Democrats face “few opportunities” to win back the Senate majority in next year’s midterm elections, a top non-partisan political handicapper predicts.
While the Republicans are defending seats in 22 states in 2026 compared to just 13 for the Democrats, the Cook Report’s first Senate rankings of the new election cycle points to a tough road ahead for the Democrats as they aim to recapture control of the chamber.
Senate Republicans enjoyed a very favorable map in the 2024 cycle as they flipped four seats from blue to red and stormed to a 53-47 majority in the new Congress, to go along with President Donald Trump’s recapturing of the White House and the GOP’s successful defense of their razor-thin House majority.
Cook Report Senate and governors editor Jessica Taylor, looking to a new Senate battle, suggested that “the challenge for Democrats to net the four seats necessary to win back the majority looks Herculean.”
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Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is interviewed by Fox News Digital at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
The Cook Report ranks two seats as toss-ups, and both are controlled by the Democrats.
They are in the battlegrounds of Michigan – where Democrat Sen. Gary Peters announced two weeks ago that he would not seek re-election in 2026 – and Georgia – where Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff faces a rough road to securing a second six-year term in the Senate.
Trump flipped Michigan in last November’s election, while then-Rep. Elissa Slotkin narrowly edged Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in the race to succeed longtime fellow Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Rogers is now seriously mulling a second straight bid for the Senate.
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In Georgia, which Trump also flipped after losing the state in his 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden, the Cook Report calls Ossoff “the most endangered incumbent overall.”
State and national Republicans are urging popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp – who is term-limited in 2026 – to challenge Ossoff.
The Cook Report ranks the key New England swing state of New Hampshire as Lean Democrat.
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire speaks before then-President Joe Biden arrives to deliver remarks on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 in Concord, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Longtime Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor, has yet to announce if she will seek another term in office. Additionally, while plugged in Democrats in the Granite State have told Fox News the past couple of months that they expected the now-78-year-old Shaheen to run for re-election, her recently announced sparse fundraising for the fourth quarter of last year took many politicos by surprise.
Former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who served as ambassador to New Zealand during Trump’s first term in the White House, is making moves toward launching a second run for the Senate in New Hampshire, a dozen years after narrowly losing to Shaheen.
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While no Republican held Senate seats are listed as toss-ups, two are rated by the Cook Report as Lean Republican.
They are Maine, where moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins is running for re-election in a state Trump lost last November, and North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is seeking another term in a state Trump narrowly carried last year.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine heads to the Senate floor for a vote on Jan. 23, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
While Cook lists both races as Lean Republican, Taylor notes that “the rating could change if Democrats recruit strong candidates.”
Those Democratic candidates could possibly be former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who finished his second term earlier this year, and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who is term-limited in 2026.
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When it comes to potentially competitive races, the Cook Report ranks Ohio as likely Republican. GOP Gov. Mike DeWine last month named Lt. Jon Husted to fill the seat previously held by now-Vice President JD Vance. Husted is now running in 2026 to fill the final two years of Vance’s term.
Once a key battleground state, Ohio has shifted to deep red in recent election cycles and its unclear if former longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost his re-election last year, will make another bid in 2026.
Cook also lists Minnesota – where Democrat Sen. Tina Smith is up for re-election next year – as a likely Democrat.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said last November that he’d “like to see 55,” when asked in a Fox News Digital interview about how many seats he was aiming for in the 2026 midterms.
Additionally, this past weekend at the Senate GOP campaign committee’s winter meeting, Scott reiterated that “we believe we can get to 55 or maybe even stretch for 56,” according to sources attending the confab in Palm Beach, Florida.
The party in power – which this cycle is clearly the Republicans – traditionally faces electoral headwinds in the midterm elections.
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However, Taylor, pointing to recent polling, notes that the Democrats’ “party brand is… deeply unpopular.”
“Even if Democrats were able to defend every incumbent and open seat on their side and flip both those states, it would leave them two short of an outright majority. Additional targets are hard to find,” Taylor emphasized.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
