We're now counting down to the midterms, and it promises right now to be a challenging contest.
While the House races in the midterms historically tend to run against the party in power, it's the Senate races that are raising some concern for the GOP as well.
The RealClearPolitics aggregate polling has the Republicans trailing in eight battleground Senate races.
Republicans are down 2 points in Alaska, 7.5 points in Georgia, 2.3 points in Maine, 1.8 points in Michigan, 2.6 points in Ohio, 2 points in New Hampshire, 8 points in North Carolina, and 1.9 points in Texas, according to the latest RCP polling aggregate data of the Senate races.
One bright spot for the party is Rep. Ashley Hinson’s (R-Iowa) 1.4 percentage-point lead in the Hawkeye State over Josh Turek. The problem is Iowa appears to be far more competitive than it had been during recent cycles.
Democrats currently hold three of the battleground seats in contention, while Republicans have the other six. All of the battleground races in the RCP aggregate, except Georgia and North Carolina, are within what would usually be the margin of error in a typical poll.
Democrats hold three of those seats — Georgia, New Hampshire, and Michigan; Republicans hold six. Democrats would need to hold all their seats and flip four.
But there are reasons to feel positive and not take those numbers at face value.
Now, as we've seen, polling is not always accurate.
As we saw in Michigan in the primary, polls had Abdul El-Sayed up by 10 points; he only just squeaked by with a one-point difference.
Moreover, the polls have historically underestimated Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). In her 2020 race, they had her opponent up in all the polls, some by double digits. Yet Collins won by almost nine points. If she's "behind" by 2.3 to Troy Jackson, her Democrat opponent, that tends to make me believe she's up. I think that's the one, in my opinion, that I'm least worried about. The Democrats also torched themselves when they initially put up Graham Platner, and Jackson has some of his own issues. I think it's very likely that the voters will view going with Collins as the more secure bet.
There are also other reasons to question the numbers.
In that analysis, Echelon pollster Patrick Ruffini noted that 3,312 polls had, on average, overestimated Democrats by 3.7 points over the past four election cycles. During the summer, the error rate was about 5.9 percentage points.
Republicans are sitting on a massive cash advantage over Democrats between President Trump’s super PACS and the official party groups that haven’t been fully put to work yet. There are also questions about how much one-time trillionaire Elon Musk will dip into his deep pockets.
Then, too, Democrats have held onto Michigan for decades, but the Republicans have a great chance of flipping the seat there. The Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, is a strong candidate, and Abdul El-Sayed is an incredibly problematic one for the Democrats. I think that could very well flip.
Plus, New Hampshire is another one where the Republicans could grab it with John Sununu, who has a big family name in the state and a strong platform.
The most problematic one for the Republicans is likely North Carolina, and I admit to concern about Texas. I know everyone always assumes "it's Texas" so they don't need to worry. But that only works if we're hammering away to the voters what a disaster James Talarico would be.
It's important to drive home what a threat the Democrats pose to our basic constitutional order with their embrace of radicals like Talarico and the extreme socialists. But even the so-called "establishment" legislators are talking about targeting the Supreme Court once they get into power. That alone should have everyone running to the polls to vote to stop that.
But remember, at the base of it all, it's always the economy, and Republicans need to emphasize the good things happening and their positive policies. They need to drive home what a train wreck we had when the Democrats were in charge under Joe Biden; that Democrats talk about "affordability," but if they regain power, they will tax us to perdition and spend all their time going after President Donald Trump.
Remind everyone: They talk about taxing "billionaires" to pump up class war. But they will come for you, as El-Sayed indicates here.
NBC: "You are effectively acknowledging that people making less than a million dollars could see their taxes go up...is that a yes?"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 9, 2026
EL-SAYED: "We’d be paying for healthcare in a different way..." pic.twitter.com/vSdUoF7631
