Looking Ahead: Senate 2026

US Senators hold a 6-year term. This means that in theory the composition of the Senate can change every 2 years since the terms of senators is staggered. They are not all elected to the same 6 year terms. With that in mind and the recent 2024 election results in mind, let’s take a look forward to the 2026 US Senate races.

There are 33 senate seats that will be up for election in 2026. Twenty of those are currently held by republicans and 13 by democrats. Currently the Republicans hold a 53 to 47 majority in the senate. In order for Democrats to retake the senate, they would need to hold the 13 seats they currently hold and flip 4 more seats. However, the republicans also stand a chance of expanding their majority, especially if the current administration delivers on campaign promises.

Ideally it would be great to see 7 of the 13 seats flip to republican, which could then potentially overcome the filibuster. However, I think the odds of flipping half of the democrat seats in 2026 would be highly unlikely. Especially with how polarized the nation is politically speaking.

Here are the Democrat Senators that will be up for re-election in 2026:

• Colorado – John Hickenlooper (53.5% – 44.2%)
• Delaware – Chris Coons (59.4% – 37.9%)
• Georgia – Jon Ossoff (50.6% – 49.4%)
• Illinois – Dick Durbin (54.9% – 38.9%)
• Massachusetts – Ed Markey (66.2% – 33.0%)
• Michigan – Gary Peters (49.9% – 48.2%)
• Minnesota – Tina Smith (48.8% – 43.6%)
• New Hampshire – Jeanne Shaheen (56.6% – 41.0%)
• New Jersey – Cory Booker (57.2% – 40.9%)
• New Mexico – Ben Ray Luján (51.7% – 45.6%)
• Oregon – Jeff Merkley (56.9% – 39.3%)
• Rhode Island – Jack Reed (66.5% – 33.4%)
• Virginia – Mark Warner (56.0% – 43.9%)

Being that 2026 is a “midterm” year, meaning there is not a presidential race involved, voter turnout tends to be much lower, meaning that if Republicans really get a good strong ground game, it would not be as difficult to turn some of these seats.

Using the 2020 results (in parenthesis) it appears that Georgia and Michigan could be more in play, while the remaining 11 seats appear to be more democrat strongholds. Midterms tend to favor the opposition party more, so the current administration really needs to deliver on their promises or they risk losing the senate altogether.