Dem
47
GOP
53
History suggests that the Democrats have a good chance at flipping the House in 2026. The president's party generally loses seats in the midterms and with unpopular presidents it just gets worse. If the country is in a recession then, flipping four seats will be easy. But the Senate will be a much tougher nut to crack.
Yesterday, we discussed the godsend the Democrats got in Georgia and the three open-seat races in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. To start, in 2026, the Democrats would have to hold all four of these, which in a blue wave might not be that hard. But that would just preserve the status quo. To win control of the Senate, the Democrats would have to flip four Republican Senate seats, none of them open (Mitch McConnell's seat is going to be open, but it's not plausibly flippable unless Gov. Andy Beshear, D-KY, has a change of heart). The four easiest (from easiest to most difficult) are probably these:
| State | Incumbent | Strongest Democrat | Notes |
| North Carolina | Thom Tillis (R) | Roy Cooper (D) | Polls show Cooper beating Tillis by 2-3 points. |
| Maine | Susan Collins (R) | Janet Mills (D) | Mills is 77 and might not run. |
| Ohio | Jon Husted (R) | Sherrod Brown (D) | Appointed senators like Husted have a poor track record. |
| Montana | Steve Daines (R) | Jon Tester (D) | Tester lost to a carpetbagger by 7 points in 2024. |
One small problem is that none of the above Democrats have announced yet. But all are well known and all would get tens of millions of dollars from out of state, so there is no hurry.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is looking beyond these four states for outliers that might be in play if there is a serious recession and people are very angry with Donald Trump for causing it. These even include Alaska (Mary Peltola might run), Texas (if Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee), Louisiana (if a nutcake wins the GOP primary), and even Mississippi (36% of the population is Black). These are all long shots, but in a blue tsunami caused by a deep recession, they might be in play. (V)