Happy election week, dear readers!
We’re hoping we’re still saying “happy” on Wednesday. Voters have the chance tomorrow to reject forever wars, broken promises, and a madman president who spent most of the last two years hawking crypto and riding around in a Qatari luxury jet.
This is a midterm election, but it doesn’t feel like it. Aside from the $12 billion in spending this cycle, it’s also the last chance for voters to defeat Trump at the ballot box.
This week, one more look at the races that will define the night and the latest polls showing us where voters are headed.
(And don’t forget our guide last week to the first 60 minutes of election night.)
If you haven’t already: don’t forget to go out and vote tomorrow. We’ll see you after the big night.
South Carolina
Key poll: New York Times/Siena, Oct 21-26: Andrews 48%, Graham 48% (Tie)
We know it’s South Carolina… a Trump +18 state in 2024… but Sen. Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham, doesn’t even seem to want this job. At a local Republican club last week, she told the party faithful that when she gets to heaven one day, “I am just going to choke Lindsey.”
That has been the story of this race: a reluctant, unprepared candidate facing a superstar in Dr. Annie Andrews, who has been up and down the state focused on cost of living. She even appeared on Fox News last week in a bid to attract some crossover support.
It will take a good night for Andrews to win, but not a whole lot more than that.
Ohio
Key polls:
New York Times/Siena, Oct 23-Nov 1: Brown 49%, Husted 44% (Brown +5 points)
Fox News, Oct 15-19: Brown 52%, Husted 47% (Brown +5 points)
It’s the Midwest, so we’ll never take it for granted. But Sherrod Brown’s revenge mission looks like it’s in solid shape. The former three-term U.S. Senator still has support among Ohio’s industrial and farming communities, and they are angrier than ever this year.
Brown’s also got a couple of secret weapons this campaign. First, he’s campaigning on “making data centers pay,” which Republicans warned could be a huge liability for their candidates in Ohio this year. And as he always has, he also wants to ban health insurance companies from denying treatment.
Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican incumbent, has basically been a rubber stamp for Trump since taking VP Vance’s seat.
Maine
Key polls:
CNN/SSRS, Oct 20-26: Jackson 49%, Collins 45% (Jackson +4 points)
Fox News, Oct 16-20: Jackson 49%, Collins 49% (Tie)
After a terrible start, Democrats have rallied around Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who has a strong, positive vision: passing Medicare for All, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and cutting taxes for working people. It’s an ambitious agenda in a state that’s badly in need of bold representation.
The question is how much Republican Sen. Susan Collins outperforms her polling tomorrow. It’s happened several times before (not just in 2020, when polls missed the mark generally). Collins has real liabilities this time. While she didn’t support the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” she did vote for Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Women could be the decider in this race.
New Hampshire
Key poll: University of New Hampshire, Sept. 17-21: Pappas 50%, Sununu 42% (Pappas +8 points)
Another of the few states Republicans thought they could flip this cycle, New Hampshire has had some crazy close results over the last 10 years, including famously in 2016, when former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by just under 3,000 votes.
Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic nominee, didn’t have the most energetic start to his campaign, but he’s consolidated base party vote and benefits from Trump’s poor approval ratings across New England.
Speaking of Trump, he endorsed the Republican candidate John Sununu earlier this year. With a New York Times interview framing him as someone who wants voters to “consider a post-Trump world” this weekend, that endorsement probably hasn’t been too helpful.
Iowa
Key polls:
New York Times/Siena, Oct 23-Nov 1: Turek 48%, Hinson 47% (Turek +1 point)
CNN/SSRS, Sep 29-Oct 5: Turek 43%, Hinson 45% (Hinson +2 points)
We don’t need to remind you about taking polls as gospel in Iowa. It was this time two years ago that the Des Moines Register poll showed Harris up four points, going against the grain of every other poll that season and landing with a thud when Trump won the state by 13 points.
Iowa just isn’t the battleground it used to be, even with a great candidate like State Rep. Josh Turek on the ballot.
He’s competing against Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who was one of the first GOP candidates to call for an end to the war – a smart move, sure, but also a sure sign that the Republicans see this as a very close race.
If Turek is able to get this win, it’ll be on the same themes across the Midwest: gas, diesel, and groceries.
Kansas
Key poll: Washington Post/Schar, Oct 22-26: Hamilton 52%, Marshall 43% (Hamilton +9 points)
This looked like a seat too far for Democrats: Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat in the Senate since 1932. It’s also one of the toughest states for the party to win in the Midwest. The rural vote overwhelms the limited urban parts of the state.
At the same time, consider the candidates: Adam Hamilton is a seasoned performer thanks to his history as a megachurch pastor and has built a platform tailored for Kansas voters (“Lower costs, protect healthcare, listen to Kansas.”)
You can’t say the same about Senator Roger Marshall, who is spending the last week of the campaign defending his history of sending former patients of his to debt collectors. Woof.
It’s close, but Hamilton has a real chance of winning this race.
Michigan
Key polls:
CNN/SSRS, Oct 20-27: El-Sayed 49%, Rogers 42% (El-Sayed +7 points)
Fox News, Sep 24-28: El-Sayed 50%, Rogers 49% (El-Sayed +1 point)
With Democrats looking for wins in so much conservative territory this year, it can be hard to remember that Michigan is also a Trump-voting state (he won by 1.4 points in the last election). Even in a good year for Democrats, a win is no sure thing.
But this race is close for a different reason: the Trump base hates Abdul El-Sayed and has shown a lot more excitement about this race than in the other states in the Midwest.
El-Sayed’s job got harder over the weekend when Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens decided to cross party lines and endorse the Republican, Mike Rogers.
Every major Democrat has united behind El-Sayed, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who called Stevens’ decision a “despicable betrayal.”
Minnesota
Key poll: New York Times/Siena, Oct 19-26: Flanagan 54%, Tafoya 40% (Flanagan +14 points)
Republicans got excited about Minnesota’s Senate race when Michele Tafoya entered the field. The former NFL sideline reporter is about as strong a candidate as the GOP could have hoped for, but she’s still a Republican in a blue-leaning state.
The Democratic candidate, Peggy Flanagan, is the state’s lieutenant governor. With so much talk about fraud in the North Star State, the burden has been on her to make sure that moderates show up.
The latest Times/Siena poll says that they will, even if the newspaper’s own pollsters suggested that it could be closer than their results indicated.
Nebraska
Key poll: New York Times/Siena, Oct 23-29: Osborn 43%, Ricketts 49% (Ricketts +6 points)
Can Dan Osborn become the first true independent since 1936 to win a U.S. Senate race? He’s giving it another shot this year, and in a dramatically better political environment. Gas and diesel prices have affected Nebraska voters even more than most, making this a competitive race.
Republicans still have advantages. For one thing… it’s Nebraska. Trump won this state by over 20 points two years ago. Osborn also faces a tougher challenger this year in Pete Ricketts, who is a local institution. Osborn also had some missteps on the trail, including leaked audio exposing his views on some Trump voters.
Texas
Key polls:
CNN/SSRS, Oct 19-26: Talarico 49%, Paxton 43% (Talarico +6 points)
Fox News, Oct 15-19: Talarico 49%, Paxton 49% (Tie)
Ask any Democrat what they think is going to happen tomorrow night and they will tell you they’re most worried about Texas.
That has nothing to do with the candidate: James Talarico has been a focused and polished fighter for Texas on the trail; he put the GOP’s talking points about his “woke” history aside early, and avoided a prolonged fight with Rep. Jasmine Crockett after the primary.
It’s because it’s Texas, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic Senator in 32 years. In fact, the Lone Star State hasn’t voted for any statewide Democrats in 32 years. We’re hopeful about blue Texas. But we’ll wait to see the votes before we believe it.
Alaska
Key poll: New York Times/Siena, Oct 23-Nov 1: Peltola 48%, Sullivan 46% (Peltola +2 points)
Republicans think they have found a last-minute twist in the Alaska Senate race after the New York Times reported that operatives aligned with Peltola’s campaign spent “months” recruiting candidates with the same name as incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan (they did, and he’s on the ballot as an “undeclared” candidate tomorrow).
Whatever you make of that story, the reality is that Senator Sullivan has had every chance to distance himself from Trump’s policies and declined to do so. He’s on board with tariffs, this war, all of it.
This race has tightened over the last month: Peltola was up 7 points in an October Siena poll. Now she’s up 2 points.
I am so excited, like a kid at Christmas. I have done my part, donated to numerous Senate Races all just ready to flip. This RN from pittsburgh is all in to take the House and Senate so we can clip trumps nuts.