Can Democrats flip the Senate? 2026 midterm stakes and voter frustrations

Thank you. And with us tonight, our political panel here, we've got Nicole Ambrose, Republican National Committee woman from Maryland. Thank you for joining us. Always great to be here. And Nicole Brenner-Schmidt, Democratic strategist. Both of you going to be involved in kind of breaking down what we're seeing. It's still too early to see exactly where things are leaning. But you and I were talking quickly as Fitz was going over some of these congressional districts in Virginia. They are very much at play tonight. Yeah, I mean, Virginia alone could hand the Democrats what they need just to be in charge. Like he was going over the second congressional. I think if we win that, we're having a good night. If we take the first, we're having a real good night. And if the fifth goes our way, I think then we're starting to see a real tidal wave happen this year. Do you see that happening where the Republicans start to lose some of this momentum that we saw with Trump two years ago that now seems to have turned into a referendum against him? So it's the midterm election, and normally you would expect Republicans to underperform. However, there are such critical issues going on, such critical social issues, issues such as all the jobs President Trump has brought to America in key swing states, and just the The social issues that the Democrats cannot get out of. Out of their way, the DSA, Democrat Socialists of America platform, seems to be taking over the Democrat Party. And old-school Democrats are not renouncing it. Moderate Democrats feel like their party has abandoned them. So for that, I'm looking at Republicans holding the Senate. But I think it's going to be tough to maintain the House. Do you see that as well? Because as much as both parties have sort of seen some sort of fracture, if you will, or more just lean towards their own ends, the DSA, the MAGA contingent, it also seems like the DSA is picking up a lot of momentum. We saw it with the executive positions in New York City, here in D.C., and now look at Michigan. Although Al-Sayed is not a DSA, he certainly has socialist beliefs, and much like Bernie Sanders, is this something that could be the future of the Democratic Party after tonight? I mean, look. Did they win in a lot of safe seats and win a lot of primaries this cycle? Sure, they had some pickups there. But we still have a lot of moderate candidates that are running in so many places. And the fact that we're even talking about the Democrats being able to take the Senate with this map, this is a red state map. And we are playing and have so many different paths. We have real races that we could win in Alaska, Iowa, Texas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio. These are red states. Florida. Florida, so the fact that we are talking about the Democrats having this opportunity is America's frustration with the Trump administration and the Republicans having full control in D.C. They're not delivering on the promises that they ran in 2024. People are frustrated with their economics. You can't just tell them what the stocks are. You can't tell them what unemployment numbers are. You can't shout numbers at them. They know what they're feeling. They know what tough decisions their families are making, and they're really frustrated by that. They're frustrated by this war that we're in, and they're going to go to the ballot box and let that be known. We're really excited by these early turnout numbers. Affordability is certainly something that is on the ballot tonight. We will see who, in fact, can flip or won't flip some of these seats, and we'll be watching. To your point, the Senate there seems to be a close one to watch. Thank you both so much. We'll check back in throughout the hour. In the meantime, we've got more election night coverage right here on Fox Local and on Fox 5+. Stay with us.