1. LEADING OFF

On Tuesday, Democrats are trying to take both chambers of Congress. Our ratings have 217 House seats leaning their way or better, one short of a majority, and Democrats need to win four of the seven Senate races we rate Toss Up, meaning either party could win, to get to 51.

Three of those seven Toss Ups are in states where Democrats haven't won a Senate race in decades: Texas since 1988, Maine also since 1988 and Kansas since 1932. Democrats can reach 51 without any of them, but close races can go either way. Winning just one of these would mean the majority doesn't hinge on any of the marquee tight races.

Republicans, meanwhile, are acting like these GOP strongholds are swing states. 

Trump held two rallies in Texas this week for Republican Ken Paxton. As our Russell Payne writes, Democrat James Talarico's campaign is confident, but one Texas pollster warns that Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott's strength in rural Texas could still carry Paxton. And outside the seven, South Carolina, which hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 2006, has a new poll showing its Senate race tied. (You can read more about Texas, Maine and South Carolina below.)

Streaks like these can end fast. Almost exactly a year ago, Georgia Democrats won statewide office for the first time since 2006, running on power bills, and their two Public Service Commission candidates won by about 25 points.

One of them, Alicia Johnson, now has a warning for anyone running on costs this year: Don't turn affordability into "a hashtag." As Surina Venkat writes, Johnson says already-struggling Georgia families are facing federal cuts in 2027 to Medicaid, food stamps, and energy assistance. Whoever wins Tuesday, voters will look to them for help — and they'll want more than a slogan.

Below, you'll find Jake Rakov on how Democrats got their groove back, Russell Payne on the rural vote that could still save Paxton, why Republican Senator Susan Collins could still win in Maine even though she trails in the latest poll, and a Florida poll where the Democrat leads by 20 points among people who've already voted.

— Elias Isquith

2. THE 2026 ENDGAME

Five days out, Jake Rakov's column takes stock of where things stand, including a South Carolina Senate race that a New York Times/Siena poll released yesterday has tied at 48 percent, in a state Trump won by 18 points.

Putting aside the self-inflicted wounds from the Trump administration’s tariffs, the costly Iran war, the abhorrent ICE crackdowns, and the absurd levels of self enriching the Trump family has achieved since being back in the White House, Democratic voters have done a particularly good job of voting for candidates in primaries with local authenticity rather than D.C. connections.

To learn more about what the Democratic surge could mean for the next Congress, read Jake's latest.

3. WHAT A TALARICO STRATEGIST TOLD US

By Russell Payne

Less than a week out from election day, Democrats in Texas are feeling confident in their chances to win in the state’s closely watched Senate race, even as some analysts warn that Gov. Greg Abbott’s political coattails in the state could be hard to overcome.

In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee, is giving Democrats a chance to win statewide for the first time in decades, with polls consistently showing him leading Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, by a few points in the final stretch.

The hype around Talarico’s campaign has also attracted significant spending both from the candidates and outside players. Talarico, in the latest campaign finance filings, has raised more than $146 million in the race and spent about $136 million of that. Paxton, by comparison, has raised just $22 million and spent about $18 million.

While these campaign finance figures might suggest that Paxton would be the financial underdog in the race, the attorney general has attracted record outside spending, most prominently from billionaire Republican donor Elon Musk, who has spent $158 million in the race in outside expenditures, making him, when combined with his previous political spending, the top individual political funder in American history.

Despite this flood of outside cash, Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist working on the Talarico campaign, tells The Caucus that Democrats are feeling confident in their chances going into election day, and finishing with an anti-Musk message to boot.

“We're going to continue to stay focused on what we've stayed focused on since day one, which is cost and corruption, and bringing this thing home strong as Elon Musk and billionaires continue to dump ungodly amounts of money,” Rocha said.

So far in the state, Democratic hopes have been buoyed by favorable polls and early voting returns that seem to match up with the expectations that this could be Democrats’ year to finally flip a Senate seat in the Lone Star State. Voters have already cast about 56% of the total number of votes that were cast in the 2022 Senate competition in Texas, with high turnout, including in the Rio Grande Valley and urban areas, which would likely favor Talarico. According to Rocha, the campaign has long focused on bringing infrequent voters out in an attempt to not only persuade voters but to expand the electorate.

“I get to see a lot of polling and focus groups. Not right now, but over the last year, that most people don't get to see. And just take my word for it: that voters are pissed,” Rocha said. “They're blaming Republicans, and they're showing up to show their discontent. That is a fact, and you can't run from that because it was proven in the primary, where 30% of the people that showed up in the Democratic primary had never voted in a Democratic primary before.”

In Rocha’s view, Democrats are set up to succeed in the midterm elections with strong candidates like state Rep. Gina Hinojosa running for governor and candidates like singer-songwriter Bobby Pulido, who is running for Congress in South Texas, putting them in a position to take advantage of discontent with Republican governance.

At the same time, Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, warns that Republicans could see Abbott’s coattails save them down ballot.

While Blank largely agrees that things look better for Democrats in Texas than they have in recent history, the three-term governor has proven to be a singular electoral force for Republicans. Abbott’s success has largely come down to his dominance in most of the rural parts of the state.

“The governor is extremely, extremely effective when it comes to campaigning. And I think one of the things that you have to be paying really close attention to here to notice is that while Democrats have been leading in urban and suburban areas in most of the polling throughout most of the summer and the fall, a number of the recent polls have shown Republicans regaining an advantage in the suburbs,” Blank said.

The problem for Democrats, Blank explained, is that Democrats need to win big in urban and suburban areas to overcome the Republican “firewall” in rural Texas.

“In a state as large as Texas with Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Fort Worth, and where 80% of the population more or less lives in or around an urban or suburban area Democrats could still lose the election because the Republican dominance of the rural areas is enough to keep them in office statewide,” Blank said.

The effectiveness of this GOP firewall, Blank said, will come down to the sort of electorate that comes out to vote and the size of the margin Democrats maintain in urban and suburban areas.

“Look at where the campaigns are right now. Republicans are not trying to hit the major media markets with their campaign stops. They're looking at places like Waco, places like Corpus, places whose media markets extend out into rural communities where there are voters who are looking at high gas prices and maybe a little bit disengaged, but who Republican candidates here in Texas really, really need,” Blank said.

4. COULD COLLINS STILL WIN IN MAINE?

Democrat Troy Jackson leads Republican Senator Susan Collins 49 to 47 percent among Maine's likely voters in a Marist poll taken October 22 to 25.

Among all registered voters, he leads by nine points, up from four earlier this month.

In plain English, that means Collins does better with the voters Marist expects to vote than with registered voters as a whole. If the electorate ends up looking like what Marist expects, it's a two-point race. But if everyone who told Marist they're anti-Collins actually votes, Jackson's lead is almost double-digits. 

So, for the next five days, Jackson's campaign has one job: maximize voter turnout. They've won the support of the fence-sitters. Now they need to make sure they get the people on their side to actually vote.

We rate the race a Toss Up, meaning either party could win it.

To find out why Ohio just passed Maine in our list of the Republican seats Democrats are most likely to flip, read the full Senate rankings at The Caucus.

5. UPS AND DOWNS

👍 Florida hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1994, and Republican Byron Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly just 48 to 46 percent in a St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics released yesterday. Among people who say they've already voted, Jolly leads 58 to 38.

👎 Among the 54 percent who haven't voted yet, Donalds leads 57 to 34. More Democrats than Republicans in the poll had already voted, so the race turns on whether the Republicans who haven't voted yet do so on Election Day.

👍 A second federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from spending taxpayer money on TV ads praising the president. In a lawsuit from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Judge Loren AliKhan issued a temporary restraining order yesterday, finding officials likely used public money to pay for a national campaign in the final weeks before the election.

👎 Taxpayers won't get back what's already been spent on a nearly $20 million campaign: the White House has said it won't reimburse them for ads that already aired. And Trump has said his political operation will pay to keep the ads running, so the orders stop the public spending, not necessarily the ads.

6. IN THE NEWS

• Democrat Alicia Johnson, one of two Democrats on Georgia's five-member Public Service Commission, worries politicians are turning affordability into "a hashtag," Surina Venkat writes; two more seats are on Tuesday's ballot, and Democrats would take the majority if they win both (The Caucus).

• Republican billionaire Rick Jackson has now put more than $200 million of his own money into his campaign for Georgia governor, $92.5 million of it since August, and still hasn't opened a clear lead over Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

• Congress's approval is 14 percent, the lowest Gallup has recorded ahead of a midterm since 1974, and in all nine midterms when approval was below 30 percent, the president's party lost House seats (Gallup).