With Republicans holding a 53–47 majority in the U.S. Senate, Democrats must pick up a net of four Senate seats in order to gain a majority on Election Day. Two weeks out from the election, Senate races are tightening in key contests across the country.
The contentious Michigan Senate race has progressive Abdul El-Sayed leading former Congressman Mike Rogers by a narrow 2.6 percentage points in the latest Real Clear Polling average. An Insider Advantage survey of 1,200 likely voters from Oct. 9–10 shows El-Sayed leading Rogers by just two points, 48 percent to 46 percent.
Comparing a Quantus Insights survey conducted Oct. 5–6 to exit polls for the Michigan governor’s race four years ago, El-Sayed is struggling to pick up swing voters that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won by wide double-digit margins. Suburbanites have flipped since 2022 according to the poll. While Whitmer won suburban voters by nine points, they now plan to support Rogers by two points.
El-Sayed is also underperforming compared to Whitmer among women, college-educated voters, and Black voters, signaling that Democrats’ risky choice in rallying behind El-Sayed in the primary may backfire on Election Day.
The decline in the Black vote for the Democratic candidate could make the Michigan Senate race closer than expected. While El-Sayed captures the overwhelming majority of Black voters in the Quantus survey — leading Rogers by 64 points, 79 percent to 15 percent — that lead for the Democratic party has shrunk since 2022.
Whitmer won the Black vote by 88 points in 2022 (94 percent to 6 percent). With Mike Rogers polling at 15 percent among Black voters, the vote for Republicans has more than doubled. The Democratic advantage has shrunk from an 88-point margin for Whitmer to a 64-point margin for El-Sayed.
CNN echoed this sentiment on Oct. 20, warning that Democrats are worried the Michigan U.S. Senate race will feel “far closer than it should” due to slippage among Black voters.
This is worrying for Democrats because Michigan is central to the party’s natural path to retake the U.S. Senate in November. If Democrats forfeit the Senate seat held by outgoing Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, they will need to go an alternative route through states that are likely much more challenging than Michigan.
In Texas, the latest Insider Advantage survey from Oct. 13–14 finds Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton tied with James Talarico, 48.5 percent to 48.1 percent, in a race that keeps narrowing. Paxton secures men by six points, 51 percent to 45 percent, while Talarico secures women, 50.7 percent to 46.2 percent. Talarico wins Latinos by 24.6 points, 61 percent to 36.4 percent.
Paxton wins a relatively large share of Black voters, securing 31 percent of the Black vote in the survey, while Talarico wins 66.6 percent. Using the 2022 Texas governor’s race as a benchmark, Talarico is performing far worse among Black voters than the 2022 Democratic nominee, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke won 84 percent of the Black vote while Gov. Greg Abbott won 15 percent, according to CNN exit poll data.
The latest Real Clear Polling average places Talarico ahead of Paxton by just 2.2 percentage points in a race that has narrowed since early October.
In Maine, the latest Insider Advantage poll from Oct. 13–14 has GOP Sen. Susan Collins trailing Democratic challenger Troy Jackson by 2.5 points, 46.8 percent to 49.3 percent.
The survey shows Collins winning men by nearly ten points (53.1 percent to 43.3 percent) and winning independents by about half a percent (47 percent to 46.4 percent) — well within the margin of error. The survey reveals Collins picking up relatively large swaths of minority voters, despite minorities making up a smaller share of the electorate in Maine than in other battleground races. Collins wins 13.7 percent of Hispanics and 31.7 percent of Black voters in the survey, though minorities make up a relatively small share of the sample.
The latest Real Clear Polling average has Troy Jackson ahead of Susan Collins by just 1.6 percentage points, putting Democrats in jeopardy in Maine as well as Michigan.
In Alaska, a state President Trump carried by 13 percentage points in 2024 and a state that Democrats could use to carve an alternate path if their path through Michigan fails, the Insider Advantage poll from Oct. 9–10 has former Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola ahead of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan by 5.6 points, 48.2 percent to 42.6 percent.
The survey shows the two candidates splitting the youth vote (40.7 percent for Sullivan to 40 percent for Peltola) and Sullivan winning 35.3 percent of the Alaska Native vote. Peltola performs well among independents, collecting 56.2 percent of the independent vote to Sullivan’s 34.7 percent.
The Iowa Senate race is in a dead heat, with Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson leading Democratic State Representative Josh Turek by 0.1 percent in the latest Real Clear Polling average. Hinson is ahead by three points in the Coefficent survey of 863 likely voters conducted Oct. 15–19, winning 49 percent of the vote to Turek’s 45 percent.
With Election Day two weeks away, the path to retaking the U.S. Senate for Democrats is plausible, but far from written in stone. Polling reveals serious deficits for Democrats, particularly among Black voters in Michigan and Texas. While the decline may not be enough to shift those races, it certainly could be. That could force Democrats to take alternate routes through states where the races are narrowing.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
