Democrat Desperation in the Battle for the Senate

Uh oh. Josh Kraushaar, a center-left reporter who specializes in Congress, recently acknowledged the obvious about the 2026 battle for the U.S. Senate:

This is an extraordinarily tough Senate map for the Democrats. Even though the party is in a very historically favorable national environment, the reality is it would take a tsunami for Democrats to win more than two Senate seats.

This is what I have been saying for a while. The Republicans have a 53 to 47-seat majority in the Senate, with 35 seats up this year. The Democrats need a net pick up of four seats to win control. But only two Republican seats – Maine and North Carolina – are in competitive states. The other 20 GOP seats are in states Donald Trump won by double digits. That almost never happens in Senate elections, let alone twice. In the 2025 Virginia elections, the Democrats won a landslide, but they didn’t carry a single district where Trump won with that margin.

The Democrats also must not lose any of their own competitive seats. And in the blue wave of 2018, the Democrats lost Florida. This year, they could lose Georgia, Michigan, and/or New Hampshire.

Further, the GOP is going to have a yuge edge in funding.

Georgia Primary Overview: It's Runoff Central With a Few Bright Lights

But let’s go to some recent updates:

Alaska: Dan Sullivan / 54% R / Lean R

Former Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola is challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The RCP average shows the two deadlocked. Alaska has the strange Ranked Choice Voting system, instituted by rogue Republican Lisa Murkowski to keep her in office, which the Democrats are desperately trying to rig in their favor. They did so by initiating the candidacy of a Dan J. Sullivan as a Republican candidate. However, Alaska’s top elections official struck that candidacy down, saying that Dan J. Sullivan was ineligible to appear on the August primary ballot for the Senate race because his candidacy was “not filed in good faith” but instead “with the purpose of confusing or misleading the electorate.” The key to this case may have been that the originally non-Republican Dan J. Sullivan tried to register on the ballot as Republican “Dan S. Sullivan,” which is the incumbent Senator’s full name.

Georgia: Jon Ossoff / 50.61% D / Lean D

Yesterday’s runoff primary election finally identified the Republican nominee to challenge Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff – Rep. Mike Collins. But Collins’ road to final victory will not be easy. Sen. Ossoff is one of the leading fundraisers in the nation, having raised $60 million so far and entering May with nearly $33 million on hand. Collins has less than $2 million. Georgia is also a battleground state, and this year, the GOP is still down in the national polling (although by varying margins). The only major positive thing for Collins is the state polling, which has shown him to be very competitive.

Maine: Susan Collins / 50.98% R / Tilt R

Since the “Oyster Führer" Graham Platner easily won his primary to oppose Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the Republicans have begun to unload their accumulated oppo research on him. It turns out the Nazi cruelly mocked a teenage girl’s suicide attempt in a Reddit post. He has also previously boasted of masturbating in porta-potties, praised Hamas, and said a Purple Heart recipient “didn’t deserve to live.” Even after getting married, he was sexting and dating other women. He maintained an account on a private messaging app associated with casual sex, anonymous encounters, and occasionally, child sexual abuse Everything about Platner, including his “war hero status,” his oysterman job, and his claim to be a working class man are total frauds — the “truth is he was discovered and coached by a pair of Ivy League-educated radical Democratic socialists, replicating a playbook they’ve used in Nebraska and Iowa.” The sheer amount of phoniness and scandal is beginning to drag down the Nazi, as shown by drooping polling numbers, which will inevitably affect his current RCP average lead. Remember, Collins never led in the polling of her successful reelection race in 2020.

Montana: Steve Daines (retiring) / Likely R

In this open seat where Republican incumbent Republican Sen. Steve Daines retired on the last day of filing to make his favored candidate, Kurt Alme, the U.S. Attorney for Montana, the GOP nominee, most Democrats are pushing an “independent” rather than their actual registered candidate. This is part of what I have labeled their “Indy Imitation Game.” The independent is Seth Bodnar, a former Green Beret and President of the University of Montana, who has the backing of the last two Democrat Senators and has raised the most money in the field. However, the official Democrat, Alani Bankhead, refuses to drop out, and this may put an end to the Democrat scheming in this solidly Republican state.

Nebraska: Pete Rickets / 62.6% R / Likely R

The Indy Imitation Game is also occurring in another solidly Republican state, Nebraska, where Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, a former governor, is being challenged by “independent” Dan Osborn. In this race, the Democrat nominee – a likely Osborn plant – beat a likely Ricketts plant in the primary and is expected to stand down eventually. Recently, Sen. Ted Cruz campaigned with Sen. Ricketts and exposed the whole game: “The Democrats are dropping millions of dollars into Nebraska, and they have one objective… to deceive the voters of Nebraska.” The same two Ivy League-educated radical Democratic socialists who discovered and coached Graham Platner in Maine also worked with Osborn.

I find it incredibly “interesting” that despite the constant drumbeat of propaganda that the Democrats are favored in the U.S. Senate, the Democrat Party is acting so frantically to stack the races in their favor using such underhanded activities as the Indy Imitation Game and their shenanigans in Alaska.

Don’t you?

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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