With three weeks until Election Day, it’s a good time to step back from the daily noise and see the full picture. The short version: Democrats are competitive in more Senate races than almost anyone predicted a year ago, and in nearly every one, the margin is small enough that turnout will decide it.
Here’s the math: Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, so Democrats need to flip four seats while also defending every seat they hold, including Georgia. Let’s go state by state for the closest races...
Alaska: Mary Peltola
Alaska may be the cycle's most remarkable story! A new Alaska Survey Research poll shows Peltola leading Sullivan 51% to 49% after the final round of ranked-choice voting. That lead has narrowed slightly from a 3.8-point edge in the same firm’s survey about four weeks earlier, and with a 3-point margin of error, the race is a statistical tie. Other polling backs that up: a Quantus Insights poll found the two candidates tied at 46%.
Still, the forecasters are noticing. Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the race to Leans Democratic, the first time in 18 years it has given a Democrat a favorable rating in an Alaska Senate race. Voting starts in less than two weeks.
Georgia: Jon Ossoff
Ossoff is in the strongest position of anyone on our slate. The latest Trafalgar Group poll has him ahead of Rep. Mike Collins 51% to 43% among likely voters, a modest improvement over the firm’s September poll, which showed a six-point lead. The RealClearPolitics average has Ossoff up 8.1 points. One thing to keep in mind about Georgia: if no candidate clears 50%, a runoff is set for December 1. Every vote that pushes Ossoff over that line in November saves us a month of expensive overtime.
Maine: Troy Jackson
Troy Jackson stepped in as our nominee in July, and he’s made this a genuine race against a five-term incumbent. A Washington Post-Schar School poll of 800 likely voters, taken Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, found Jackson at 50% and Collins at 46%, a lead within the range of sampling error. His crossover appeal was also stronger, drawing 9% of Republicans compared with Collins pulling 6% of Democrats.
It’s not a lock. A New York Times/Siena poll had Collins ahead 49% to 46%, and an AARP survey found Collins winning 70% of older swing voters, even as Jackson leads by 25 points among voters under 50. That age split is exactly why youth turnout matters so much in Maine. Democrats haven’t won a Senate election there since 1988.
Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed
Michigan is an open seat we have to hold, and El-Sayed is ahead but not comfortably. The RealClearPolitics average has him up 3.1 points over Mike Rogers, with recent polls ranging from a 1-point lead in YouGov to a 7-point lead in Marist. A Mitchell Research poll conducted Oct. 1 put El-Sayed at 45.6% and Rogers at 41.4%.
The early-vote numbers are encouraging: in that Mitchell poll, El-Sayed leads absentee voters 66% to 21%, while Rogers narrowly leads among people who plan to vote between now and Election Day, 47% to 45%. That second number is the warning sign. Voters 18 to 29 prefer El-Sayed 45% to 17%, so if young Michiganders show up, this seat stays blue.
North Carolina: Roy Cooper
Cooper has led this race since the start. The latest East Carolina University poll has him ahead of Michael Whatley 50% to 43%, and a Big Data Poll survey shows a 12-point lead. Catawba College found independents, the state’s largest voting bloc, breaking for Cooper 48% to 28%.
But history says to stay alert: pundits remind us that North Carolina statewide races typically tighten at this point in the campaign as partisan bases consolidate.
Ohio: Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Brown’s comeback bid is holding steady. The RealClearPolitics average shows Brown up 3.1 points over appointed Sen. Jon Husted, with recent polls including a 6-point lead from CNN and an 8-point lead from Marist, though a co/efficient poll had Husted ahead by 1. In the Suffolk/USA Today poll, independents favored Brown 58% to 33%.
Local issues are breaking our way too. A sharp backlash against data centers appears to be hurting Ohio Republicans, and an NRSC memo in August described how that backlash imperiled Husted’s chances. The caution here: Brown sits around 48 percent, so he needs every last vote to get over the top.
Texas: James Talarico
And then there’s Texas. The RealClearPolitics average has Talarico ahead of Ken Paxton 48.2% to 45.2%, with a recent YouGov poll showing a 6-point lead. The most recent Trafalgar Group poll puts Talarico at 47% to 44%.
The stakes are historic. The last time a Democrat won a Senate race in Texas was 1988, the year before Talarico was born. The generational divide is stark: Emerson found voters under 50 favor Talarico by 15 points, while voters over 50 favor Paxton by 11.
What it all means
Across these seven races, the pattern is unmistakable. Our candidates lead or tie in nearly every one, and in almost all of them, the gap between winning and losing comes down to whether younger, less-frequent voters actually cast a ballot. Older voters lean Republican and turn out reliably. Younger voters lean our way by wide margins, but we need to reach them, remind them, and mobilize them.
That is the work Forward Blue exists to do, and it’s where every dollar we raise goes in these final weeks: making sure the people who will decide these races know when, where, and how to vote.
Thank you for standing with us. Let’s finish this together!
– Forward Blue