Political experts shared their picks for key races to watch in the 2026 midterm elections.
by CORY SMITH | The National News DeskDemocratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, left, and Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, both of Maine, are seen in this combination image made with Getty photos.
Todd Belt , the Political Management program director at George Washington University.
“It's all Senate races, because the California governorship is pretty much decided. You know, it's going to be Becerra, and it's not going to be close. ... And the Democrats are very, very likely to take the House of Representatives.
At this point, I don't see any way that they don't. ”Jones, too, said it appears to be a foregone conclusion that Democrats will flip the House this fall from Republican control.is on the Democrats’ side, with the sitting president’s party losing seats in the House in eight of 10 midterm elections going back 40 years.
And the Senate is very much in play, even if Democrats might have their work cut out for them to flip control of the upper chamber from Republicans. : the open seat in Michigan that is currently held by a Democrat and the GOP-controlled seats in Maine and Ohio. But six more seats are considered competitive, evenly split between Republican and Democratic leanings.
Democrats must defend their seats in Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire while flipping four additional Republican-held seats to win control, Belt said. Senate races central to Democrats’ pickup hopes are Maine, Ohio and North Carolina. Belt said if Democrats win all three, they’ll need one more. That would probably be Iowa, over Texas or Alaska, he said.
And Belt called the state a perpetual frustration for Democrats, or their “white whale. ” Republican Sen. Susan Collins has repeatedly outperformed polling and defeated challengers, and now she faces Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran with no political experience. And Belt said Platner is a “flawed” candidate, dogged by scandals over sexually explicit text messages, a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol, and more.
Still, Democrats see Maine as one of their top pickup opportunities. The blue-leaning state has voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since the early 1990s, yet the Republican incumbent senator keeps getting reelected. Belt said the Maine race is also symbolic of two broader themes shaping the midterms: the desire for generational change and the appeal of outsider candidates.
FILE -U.S. Senate candidate from Maine Graham Platner speaks during a campaign event at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6859 on May 17, 2026, in Portland, Maine. “I see that this whole election is going to be a lot about being outsiders, people who are not inside the Democratic Party, which is not popular, or not people who are just defending Donald Trump, which is not popular either,” Belt said.
Michigan will be an open Democratic seat, currently held by the retiring Gary Peters. Republican candidate Mike Rogers enters with the advantages of having run a previous statewide campaign, when he lost two years ago to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by just 0.3 percentage points. Abdul El-Sayed, Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens are running in the Democratic primary, which isn’t until August. El-Sayed has never held elected political office.
McMorrow is a state senator, and Stevens is a congresswoman.
“That's one the Democrats have to hang on to,” Belt said. “That's why it's an incredibly important race. If the Democrats can't hang on to it, then they have to flip five seats. So, that is what makes it nearly impossible.
” FILE - Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow delivers remarks "Project 2025 - Chapter One: Introduction" during the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 19, 2024, in Chicago. If El-Sayed becomes the nominee, the race instantly becomes more nationally significant and competitive because of the unique dynamics surrounding a Muslim Democratic candidate in a swing-state contest, Jones said.
, a political scientist at Colby College, said the Michigan seat produces the cleanest three-way referendum on Democratic direction anywhere on the map.
“One runs as the Sanders-style progressive, one as the suburban-institutional manufacturing Democrat, one as the generational-change pragmatist, and the primary electorate genuinely hasn't decided,” Jacobs said via email. “Even then, every nominee polls within single digits of the Republican, so the lane Democrats choose has direct bearing on whether they hold a seat they probably can't afford to lose. Watching which argument wins a true battleground tells you more about the party's 2028 trajectory than most.
”Belt said the U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina is “prime” for the taking for Democrats. And former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, gives the party a strong statewide candidate to take Tillis’ place. FILE - North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper speaks during a press conference for the Concert for Carolina at Bank of America Stadium on October 26, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Democrats had been making headway in North Carolina during the Obama years before Trump came along and made it pretty red, Belt said. The North Carolina race could show if Trump still holds sway in the “somewhat swingy states,” Belt said. And he said it might indicate a direction those kinds of states could go in the 2028 presidential election.
Jacobs said Cooper is likely going to win the expensive Senate race, but the more interesting story runs underneath it, where the state Democratic Party has bet on contesting nearly every seat and rebuilding rural county organizations rather than chasing a single charismatic win. That could be a model elsewhere down the line, given all the infighting among Democrats, Jacobs said.
“This is the one race on my list that isn't really about a candidate, but it tests whether a party's revival is personality or infrastructure,” Jacobs said. Incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn lost his runoff primary to Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general who was endorsed by Trump. And now Paxton will face James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker, in the general election this fall.
Jones said the race for U.S. Senate in Texas belongs near the top of the list of contests to watch, even though it is not among Democrats’ best pickup opportunities.
“It isn't necessarily one of the four top targets of Democrats, but it is among the top six,” Jones said. “And it's also a state ... where Democrats have not won a statewide election since 1994, meaning that it's symbolically very important because a Talarico victory would break the narrative that Democrats can't win statewide in Texas. That could perhaps pave the way for a better Democratic recruitment and bolster Democratic efforts to turn Texas blue in ... 2028, 2030.
”But Jones said Paxton is still the likely favorite in the general election, given the GOP strength in Texas. FILE - Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at an election night watch party held by the Lone Star Liberty PAC at the Dallas/Plano Marriott at Legacy Town Center on May 26, 2026 in Plano, Texas.
But Jones said that if Trump’s approval ratings continue to decline and economic concerns worsen, the political environment could become increasingly favorable for Democrats. Republican Jon Husted is filling the U.S. Senate seat from Ohio now, appointed last year by the governor to take over for JD Vance after Vance was elected vice president.
A special election is being held this year to determine if Husted, the former lieutenant governor, gets to keep the seat. FILE - Sen. Jon Husted speaks during a the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on September 17, 2025, in Washington. Brown lost his seat in 2024 to Republican Bernie Moreno.
Jones said Ohio represents one of the most important seats Republicans must defend and Democrats must flip to determine control of the Senate. All House seats and 36 governorships are up for grabs in the midterms. No individual House race will decide control of the lower chamber, he said. And control of the Senate “just becomes so pivotal” for the second half of the Trump administration, Jones said.
Jones also said the gubernatorial races in the biggest states – New York, Florida, Texas and California – aren’t going to flip. Jacobs, however, did list a couple of gubernatorial races among his key contests to watch.
“Georgia is where you can actually measure whether the Sun Belt realignment is real, because for the first time since 2006 Democratic primary turnout outran Republican turnout this spring,” Jacobs said. “Democrats enter the general unified while Republicans spend June bloodying each other. ” The governor’s contest in Georgia will pit Democrat Keisha Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, against one of two Republicans, Rick Jackson or Burt Jones. Watch the GOP runoff next week, Jacobs said.
Nominating the Trump-endorsed option, Burt Jones, would test whether the party prioritizes loyalty over the broad-coalition profile that kept the governorship red, Jacobs said.
“Even then, whether Georgia is realigning or merely competitive is one of the few genuinely open empirical questions of the cycle, and this race answers a large part of it,” he added. Incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs is running unopposed on the Democratic side.
“Arizona is the right's version of the character problem I keep thinking about, which is why it belongs on the list alongside the leftward cases,” Jacobs said. “The Republican base is consolidating behind its purest, most Trump-aligned candidate, even though the head-to-head numbers suggest he is the one most likely to reactivate the suburban backlash that cost the party the governorship in 2022.
”He said that Arizona moved toward Trump by 5-plus points in 2024, while Hobbs won by under 1 point when she last ran in 2022.
“But if she survives, it will likely be because Republicans nominated against their own interest, and that helps us think about the post-Trump era,” Jacobs said. As New World screwworm cases spread across Texas and into New Mexico, an Austin Pets Alive! veterinarian is urging pet owners to take two simple steps to protecEight people are displaced from their homes after an apartment fire in northeast Austin overnight.
The Austin Fire Department says that crews are at the scene ofThe deputy who fatally shot Texas State University freshman John Mendoza Jr. earlier this month has been fired, the Brazoria County sheriff said, citing "policyA water line rupture caused significant damage in the middle of FM 3405 in Williamson County, forcing the closure of the road between U.S. 183 and Ronald ReaganTexas students improved on all five State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course exams in Spring 2026, the Texas Education Agency said W
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