Which party controls the Senate after November may hinge on a handful of names unfamiliar to most voters. Democrats need to flip four GOP seats and hold on to their own seats to regain control of the upper chamber. Democrats must defend two states that President Donald Trump won in 2024—Georgia and Michigan—while going after top flip target Maine, where the president lost in 2024.
Democrats also see North Carolina, which Trump won narrowly, as a prime flip opportunity. But, to take back the upper chamber, Democrats must go after states that Trump carried by double digits in 2024, including Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas. Polling in each of those states shows Democratic candidates hovering just below 50 percent, with Republicans close behind.
Libertarian, or in a couple of cases a Green Party, candidates siphoning off even a slight 1 percent or 2 percent of the vote could ultimately decide the winner. Democrats took back the majority under similar circumstances 20 years ago, when a sliver of voters skipped casting ballots for either major party. Democrats won narrowly in Missouri, Montana and Virginia, where third-party candidates gained more than 1 percent of the vote.
That dynamic could come into play again in this cycle in the form of organic third-party candidates pulling protest votes from a GOP declining in popularity, and a deliberate Democratic strategy of stepping aside so independents can run instead. Alaska is the clearest version of Democrats employing the independent strategy in 2026. Under the state's top-four primary, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan will face Democrat Mary Peltola in November, and possibly a second candidate who also happens to be named Dan Sullivan.
Sullivan, a retired teacher and registered Republican from Petersburg, took 2.4 percent in last week's primary after winning a court fight to stay on the ballot. Trump and national Republicans have accused Democrats of quietly boosting the second Sullivan to confuse GOP voters—an allegation both Sullivans and the Alaska Democratic Party deny. A third candidate, conveniently sharing a name with one of the others, and possibly drawing even a couple of points from the incumbent's column, could significantly boost Peltola in a state Trump carried by double digits.
The large majority of election handicappers, including Cook Political Report, The Sabato Crystal Ball and Fox News, currently rate the Alaska race a toss-up. The state last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 2008. Libertarian Ted Brown is polling at 2 percent to 4 percent in the Texas Senate race, according to surveys, in a contest where the Democrat still hasn't cracked 50 percent.
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