The midterm battlefield is widening by the day, forcing Republicans to contain mounting challenges nationwide as they defend their narrow control of both the House and Senate.
Trump traveled to Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday for a rally in his latest swing through the deep South. Hurricane Isaias prompted him to abandon plans to fly to Tuscaloosa for that night’s Alabama-Georgia game.
The president was in Ohio last week, a state he won by 11 percentage points in 2024, campaigning for Republican Sen. John Husted and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Both are facing competitive races. A new Marist University poll found former Sen. Sherrod Brown leading Husted by 8 points. Husted was appointed in 2027 to take over the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance.
Some analysts, including election forecaster Nate Silver, view Ohio as a “slightly easier” Democratic pickup opportunity than Maine. There, Republican Sen. Susan Collins is counting on her long record of outperforming her party, while Democratic challenger Troy Jackson has benefited from missteps by former nominee Graham Platner following his campaign’s collapse.
Even reliably Republican Nebraska is receiving attention from the president as climbing gasoline and diesel prices squeeze farmers. Trump visited the state on Oct. 5 for the first time since 2022.
“I think the president’s coming to Nebraska to help me campaign so I can get reelected,” Sen. Pete Ricketts said plainly before Trump’s visit. The Republican’s comments came after polls showed a close contest with Democratic-backed independent Dan Osborne.
The economic discontent has also pushed Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall into the group of incumbents facing genuinely competitive races.
“They will win in all those places. The atmosphere is not great but I’ve seen worse,” longtime political operative John Feehery said.
Republicans currently control the Senate by a 53-47 margin and hold a narrow 218-214 advantage in the House.
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The party enters the fight with major financial advantages, including Trump’s $400 million war chest and a $100 million fundraising edge over Democrats in party-committee resources. The Texas Senate contest alone could require Republicans to spend $300 million, Daines said, as the party works to support Attorney General Ken Paxton after a series of political wounds he inflicted on himself.
Trump is also scheduled to visit Alaska on Oct. 13 to campaign for Sen. Dan Sullivan. During the effort, he announced a $54 billion South Korean investment in an Alaska liquefied natural gas pipeline, though South Korean officials say the agreement has not been finalized.
“It’s a tough environment. Second midterms are tough,” Sen. Steve Daines of Montana told the Richard Nixon Foundation during its October conference in Washington, D.C.
Daines drew a parallel to the 2006 midterms. “Think about the condition of the country back in ’06 – an unpopular war. Six in 10 Americans opposed the Iraq War at that point. Gas prices had doubled. Does it sound familiar? We ended up losing six seats,” he said.
Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom, 43, could also mount a serious challenge in the Republican stronghold if turnout falls to levels seen in the 2023 governor’s race. Colom is running against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in 2018 and reelected in 2020. Democratic polling shows Hyde-Smith ahead by 6 points, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York has directed some donors toward the race, according to The Washington Post.
In deeply Republican South Carolina, Sen. Darline Graham holds only narrow leads in surveys conducted by the Trafalgar Group and Inside Advantage, with both results falling within the polls’ margins of error.
The House map is showing signs of strain as well. Republicans redrew a Toledo-area district to make it one Trump would have carried by 11 points, but longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur now finds herself in a tossup contest.
In another closely watched race, upstate New York Rep. Mike Lawler trailed Democrat Cait Conley by 2 points in an Emerson College poll released this week. A New York Times-Siena College survey published Friday showed dairy farmer Blake Gendebien ahead of Republican businessman Anthony Constantino, 46% to 42%, in a district Trump won by 16 points in 2024.
Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican who is not up for reelection this year, offered a bleak assessment of a poll he commissioned in his heavily Republican state. “People are unsettled,” he told The Post.
