Senate Democrats are suddenly bullish on their chances of winning back the chamber this year despite a difficult map and needing to net four seats to regain power. That bubbling confidence may be setting the party up for an embarrassing letdown come November.
As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer now “sees an opening for Senate takeover after a rough year” thanks to the “economy” and “strong candidates.” Punchbowl News has likewise detailed how Schumer “has notched the final pieces of a complex recruitment plan, successfully persuading top-tier candidates to run for GOP-held seats.”
“We’re feeling greatand we now have a clear, strong path to winning back the Senate,” Schumer told the outlet. “A year ago, no one thought we could do that.”
For Democrats, the path to the majority runs through GOP-held seats in Alaska, Maine, Ohio, and North Carolina. The candidates Schumer and national Democrats are so excited about in those states are, respectively, former Rep. Mary Peltola, Gov. Janet Mills, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, and former Gov. Roy Cooper.
Though Republicans currently have a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, Democrats believe they can flip these four seats and not lose any they currently hold. That would mean hanging on to Jon Ossoff’s seat in Georgia and Gary Peters’s seat in Michigan, two states President Donald Trump won last year, as well as winning Tina Smith’s seat in Minnesota where recent revelations of widespread welfare fraud have already sunk incumbent Democrat governor Tim Walz’s re-election bid.
Clearly, Democrats see a “blue wave” year ahead, and the liberal party certainly has a robust lead on the generic congressional ballot (+4.3 points in the latest RealClearPolitics average). But is flipping the Senate really in play?
As favorable as some midterm polling may look, Democrats still have deep image issues to overcome. According to a RealClear poll out this month, the Republican Party is deeply unpopular, with 38.2 percent of respondents rating the party favorably and 52.5 percent rating it unfavorably. But the Democrat Party polled even worse, with just 32.5 percent rating it favorably, while 56.2 percent rated it unfavorably.
But, Democrats will respond, campaigns are run by candidates, not parties. True enough. Even on that front, however, Democrats’ candidates may not be the electoral juggernauts that Schumer and his allies hope.
Democrats are confident that Mary Peltola can win Dan Sullivan’s seat in Alaska because she won the statewide Alaska U.S. House district in 2022, becoming the first Democrat to win that seat since 1972. As the first Alaska Native to be elected to Congress and the first person born in Alaska to be elected to the House, Peltola has some strong qualities as a candidate.
But the circumstances of Peltola’s victory give plenty of reason to doubt her chances in 2026. She first won election to the House in an August 2022 special election following the death of incumbent Don Young. Special elections are notoriously low-turnout affairs, particularly in a vast, remote state like Alaska.
2022 was also the first year that Alaska implemented ranked-choice voting (RCV). Under Alaska’s RCV system, no one won a majority of first-choice votes, and Peltola ultimately prevailed after other candidates were eliminated and their second-choice preferences were redistributed. In that process, Republican Nick Begich III – who would have beaten every other candidate in head-to-head comparisons (and subsequently won the seat in 2024) – was eliminated first because he had the fewest first-place votes.
There is a strong argument to be made that Peltola benefited heavily from confusion around RCV and how second and third-place votes were distributed. That’s much less likely to come into play now four years later when voters and state parties better understand the system and how to educate voters – although RCV remains a serious concern, as AMAC Action and other conservative groups have highlighted.
Democrats appear to have their best chance at a flip in Maine. Collins occupies the only Republican seat up for re-election in 2026 in a state that Kamala Harris won last November. Collins has been sharply critical of President Trump at times, angering Republicans while failing to win over partisan Democrats. Janet Mills, the incumbent governor and Democrat nominee, squeaked out a 50.9 percent victory in 2018 before cruising to re-election with 55.7 percent of the vote in 2022.
Still, Collins leads Mills 44.5 percent to 42.5 percent in early polls, according to RealClearPolitics, although no surveys have been fielded since early December. Even here, it seems, Democrats have an uphill battle.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Sherrod Brown may be the biggest paper tiger of the “big four” candidates Democrats are hoping can hand them the majority. Brown, who served three terms in the Senate before incumbent Bernie Moreno defeated him in 2024, will be taking on Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the seat of Vice President JD Vance.
Democrats believe that Brown, a native of the Buckeye State who first won elected office there all the way back in 1974, can defeat Husted because of his extensive knowledge of the state and long history of electoral success.
But the reality is that Ohio is not the same state that it was when Brown cut his teeth as a state legislator more than 50 years ago. Once a perennial swing state, Ohio has now become solid red, with Trump winning there by 11 points in 2024. Brown’s success in the 2010s was significantly aided by running for re-election in two years that heavily favored Democrats – Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election year and the 2018 midterms.
It may well be that Brown’s 46.5 percent in 2024 is the best that Democrats can now hope for in a state that’s red and trending redder.
In North Carolina, incumbent Republican Thom Tillis’s decision to not seek re-election has Democrats hopeful that Roy Cooper, who won two terms as governor in 2016 and 2020, can swipe the seat from the GOP. Cooper will likely be taking on Michael Whatley, the former chair of the RNC who is heavily favored in primary polling.
Democrats may be discounting Whatley’s strength as a seasoned GOP operative who understands the nuts and bolts of campaigning. Cooper’s vetoes of Republican bills and slate of far-left executive policies could also prove to be a major liability.
Republicans shouldn’t get complacent, as history has shown anything is possible this far out from Election Day. And Democrats certainly have some arguments to make for why they could win any one of these races.
But winning all four still seems like a stretch – particularly given the smug confidence that Schumer is now projecting. It may be that Democrats need to learn yet again that they aren’t as popular as they might like to believe.
Shane Harris is the Editor in Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
