With New Hampshire’s primaries complete and the November field largely settled, seven Senate contests are currently rated toss-ups as Republicans and Democrats compete for control of the chamber.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
The battle for control of the U.S. Senate has entered its final stretch with seven races currently classified as toss-ups, placing contests from Alaska to Texas at the center of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Republicans currently hold 53 Senate seats, while Democrats hold 45 and two independents — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine — caucus with Democrats. That means Democrats would need a net gain of four seats to reach an outright 51-seat majority. A 50-50 Senate would leave Vice President JD Vance able to cast tie-breaking votes.
Thirty-three regularly scheduled Class II Senate seats are expiring, with additional special elections bringing the number of Senate contests on the 2026 ballot to 35.
RealClearPolitics’ current Senate map places Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas in its toss-up category. Five of those seats are currently held by Republicans and two by Democrats. The RCP map assigns 46 seats to Democrats and 47 to Republicans outside the toss-up column, meaning Republicans would reach 50 seats by winning three of the seven toss-ups if every other race followed the map’s current ratings. That is one possible mathematical outcome of the ratings, not a prediction of the election results.
The increasingly competitive Senate map has drawn national attention, including analysis this week from CNN polling and data journalist Harry Enten. A separate Just the News report also highlighted the seven RCP toss-ups as the campaign moves toward Election Day.
Public polling remains fluid, and averages can change as new surveys are released. RealClearPolitics’ figures represent aggregations of available polls rather than forecasts of who will win.
Alaska
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is seeking another term against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who previously demonstrated an ability to win statewide in Alaska.
Peltola won a special U.S. House election in 2022 and then secured a full term that November before losing her House seat in 2024. Sullivan, meanwhile, is running for a third Senate term.
The race has an unusual complication: another candidate named Dan Sullivan is also appearing on the ballot. Republicans have argued that the duplicate name could confuse some voters, while efforts challenging the other Sullivan’s candidacy have not removed him from the contest.
Alaska also continues to use ranked-choice voting, adding another layer to a race that RCP currently lists with Peltola ahead by an average of 2 points, 49.7% to Sullivan’s 47.7%.
Maine
Republican Sen. Susan Collins is facing former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson in a contest that has changed substantially since the beginning of the campaign.
Democrat Graham Platner originally emerged from the primary as Collins’ opponent but withdrew after a sexual assault allegation became public. Platner denied the allegation. Maine Democrats subsequently selected Jackson to replace him on the ballot.
Collins, 73, has long positioned herself as a moderate Republican and supports abortion rights, but Democrats have emphasized her 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who later joined the majority in the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The current RCP average shows Jackson ahead by 2.7 points, 48.2% to 45.5%.
Collins has previously performed considerably differently from late polling expectations. In the 2020 Senate election, she defeated Democrat Sara Gideon by 8.6 percentage points, 51% to 42.4%.
That history does not determine the 2026 result, but it provides context for interpreting polling in a state where Collins has repeatedly won statewide.
New Hampshire
Tuesday’s primary produced a general-election matchup between Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas and former Republican Sen. John E. Sununu for the open seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Pappas won the Democratic nomination after four terms in the House, while Sununu defeated a Republican field that included former Sen. Scott Brown. Sununu previously represented New Hampshire in the Senate from 2003 until 2009, when Shaheen succeeded him after defeating him in the 2008 election.
Republicans have not won a New Hampshire Senate election since Kelly Ayotte’s victory in 2010. Ayotte, now the state’s governor, served one term before losing in 2016.
The RCP polling average currently has Pappas ahead by 2 points, 45.3% to 43.3%, and rates the contest a toss-up.
Ohio
Ohio’s special Senate election pits Republican Sen. Jon Husted against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in a contest featuring two politicians with extensive statewide experience.
Husted was appointed in early 2025 to fill the Senate seat vacated when Vance became vice president. Before entering the Senate, Husted served as Ohio lieutenant governor and previously held several other statewide and legislative positions.
Brown represented Ohio in the Senate for three terms before Republican Bernie Moreno defeated him in 2024. He is now attempting to return to the chamber through the special election.
The RCP average currently shows Brown at 49.3% and Husted at 46.7%, a 2.6-point difference. RCP rates the race a toss-up.
The contest is taking place in a state that has shifted toward Republicans in recent federal elections, while Brown’s long history of winning statewide makes the race one of the more closely followed tests of that political realignment.
Michigan
Michigan has an open Senate seat because Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is not seeking another term.
Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers is facing Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed after El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary by less than 1 percentage point out of more than 1.5 million votes cast.
Rogers came close to winning Michigan’s other Senate seat in 2024, losing to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by about 0.3 percentage points.
El-Sayed has campaigned as a progressive and has supported policies including Medicare for All while rejecting efforts by Republicans to characterize him as a socialist. Rogers and Republican groups have sought to define El-Sayed by his associations with progressive organizations and figures, while Democrats have focused on Rogers’ alignment with the Trump administration.
The RCP polling average currently places El-Sayed at 46.6% and Rogers at 44.7%, a 1.9-point difference.
Recent individual surveys have moved in both directions, underscoring why an average should be viewed as a snapshot rather than an election forecast.
Iowa
Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek are competing for the open seat of retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
Iowa has moved toward Republicans in presidential and statewide federal elections over the past decade, but polling in the 2026 Senate race has remained considerably closer than recent presidential margins.
The current RCP average shows Hinson ahead by 1.8 points, with 47% support compared with Turek’s 45.2%.
Individual polls have varied. An Emerson survey released Sept. 3 had Hinson ahead 50% to 45%, while other polling earlier in the campaign produced different results.
The contest is also being traded on Polymarket, though prediction-market prices are not election results and are not being used here to forecast the outcome.
Texas
Texas has emerged as another closely polled Senate contest, with Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton facing Democratic state Rep. James Talarico for the seat currently held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Paxton defeated Cornyn in the Republican runoff in May after Cornyn finished slightly ahead in the first round of the primary. President Donald Trump ultimately endorsed Paxton during the runoff.
The endorsement followed months of debate within the Republican primary over the SAVE America Act and the Senate filibuster. Paxton had offered to consider leaving the race if the Senate passed the legislation, while Cornyn later said he was open to changing filibuster rules to advance it. Trump specifically cited Paxton’s support for ending the filibuster and passing the measure when he endorsed him.
Paxton has won multiple statewide elections as Texas attorney general and survived an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate in 2023. Talarico, meanwhile, emerged as the Democratic nominee in a state Republicans have carried in every presidential election since 1980.
The RCP average currently places Talarico at 47.4% and Paxton at 44.7%, a 2.7-point difference. RCP continues to classify the race as a toss-up.
The polling represents a substantially narrower margin than Texas produced at the presidential level in 2024, when Trump carried the state comfortably, but Senate contests can develop differently from presidential races and current surveys do not determine the November result.
With less than two months until Election Day, the seven RCP toss-ups span states with very different political histories: longtime Republican territory such as Texas and Iowa, more closely divided states such as Michigan and New Hampshire, and idiosyncratic electorates such as Maine and Alaska.
Republicans enter the final stretch with a 53-seat majority, while Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them account for 47 seats. The combination of open seats, incumbent challenges and special elections means control of the next Senate will depend on results across several states rather than any single contest.
Polling currently shows narrow margins in each of the seven races, but those figures remain snapshots of voter opinion before Nov. 3 — not predictions of how the elections will end.
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