It's been almost a month since Republicans declared a decisive victory in races up and down the ballot across the country, claiming the White House, the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, as Democrats shift their prospects to the 2026 midterm elections in hopes of making a comeback, early projections predict that the GOP is poised to retain their Senate majority.
In November 2026, 35 Senate seats will likely be up for election: 33 seats in the incoming class as the Constitution dictates, a special election in Ohio for Vice President-elect JD Vance's seat and another likely special election in Florida for the seat currently held by Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been picked by President-elect Donald Trump to become the next secretary of state.
On paper the odds should be against Senate Republicans as they head to 2026, just like it was for Democrats in 2024. For one, the current president's party tends to underperform during midterm elections. At the same time, they will defend 22 of the 35 seats that will likely be up for election.
However, the chamber's fundamental structures are hardwired in a way that currently boosts Republicans, a recent ABC News analysis says.
Heading into the midterms, the GOP has a highly favorable electoral map. Strikingly, only one of the 22 seats up for election that are currently occupied by Republicans is in a state that outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election. By contrast, Democrats will be defending just 13 seats overall, but two of them are in states that Trump won this year.
Moreover, the GOP has the fewest vulnerable seats in recent memory, ABC News argues. In the next Congress, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine will be the only GOP senator out of 53 in total who represents a state that Harris won. Across all presidential and midterm cycles over the past four decades, this represents the most Senate seats a party has held in states won by their presidential nominee in the last presidential election.
The structure of the U.S. Senate also usually (though not always) favors Republicans due to its equal representation of states regardless of population size. The design amplifies the influence of the less populous, often rural, states, which have solidified themselves— particularly in 2024— as Republican territories, compared to other urbanized states.
In order to shore up a Senate flip, Democrats would need to pick up four seats. Their best path likely involves winning some of the five states expected to be on the ballot that in states Trump carried by 10 to 15 points, including: Maine (which Harris won by 6.9 points), North Carolina (which went to Trump by 3.2 points), Ohio (which went to Trump by 11.2 points), Florida (which Trump won by 13.1 points), Arkansas (which Trump won by 13.1 points), Iowa (which Trump won by 13.2 points) and Texas (which Trump won by 13.7 points).
Hopefully for Democrats, seats held by the non-presidential party on the whole tend to not flip to the president's party in a midterm. Trump carried both Michigan and Georgia this year by fewer than 3 points, and dating back to 1994, the out party has lost just three of 13 midterm Senate races in states that the president's party carried by fewer than 5 points two years prior.
It's also unusual for the non-presidential party to lose a seat in a state it carried in the last presidential election. The last time it happened was in 2002, a strong year for the GOP, when Democrats lost hold of Minnesota, which Al Gore had won by 2 points.
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