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Democrats are targeting G.O.P. strongholds that could set them up for new majorities. But if they don’t win those races now, it could be a long time before they have another chance.
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· 7:59 min
By Carl Hulse
Carl Hulse covered his first Senate race in 1986.
Oct. 26, 2026Updated 2:19 p.m. ET
Senator Roger Marshall, the first-term Republican incumbent, is under siege in Kansas with the midterms just days off. Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas and the state’s attorney general, is embroiled in multiple unsavory scandals and struggling.
Polls also show Democratic Senate candidates running strong in Iowa and Alaska, and on the cusp of victory in North Carolina, playing offense in what should be safe Republican terrain. At the same time, independent candidates are within striking distance of Republican Senate candidates in Montana, Nebraska and even South Dakota.
“This is as good a political environment as Democrats could ever wish,” said Amy Walter, the editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, “and as bad as Republicans could ever imagine.”
Yet with the exception of North Carolina, it is far from certain that Democrats can pull off a single upset in any of the red states typically considered out of reach for them. They are competing not only against individual Republicans but also against ideological and structural advantages that have turned those states into reliable G.O.P. strongholds and locked down the Senate map in recent years.
It wasn’t long ago that Nebraska, Montana, Iowa, the Dakotas and Alaska were represented by Democratic senators. But Republicans have solidified their grip on those states, suggesting that if Democrats cannot make inroads in this election, when Republicans are on the ropes, it could be some time before they again have such an opening.
“If you can’t win under these conditions, you ain’t gonna win for a long time,” said Jon Tester, the former Democratic senator from Montana who lost his seat in 2024 after three terms as his state moved away from Democrats. He pointed to anti-Trump fervor, soaring fuel costs and the economic struggles of everyday Americans as reasons Republicans were highly vulnerable on their home turf.
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Source: The New York Times · Carl Hulse
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