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2026 Senate Election Predictions [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-25
With the massive protests across the country, Housing market turmoil on the horizon... the potential for unpopular cuts to unpopular Medicaid, I am doing this diary to shine a light on the 2026 Senate elections.
Since Senate seats can’t be gerrymandered, the Senate election in 2026 may mirror the 2006 Senate elections, where the horrific unpopularity of Republicans led to some surprise losses, such as Lincoln Chafee in RI and Conrad Burns in MT.
While most pundits are thinking that the Senate will stay Republican, I am thinking that there will be a repeat of 2006.
It does not seem likely that any Democratic seats will flip control, as some seats that are in closely divided states, but will fall the Democratic way in an off-year election with low turnout, a charged up voter base, and a horrifically unpopular incumbent President, the only potential for a loss in those states is if a candidate running for a vacant seat runs a really poor campaign.
In GA, Ossoff might be in trouble in a Presidential year, or if he was running with a Democratic incumbent President, but unless someone like Kemp runs against him (but Kemp is a smart politician, he may wait out 2026 to run against Warnock instead)
In MI, Rogers should run again, and he won’t be committing the crime of election fraud this time around
But on the Republican side, there are the potential for upsets and additional seats not on the radar right now because of unexpected vacancies occurring in seats not up in 2026.
The states where Republicans could lose are: (with the reason)
FL (Appointed Senator)
OH (Appointed Senator)
IA (Weak incumbent)
NC (Weak incumbent, who is damaged in a primary battle)
AK (Weak incumbent, low population state, and with a sizable demographic (Inuit) that absolutely hate the incumbent)
TX (Damage from a primary battle)
ME (Unpopularity finally does the trick and Collins retires instead of running for re-election while clutching her pearls over all the damage she has done) because Governor Mills runs for the seat with a sky high approval rating as Gov.
Note that 3 of those Senators who won in 2006 lost in 2024. (Tester, Casey and Brown) and two of them (Tester and Brown) have the potential to be elected again in 2026 to the Senate for the other seat in their state.
Some other states that may surprise come election day 2026, are:
KY if Beshear runs and there is a weak candidate on the Republican side.
IA (Grassley is over 90, and who knows what will happen in the next 18 months)
KS (Marshall is not particularly well liked and not a strong campaigner)
NE (Ricketts has more money than God, but Osborn may run again and surprise everyone)
Should do a Babka challenge if someone picks all the Senate upsets correctly in the comments…
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