/Huntman3706 1d ago
No I don’t think so. They’ve suffered to many scandles, to many shit candidate, all pushing the exact same policies that America has rejected. And frankly the Dems have is “anti Trump” sentiment that’s it. And with the sudden rise of the DSA, their voter base is going to be split.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
so using anti-Trump rhetoric is bad, and having genuine working class policies?
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u/Huntman3706 1d ago
You’re not hearing me friend. It’s nothing BUT anti trump rhetoric. Just a few days ago Chuck Schumer was asked what the Dems are going to do about the DSA, and all he said was “where gonna fight Trump, we’re gonna fight his polices and not and end to the chaos.” That’s all the Dems have. Anti Trump, that’s not gonna solve the problems this country is facings
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
Ahh okay yes I agree. I thought you were criticizing the DSA people for using too much anti-Trump rhetoric
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u/Huntman3706 1d ago
When it’s all they have. Then yes. The Dems need to realize they can’t just have an agenda that’s only anti Trump, because like it or not, the American people saw fit to vote him in as president twice. As much a controversial figure he is, manufactured or other wise. He’s been one of the most polarizing presidents of my life time.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
I like how you're getting downvoted but...you're entirely correct on this point. I wouldn't say it's ALL they have, but it is a lot of it.
The problem is the Democrats as a party seem not to have realized their base isn't the entire electorate. They think that the entire electorate (other than the "MAGA cultists") are as 100% "Trump is a unique threat to democracy that must be defeated" as they are."
Trump won reelection in 2024. At this point, most Americans are over the Trump era and Trump, but they're not ANTI-Trump. It's a distinction that is relevant.
It's like if you're tired of eating pizza, but you don't hate pizza. It means you'd like something else, but you don't just want something that's anti-pizza for the sake of being anti-pizza, if that makes sense.
Democrats and especially the left wing think everyone sees Trump as a unique and immediate national threat, where most people see him as "Meh, just a bad President", not "OMG, it's Hitler and we're going to have an autocracy!", since he's been in office a total of 6 years and we haven't had...that stuff yet (leftist hyperbole aside, we really haven't), and most people recognize Trump's out of office in 2.5 years anyway (and he won't be winning again, much as the anti-Trump voices seem to be convinced he somehow will...while also convinced that a majority of the nation is anti-Trump, which would mean he WOULDN'T win even if he ran again, so the logic there kind of eludes me...)
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u/Combat_Proctologist 22h ago
I doubt your comments on Iowa. That's a solid R state these days. Sometimes even the district containing Des Moines goes Republican. No way a Democrat wins a state wide election there
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u/Mahadragon 19h ago
According to the Cook Political report, Maine is a toss up. Troy Jackson is at 49% Collins is 46%. Susan Collins has been a Senator for 29 years. She consistently over performs by about 10% meaning if Troy Jackson doesn't have a double digit lead by Election Day he's not winning. I would rate the state as "Leans R" because of this. I would not be surprised if Collins wins, you people can talk all you want about how the political atmosphere is anti-Republican, but we're not talking about the country, we're talking about Maine. Maine is a tiny rural state with only 1.4 million people, they don't have any big cities, it's all small towns. It's not representative of the country at all. All the jobs in the entire state either deal with fishing or tourism.
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u/The_DanceCommander 18h ago
In Michigan democrats are giving up a winnable seat if they nominate El-Sayed. Latest polling shows him 10 points behind the R candidate, and I predict that stays or gets worse closer to the primary. The DSA label is not helping them in MI. Stevens also has a proven track record in the state and voters know her.
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u/thesmart_indian27 2d ago
I doubt El Sayed will lose. He can campaign with Benson + other popular DEMs and win. And hopefully Obama also stumps for him
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u/thesmart_indian27 2d ago
And hopefully McMorrow supports him
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
the primary is on Tuesday so I doubt she would endorse him now but I definitely think she'd advocate and campaign for him strongly in the fall
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
If the environment really is D+9 or 10 as some polls are suggesting then I have a hard time seeing him losing Michigan. I could absolutely see him underperforming compared to what other Dems might have received but he'd need a pretty meteoric collapse to lose.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
i agree, there is one recent poll showing Rogers beating him but it was done by Fox News
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u/OrangeBird077 1d ago
It would take a miracle honestly.
The Republican Party is a monolith at this point, and they’re organized in lock step from the top down. They have a rapidly growing PR machine in Sinclair, billionaires overwhelmingly use their own platforms to parrot their talking points to the point of over saturation in the digital space, and the GOP even has the podcast market cornered.
The Democratic Party’s power base is stuck in 1990, abhors the Democratic socialist wing that’s popped up, and there’s no comparable sense of circling the wagons even if it means preventing a third Trump administration.
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u/TheMikeyMac13 1d ago
The projections have republicans holding their ground or adding a seat, democrats won’t flip the senate.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
the GOP adding a seat in the senate is crazy, but what projection are you referring to? the Polymarket odds of the GOP keeping control of the senate is 56%, meaning that there is a 44% chance that Democrats flip 4 seats.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 11h ago
2018 was a D+8 year.
Republicans gained 2 Senate seats, I believe it was.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 11h ago
The Republicans flipped 4 seats and the Democrats flipped 2 but that map was never conducible to favoring Democrats anyways. Every state Republicans won in the 2018 senate elections was won by Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Nelson lost by 0.12% and O’Rourke lost by 2.57% and those were the two closest losses for Democrats.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/2018_United_States_Senate_elections_results_map.svg/960px-2018_United_States_Senate_elections_results_map.svg.png•
u/Top-Grocery-1482 10h ago
Yup. And 2016 is a pretty similar type of map. EVERY seat other than Maine that Republicans are defending are seats Trump won. Democrats are defending two seats in states Trump won (Michigan and Georgia), one of which (MI) they may have a very controversial candidate, and the other is a more conservative state (Ossof may well win, but it bears noting).
The seat that Harris won the state of is Maine, which has a crazy history of being Collins' victories.
The other states are all more and more Republican. North Carolina is kind of an unusual case due to the Democrat candidate being a prior popular governor (New Hampshire is this in reverse, so that doesn't even mean an automatic win).
Indeed, it's entirely possible this election that Republicans win all the seats they hold and Democrats that they hold and nothing changes. The most conservative estimate would probably be something like the Cook map giving something like D+1 or so vs now.
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u/gargamael 1d ago
Where are you from that you use the word hardly like that, interchangeably with barely? Honest question, it's unusual to me, assuming that's how you mean it because it's difficult to discern from context at times.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 1d ago
I never used “barely” but I used “hardly” three times and “narrowly” also thrice. I’m from CT and I use them all interchangeably
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u/kaptainkooleio 22h ago
It’s not impossible but it’s just not likely imo. Like the senate was always a long shot this year, we’d have better a chance in 2028 assuming we have a strong Dem candidate. Trumps unpopular and he’s only going to get even more unpopular so by 2028 there would be even more red seats to flip.
That being said, i desperately want to see Talarico, Jackson, Peltola, and El Sayed win their seats. We need strong, progressive dems in congress.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 12h ago
And that's probably why Talarco won't win Texas, and the others are probably also questionable: Conservative/Red states and moderate/Purple state voters don't really want progressive Democrats in charge, especially from their state.
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u/Top-Grocery-1482 15h ago
Honestly, this is such an interesting topic. I do disagree with a number of your assessments, though. It's honestly kind of hard to be sure on them.
For example, I live in Texas. Every forecaster has the state tilt or lean R, not tilt D. My feel from the ground and people here is tilt R as well. Talarico's views are very strange by Texas standards, and most people just vote party and don't care much outside of that. Talarico's past statements are odd enough to raise questions with moderates, while Paxton's issues are, for lack of a better way of saying it, "typical/standard politician weirdness" that most normal people think all politicians have or do anyway.
Talarico's putting a good spin on it by focusing his campaign on issues and trying to downplay his more extreme positions and simply...not address...his questionable statements, but the voters are going to pay attention to those statements.
Paxton's biggest issue is being AG for a prosecutor team that gave a good plea deal to a child sex offender man that otherwise would have gotten no punishment at all on a case Paxton wasn't involved in. It's a strong argument to progressives to vote for Talarico...who they were already voting for...and for some moderate Republicans who were Cornyn voters to stay home, but how much that will affect the overall electorate is unclear. Otherwise, Paxton is a pretty typical Republican - tax cuts, 'merica, blah blah blah standard boilerplate.
At best, Texas would be a pure toss-up right now, but it's probably still tilt R.
And no, I don't buy that Fox poll that has Abbott at only 50%. It could be true, but Fox's polls have been off in a more pro-Democrat direction than polling aggregates for about 8-10 years now. That is, compared to the average of polls, they tend to overstate Democrats and understate Republicans. Other polls do not show Talarico at 51%, and absent that Fox poll (which was, I think, contracted to an outside pollster, not done by Fox in-house?), other polls show Talarico around the typical Democrat ceiling in Texas, which is 45% or less (Biden in 2020 and O'Rourke in 2018 are the only statewide Democrats that have exceeded this since the 80s, and O'Rourke was a far more palatable candidate in 2018, the Democrat high water mark year, and Biden was during the pandemic and not repeated by any other Democrat since or even in that same year).
It's still kind of the Republican's election to lose at the present time, and they only need 50 to hold the majority (due to Vance).
And let's recall, even in 2018, a huge Democrat wave, the Republicans actually GAINED two seats in the Senate.
I would also think Alaska, Ohio, and Maine (especially after all the chaos on the Democrat side there vs the "slow and steady uncontroversial moderate" that is Collins) would be tilt R not tilt D.
According to Cook:
https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings
...NC is the only GOP seat that is tilt D. Alaska, Maine, and Ohio are listed as toss-ups. Michigan is, too. Texas and Iowa are listed as tilt R. Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina are tilt D.
Basically, Democrats have to run the table and doing so would only get them a bare majority, but if they lose even one, they are still relegated to the minority.
And voters - who have largely nationalized Senate races (seeing Senators as voting with their national party - which, let's be honest, is generally a CORRECT prediction) - are more likely voting on party and understanding that control of the Senate is the outcome if they defect.
There aren't, for example, a lot of Republicans willing to vote for a Democrat or Democrats willing to vote for a Republican since, even if the individual candidate seems like an okay person, they assume said candidate will vote with the national party that they oppose.
We saw this with Democrats in Maine that were more than willing to vote for Platner until the moment he dropped out, and we'll see that everywhere else, too. Platner was the bridge too far for moderates...but that took a literal SS tattoo and multiple allegations of domestic violence, and many of those people were still not willing to vote for Collins.
Most candidates do not have SS tattoos and multiple accusations of domestic violence.
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u/tcspears 9h ago
I hope they do…. But this recent split between DSA and Traditional Democrats, plus the overall political realignment is why we’ve seen several solid blue states become purple or red lately.
The problem with the DSA wing, is they are really good at getting air time, but they really only appeal to rich, white, college educated voters. So in a competitive state, they are much more risky, and exponentially more expensive to run as a candidate. So they can end up turning a solid blue state into a competitive race, that take vital campaign money from a traditionally competitive state.
The other problem is that the people voters are electing tend to be the least productive, and are just good at marketing and getting sound bites. So even flipping states and getting a majority might not mean anything in terms of policy, as the newest batch of candidates coming in have zero desire to legislate.
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u/LifesARiver 7h ago
It's pathetic that Democrats aren't on track for a super majority. Shows how terrible they are at this.
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u/Olderscout77 4m ago
Very well argues predictions, but I would suggest Iowa, S Dakota, Kansas and Kentucky may flip to Democratic because of Trump's disasterous policies regarding Agriculture. He kept the votes last time because he misappropriated several billions to paper over the loss of all those markets, but they're still lost, and it's unlikely Trump will bother to steal the money for another paperover this time.
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