The Blue Wave May Be Here, but the Senate Still Looks Immune to It

It’s been some time since Labor Day, so we may have our answer about the summertime Democrat edge in the generic ballot.

It seems to be real when looking at RealClearPolitics' numbers, even if it is not spectacular (for the GOP).

Right now, we are firmly in “blue wave” territory, with the Democrats up by 8.6 percent. Granted, there are some caveats. We have seen throughout the primaries that the polling continues to over-measure leftist, white, and educated Democrats. That will surely knock off a few points when the final vote occurs, and perhaps more. And the battleground survey of competitive races only shows the Democrats up by one point, which may indicate that Democrats are running up the score among their voters in safely Democrat states/districts, while in the competitive areas, the GOP voters are more energized.

Also, there are some indications that the polling may still turn. 

Regardless, we are seeing the GOP and MAGA begin to unload their “avalanche” of cash against the Democrats: 

The No Going Back PAC has reserved $82 million, according to AdImpact. The Safety and Affordability PAC is scheduled to spend $35.7 million. And MAGA Inc. has reserved another, roughly $1 million. Those totals could easily adjust upward as the PACs plan their buys. Meanwhile, large amounts of money will come in from other GOP corners, according to my colleague Anthony DeBarros.The Senate Leadership Fund has booked $173 million, and the Congressional Leadership Fund has reserved $159 million for ad spending.

Needless to say, the GOP is still in the driver’s seat in the battle for the U.S. Senate. This is despite some weird polling in some unexpected races, such as in Kansas. And despite the Democrat sneakiness of the Indy Imitation Game. However, it is important to remember that the GOP is also doing surprisingly well in some Democrat-held seats, including Michigan, New Hampshire, and even Minnesota. 

In the upper chamber, the Republicans have a 53-to-47-seat majority, with 35 seats up. The Democrats need a net pickup 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. Picking up a double-digit seat for the opposite party rarely happens, let alone twice. Only once in modern times, in 2010, did the GOP win three such seats. 

In the 2025 Virginia elections, the Democrats won in a landslide, but they didn’t carry a single state legislative district where Trump won with that margin. 

Even during the “blue wave” of 2018, the GOP picked up Senate seats, including ousting a sitting Democrat incumbent.

In the competitive Senate races, the Republicans are outspending virtually all the Democrats. This includes Michigan and New Hampshire, but not Minnesota, where the GOP is not playing, presumably because the state is very Democratic. (But Michele Tafoya has raised a respectable amount for her own advertisements.)

Here are some recent updates:

Alaska: Dan Sullivan / 54% R / Tilt R

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is facing off against Democrat former Rep. Mary Petola on an RCV ballot. RCV was created to protect Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a renegade Republican, and is strongly supported by Democrats as it allows them to punch above their weight in Alaska. It allows four candidates on the general ballot. This year, the Democrats rigged the RCV by running a Democrat named Dan Sullivan as a “Decoy Dan Sullivan, Republican,” and having their own Democrat also-ran step down to elevate a GOP candidate to the fourth slot, to divide GOP voters. They are also providing real funding for Decoy Dan. The hope is that these shenanigans, coupled with Petola’s “moderate” reputation, will carry them to an upset victory.The RCP average has Petola up by 1.7 percent, although polling is hard to evaluate with such a wacky election process. The Justice Department is investigating possible Democrat illegality, but that is unlikely to address things before the election. I am staying at Tilt R, because the Real Dan Sullivan is a solid candidate, and the primary election was 100,000 votes short of the average general election for midterm elections, with the general ballot likely to be more Republican. 

Michigan: Gary Peters (retiring) / Tilt R

Abdul El-Sayed, the radical Muslim socialist, continues to have a horrific post-primary. El Sayed is up by 2.1 percent in the RCP average over Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers (MI-08). But El-Sayed was up a lot in the primary polls too, before he won by one point. El-Sayed continues to get enormous negative backlash for his ties to crazy individuals, not just the “streamer in California,” who is busy decrying the U.S. as “worse than al-Qaeda, pound for pound”, but also El-Sayed’s imam, who loves El-Sayed, Hamas, and jihad. The GOP is already exposing El-Sayed’s craziness and left-wing agenda, and even MSDNC is acknowledging it. El-Sayed is so bad that the Detroit News, a longtime left-wing Democrat paper, has endorsed Rogers. CNN is having a hissy fit because polling shows significant numbers of voters in Michigan won’t vote for the Muslim El-Sayed. Many of those voters may be African-American, which might explain why Kamala Harris is rushing to Michigan. Of course, El-Sayed still has his problems with the Jewish vote, another Democrat mainstay, although his people were able to round up some Jewish Democrat politicos to support him. (It’s Jews for Jihad! Which has rhyme, but no reason to it.) Considering El-Sayed is a target-rich environment for Mike Rogers, and Rogers’ forces will have a spending edge, I continue to believe that El-Sayed can only win if Rogers makes a big mistake, which he does not seem to be in danger of doing, or the Democrat tide gets too large and drags El-Sayed into office. 

Texas: John Cornyn (defeated in the primary) / Tilt R

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the primary runoff, is facing off against Democrat state Rep. James Talarico. As always, the Democrats are confident that this year, finally, they will end their almost 30-year drought in Texas, and this time, the polling is looking good for them. The RCP shows Talarico with a 47.9 to 45 percent lead over Paxton. Paxton is not a particularly good candidate – even President Trump makes fun of him – but Talarico, despite having some charisma, is far out of step with the average Texas voter. Talarico recently was revealed to have a favorite drag queen, and is fixated on his “whiteness, and masculinity” which he believes limit his “imagination about what is possible.” He has talked about God being nonbinary, and there being six genders. He also has his own potential corruption problem. And after having the airwaves to himself since the runoff primary, Talarico is now being swamped by the GOP which is running tough ads against him. 

My conclusion: Although I have lowered the ranking here to Tilt R based on the polling, I still expect Ken Paxton to win, as the polling also shows that the undecided are largely Republicans, and the state is far too conservative for Talarico’s leftism.

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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