The Movers and Shakers of 2026: Senate Math Edition

Plenty of polling portents for the consummate news hound.

The Movers and Shakers of 2026 is a multi-part series examining the most important and contentious races heading down the electoral pipeline. So far, we’ve covered:

Potential upset Senate races in New Hampshire and Michigan,

Georgia and Maine as the big toss-up states for Senate control.

The Senate Showdown, doing the election math, and

The heady California gubernatorial primary.

Just two more Senate seats remain in our close race rundown.  Senate Democrats only need to gain a net of three upper chamber seats to create a tie, so every race counts. Here’s our last duo of contests, and then we’ll get busy with the electoral math to see if we can gain some clarity on the ultimate balance of power.

Ohio

This is a special election coming hot on the heels of JD Vance becoming VP. Governor Mike DeWine appointed Jon Husted to fill the role, and this will be Senator Husted’s trial by fire against former US Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, who lost re-election in 2024. Brown is a known quantity and is keen to get back to DC, and if early fundraising is any indication, he is in it to win it.

Polling is light on the ground here, but Ohio went big for Trump in 2024 (by 11 points), and, in fact, also voted for him in 2020 and 2016. Current surveys suggest Husted beats Brown by just one point, resulting in an extremely close race. However, there is a definite Trump lean in the state, and Vivek Ramaswamy (a major America First proponent) is leading in the gubernatorial race. The combination of both men campaigning side by side will not only be a big draw, but it should allow those key campaign dollars to be stretched a lot further, as well.

Worth noting is that the betting markets give Husted a 64% chance of winning, while Brown only has 38%.

North Carolina

With Republican Senator Thom Tillis retiring, this is the seat most likely to flip blue, according to all the polling and betting markets. Despite not electing a Democrat senator since 2008, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is confident he can make this a true electoral battle. His campaign team wrote:

“A Democrat has not won statewide federal office in North Carolina in nearly two decades and we know this race will be very close, which is why we’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them in the Senate.”

Cooper will most likely be facing off against Michael Whatley, a former RNC chair who is the consummate GOP insider. And this fact alone could explain why Cooper is currently leading in a matchup by almost five points. Betting markets widely expect the Democrat hopeful to romp home, offering him a 78% chance of victory against Whatley’s 21%.

2026 Electoral Math

Assuming that there are only six competitive races for the Senate in 2026, and that Democrats need to flip three to gain upper chamber parity, where does that leave us? Well, if we take the current polling (which is, of course, going to change the closer we get to election day), here’s how the basic results and changes would look:

• Georgia – Democrat Jon Ossoff holds the seat (+2.5%)
• Maine – Republican Susan Collins holds the seat (+2%)
• Michigan – Republican Mike Rodgers flips the seat (+2.4%)
• New Hampshire – Democrat Chris Pappas keeps the seat in the party (+4%)
• North Carolina – Democrat Roy Cooper flips the seat (+4.7%)
• Ohio – Republican Jon Husted holds the seat (+1%)

As you can see, many of these races are well within the margin of error, but as things stand right now, the polling suggests that even though two seats might flip, the Senate will remain divided 53 to 47 in the GOP’s favor. President Trump isn’t going anywhere for another three years, so that leaves Democrats with one hope of breaking the trifecta: the House of Representatives. Tune in to the next edition to find out what the data says on that.