Senate Democrats have a problem: The 2026 map is bleak.
In order to take back the Senate majority, Democrats need to pick up four seats in 2026. By most accounts, they have just two outright pickup opportunities — maybe three. And they have to defend in Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff faces his first reelection bid, and in Michigan, where Sen. Gary Peters is retiring. (Republicans also think they could compete in Minnesota and New Hampshire, where current Democratic senators are retiring.)
But Democrats are hoping a mixture of ambition, Donald Trump and a bit of luck can change the current calculus.
“We need to be relentlessly focused on winning in places where we haven’t won for several cycles,” Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota told NOTUS.
“We have to figure out how to win again in those places,” she added. “A lot of people are thinking about it.”
The conventional wisdom on the 2026 Senate map is that Democrats have legitimate chances in North Carolina and Maine, where GOP Sens. Thom Tillis and Susan Collins are up for reelection.
North Carolina has grown increasingly purple in recent years. And while Maine voters have repeatedly rewarded Collins and her moderate voting record with reelection, her state is even bluer.
Some Democrats still think Ohio is in play, despite the state trending redder in recent years. If former Sen. Sherrod Brown runs — after losing in 2024 to Bernie Moreno — many think he could compete against Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to the position after JD Vance became vice president.
The Cook Political Report, a highly regarded election handicapping publication, ranks Tillis’ and Collins’ races as “Lean R.” It rates Ohio as “Likely R.”
But every other Republican up for reelection in 2026 is listed as “Solid R.” That includes states that Democrats tried to flip just last cycle, like Florida and Texas, where Sens. Ashley Moody and John Cornyn are up for reelection.
Both Senate races in those states last year went to Republicans by healthy margins, and cost Democrats millions.
This cycle, Republicans are feeling fairly confident, even if they’ve been in this position before and failed to deliver their ideal results. (Last election, Senate Democrats managed to win in four states where Trump won: Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin. But Republicans flipped West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, taking back the Senate majority.)
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez wrote in a statement: “The Democrat brand is so toxic their incumbents couldn’t flee the Senate fast enough. While the NRSC is working tirelessly with our incumbents and challengers to hold and expand the Republican Senate majority, Democrats are dealing with the most vulnerable incumbent on the map in Georgia and messy primaries in states they need to hold.”
Senate Democrats themselves didn’t have many specifics on how they’d make up their pickup opportunity deficit. Some acknowledged expanding the map would be key.
When NOTUS asked Sen. Mark Kelly about his hopes to pick up seats outside of Maine and North Carolina, he said he wants to win “all of them.”
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin took the question only a little more seriously, saying he’d have to look at the map more “carefully” to figure where Democrats could expand their ambitions.
And Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Maeve Coyle told NOTUS in a statement that “Democrats have a Senate map that is ripe with offensive opportunities, particularly when coupled with the building midterm backlash against Republicans driven by their threats to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and their push to raise costs.”
“Republicans have more seats to defend, and they’re doing it in a hostile political environment,” she added.
Of course, Democrats hope — and expect — that Trump’s second term policies will drive voter turnout. The 2018 midterms, after Trump spent much of his first year in office trying to dismantle Obamacare and almost every week creating some new controversy, was a blue wave for Democrats. Multiple lawmakers pointed to Trump’s controversial tariff plan as a potential catalyst for putting additional states in play.
“I don’t have states off hand,” Peters, a two-time Senate Democratic campaign arm chair, said of states outside of North Carolina and Maine. “But given what we’re seeing politically, especially the impact of these tariffs, if they continue … you would definitely see an expansion of the map.”
Sen. Tim Kaine said if Trump’s tariffs go on another 90 days, they might “create some races that, right now, might not look like races, but it will open up.”
But there’s an important factor to consider: races change.
Nineteen months out from an election, there’s no telling how voters may be feeling. Bad candidates could become the nominee on one side, a great candidate could become the nominee on the other. Trump’s popularity could severely wane. And an economic downturn — or a war — could reshape how voters view the parties.
Just a few years ago, Kentucky’s Senate race between Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Amy McGrath was all the rage before McGrath lost by nearly 20 percentage points. McConnell’s seat is up again this year, with the former GOP leader opting for retirement. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, could make the race competitive, though he’s said he doesn’t intend to run.
There’s also Alabama, where GOP candidate Roy Moore in 2017 fumbled his race in spectacular fashion after reports of inappropriate behavior with underage girls. Democrat Doug Jones won, but seeing as it was a special election to fill a vacated seat, he was replaced by conservative Sen. Tommy Tuberville just three years later. Tuberville is up for reelection again in 2026 but may run for governor instead.
Texas could arguably become more competitive if Cornyn loses his primary against Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running to the senator’s right. But Democrats have fallen for the Texas mirage many times.
There are stories like that for a number of other 2026 races. Sen. Joni Ernst is up for reelection in Iowa, which was a fairly swingy state not so long ago. Sen. Pete Ricketts in Nebraska could face off with independent candidate Dan Osborn. (Osborn gave Republican Sen. Deb Fischer a run for her money last cycle, after Nebraska looked solidly Republican for most of the cycle.)
And of course, those things could always cut the other way, with Democrats becoming more unpopular as Republicans make inroads.
But, for now, the map is the map. And it would take a real political realignment for Democrats to win back the Senate majority.
Not that it hasn’t happened before.
“It used to be that we had Democrats — and I’m just speaking broadly — in Iowa, and Missouri, and North Carolina, and North Dakota, and South Dakota, and Ohio,” Sen. Smith said.
She later added Alaska to her list of potential pickups, noting there’s a “very independent-minded electorate” in the state.
“I think for sure we have opportunities there,” she said.
But as Smith also noted, winning in those states would take long-term investment from Democrats.
The Minnesota senator said she’s recently spoken with the Democratic National Committee’s chair, Ken Martin, about “what it takes” to do that.
“It’s not something you just turn on in the last four months,” she said. “You’ve got to build it up. That’s what the Republicans have done, and we need to do it in ways that are really connecting with voters.”
“In ways that, frankly, I don’t think we have,” Smith added. “I think we’ve swung and missed at that.”
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS.