Holy Shamoley! (part 2)
About 40 Days Out: Can Democrats Take Back the Senate?
Last month, Holy Shamoley! asked a question that had suddenly become much less far-fetched: Could Democrats take back the Senate in November?
At the time, the answer was that the Senate had become genuinely competitive, with more than one plausible path to the four Republican-held seats Democrats need for a majority.
Since then, the national polling environment has strengthened, several Senate races have moved, and some states that weren’t central to the original path have become increasingly important. Recent polling has made races in places including Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska particularly noteworthy.
So, with about 40 days to go, we went back to the last midterm election during a Trump presidency and asked two questions:
What did the electoral landscape look like at this point in 2018 — and what looks different in 2026?
About 40 days out: 2018 versus 2026
We’re comparing 2026 with 2018 because 2018 was the last midterm election during a Trump presidency — making it a particularly useful historical comparison for the political environment we’re seeing now.
Here’s an interesting place to begin.
At approximately this point in 2018, Democrats held about a 7.5-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot — the national polling question that asks voters which party they would support for Congress.
Today, RealClearPolling’s* average has Democrats ahead by 8.7 points, 50.6% to 41.9%. Silver Bulletin’s* September 25 average was D+8.1, or D+8.8 after its likely-voter adjustment. Different averages use different methods, but they are describing a broadly similar national environment.
And RealClearPolling’s direct historical comparison makes the contrast especially easy to see: on September 25, its generic-ballot average was D+7.5 in 2018 and D+8.7 in 2026.
What happened after the comparable point in 2018?
The Democratic advantage didn’t disappear. Democrats ultimately won the national House vote by 8.4 points and gained 41 House seats, taking control of the chamber.
That does not mean an eight- or nine-point polling advantage in 2026 will produce another 41-seat gain.
District boundaries are different. Candidates are different. Incumbency matters. Where each party’s voters live matters. And polling averages are measurements, not election results.
We’re using 2018 as historical context — not as a prediction of 2026.
But something very different happened in the Senate
Despite that strong Democratic national environment in 2018, Democrats didn’t take the Senate.
In fact, Republicans increased their Senate majority.
The problem wasn’t simply the national political environment. It was the Senate map. Democrats were defending an unusually large number of seats, including seats in states Donald Trump had carried.
At roughly this stage of the campaign, FiveThirtyEight’s* forecast generally gave Republicans about a two-thirds to 70% chance of retaining Senate control; by October 9, that had risen to 79%.
And that’s where the 2026 comparison gets interesting.
Look at the 2026 Senate map
FiftyPlusOne 2026 Senate forecast via 270toWin. This map updates as the forecast changes.
Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the Senate.
The striking development isn’t that Democrats are certain to get those four seats. They aren’t.
It’s that there are now several different combinations of states that could conceivably produce them.
Among Republican-held seats, competitive races include North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Maine, Iowa and Alaska. Other analysts have recently added states such as Kansas to the broader competitive picture.
And Democrats have seats of their own to defend, including competitive contests in Michigan and New Hampshire, while Georgia remains an important Democratic-held race even though recent polling there has been considerably more favorable to incumbent Jon Ossoff.
That’s an important change from the picture earlier in the election cycle.
Democrats no longer have to rely on one very narrow combination of exactly the right four Republican-held states becoming winnable.
They do, however, still have to win enough of them — without losing Democratic-held seats elsewhere.
Wait — Texas? Iowa? Alaska?
Yes.
And this is where Holy Shamoley! earns its name.
Texas
The RealClearPolling* average through September 22 has Democrat James Talarico ahead of Republican Ken Paxton by 3 points, 47.6% to 44.6%.
More interesting than any one poll is the consistency: the eight individual polls included in that average all showed Talarico ahead, by margins ranging from one to six points.
Texas is still Texas, polling can miss, and three points is hardly an insurmountable margin.
But a competitive Texas Senate race is no longer based on one eyebrow-raising poll.
Iowa
This one comes with a flashing MORE DATA PLEASE sign.
The RealClearPolling* average has Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson essentially tied — Turek 44.7%, Hinson 44.3%.
But the individual polls vary enormously. A recent Marist poll had Turek ahead by eight; other recent polls have put Hinson ahead.
So Iowa belongs on the watch list — but we’d like more polling before drawing much from it.
Alaska
Alaska is another surprise.
The current RealClearPolling* average has Democrat Mary Peltola ahead of Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by 2.3 points, although the individual polls disagree about the leader.
Alaska also uses ranked-choice voting, making simple head-to-head polling less straightforward than it would be in many states.
In other words:
Watch Alaska. Don’t engrave anything.
What are the election models seeing?
This is where we need to introduce something with the wonderfully improbable name FLIPR.
FLIPR is Silver Bulletin’s* 2026 election forecasting model, created by Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson. It combines polling with other information and runs thousands of simulated elections to estimate how often different outcomes occur.
It is a model, not a crystal ball — and other forecasters use different methods and can reach different conclusions.
What’s interesting for our purposes isn’t treating any particular forecast number as an answer.
It’s watching how the model has moved as the evidence has changed.
When FLIPR launched in August, its headline model gave Democrats about a 57% chance of Senate control. In early September, that fell to essentially 50–50.
Then the direction changed.
By mid-September, improved Democratic polling in Texas, Ohio and Michigan, together with a stronger generic ballot, had moved the model noticeably toward Democrats. By September 20, Silver reported that all three versions of FLIPR put Democratic Senate-control chances between roughly 63% and 69%, with the headline “Deluxe” model around 65%.
Again, the important point isn’t whether the number is 54%, 60%, 65% or something else.
Why did it move?
Because the underlying polling and the number of competitive races moved.
And not everyone interprets that evidence the same way. Traditional race handicappers such as the Cook Political Report* have remained more cautious about the Senate than polling-based models.
That’s worth remembering.
Different forecasting methods can look at much of the same evidence and reach different assessments of the uncertainty.
And what about the House?
Here’s another Holy Shamoley from just the last few days.
On September 25, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report* changed its ratings in 15 House races.
Every one of those changes was in the Democratic direction.
After those changes, Cook’s ratings had 208 seats in the Solid, Likely or Lean Democratic categories and 205 in the corresponding Republican categories, with the remaining 22 races rated Toss Ups.
Republicans currently hold the House, and Democrats need a net gain of three seats for a majority.
That doesn’t determine the result either. Individual Toss Up races can go either way, and money, candidates, local conditions and turnout can all matter.
But the House ratings movement and the national generic ballot are pointing in the same broad direction.
So what does all this mean?
It means the political landscape has changed. It does not mean the outcome is settled.
Forty days is plenty of time for races to move. Polls have margins of error. Polling errors can occur across several states at once. Campaign spending matters. Candidates matter. Turnout matters.
And 2018 itself provides a useful warning against looking at a favorable national environment and assuming that every part of the country — or every chamber of Congress — will move the same way.
But today’s numbers aren’t wishful thinking either.
They are actual polling results from multiple organizations, changes in individual state races, a national generic-ballot advantage visible across several polling averages, and House race ratings that have recently moved substantially. The Senate map now contains several competitive Republican-held seats rather than one narrow four-state route.
There are reasons for hope. There are no reasons for complacency.
We don’t need to predict the election.
We need to participate in it.
Vote as early as your state allows. Help another eligible American vote. And keep doing both for as long as we can.
Then, on November 3, the voters get to tell us what this remarkable map actually meant.
Holy Shamoley, indeed.
About our polling and forecasting sources
RealClearPolling (RCP): A long-running polling aggregator that combines multiple public polls into polling averages. We use averages rather than relying on a single poll because they can provide a broader picture of a race. Its historical data also lets us compare the 2026 generic ballot with the same point in previous midterm elections.
Silver Bulletin / Nate Silver: Silver Bulletin produces polling averages that weight polls using factors including pollster reliability, sample size and recency. Nate Silver previously founded FiveThirtyEight and developed its election-forecasting system. We use Silver Bulletin as a second way of examining the polling environment and for its FLIPR election model.
Cook Political Report: An independent, nonpartisan publication that has analyzed U.S. elections for decades. Its race ratings incorporate factors including the political makeup of a state or district, candidates, the national environment and reporting from campaigns. We use Cook primarily as an expert race-rating source rather than as a polling average.
FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver founded FiveThirtyEight and developed its election-forecasting system. We refer to its archived 2018 forecast because we want to know what forecasters could see at that point in the 2018 campaign — without using hindsight from the eventual election result.