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Democrats risk losing control of the Senate this fall as new polling in a handful of crucial races shows Republicans in strong single-digit leads less than four weeks before Election Day.
Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who is fighting for re-election in Montana, is trailing his wealthy Republican rival Tim Sheehy by roughly eight percentage points, according to polling from The New York Times/Siena College on Thursday.
The margins are even higher in Florida, where Republican Senator Rick Scott is leading his Democratic challenger, congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, by nine points.
In Texas, which Democrats are hoping to turn into a battleground despite no Democratic candidate winning statewide elections in 30 years, Ted Cruz is leading by four points — nearly within a polling margin of error — against his opponent congressman Colin Allred.
Democrats hold a 51-seat majority in the upper chamber of Congress, but the departure of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin — who caucases with the Democrats despite leaving the party earlier this year and then announced he is not running for re-election — means that the party can’t afford any other losses if Democrats are to hold on to their razor-thin majority.
Competitive senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — in addition to the Florida, Montana and Texas races — could end up being battles for the party’s survival in the next Congress.
A series of Times/Siena surveys from September found Democratic candidates narrowly leading in several of those races.
Polling shows the race for control for the House of Representatives, where Republicans have eked out a slim majority under House Speaker Mike Johnson, is neck and neck.
If Republicans control both chambers, and Donald Trump is elected, lawmakers will effectively provide him a rubber stamp for his legislative agenda.
Montana’s senate race has been bombarded with cash — campaigns have spent more than $265 million on television advertising — while the state’s other senator, Republican Steve Daines, who also chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has helped steer Sheehy into a winning campaign.
Daines has turned that campaign into something of a proxy grudge match to kick his colleague out of the senate.
Tester has survived in Montana by winning over Republican voters and independents in a state that Trump handily won by double digits in 2016 and 2020. Tester is now polling at 44 percent to Sheehy’s 52 percent.
But all three races in the latest Times/Siena poll reflect an emerging trend: Republican candidates in other races are trailing behind Trump.
In Montana, Trump is leading Kamala Harris by 10 points — two points higher than Sheehy’s lead against Tester.
Trump is leading Harris by seven points in Texas, while Cruz is up by only four points against Allred.
And in Florida, Trump is leading by 13 points to Scott’s nine.
