Ranking the 9 GOP-Held Senate Seats Democrats Are Most Likely to Flip: 1 Week Out
Democrats need to net four seats to take the majority
Each week until Election Day, The Caucus ranks the Republican-held Senate seats Democrats are most likely to flip. Republicans hold 53 seats, so Democrats need to net four for the majority.
Democrats sit at 47 on our board before a single toss up, with North Carolina already counted in our Expected D rating. Getting to 51 takes four of the seven toss ups. Michigan is one of the seven and is currently a Democratic seat, so the path runs through Abdul El-Sayed holding the state and the party winning three of the six Republican seats left. A loss in Michigan means Democrats need four of those six.
Two things moved this week: We moved Kansas to a toss-up, giving Democrats a sixth Republican target. And Ohio passed Maine for third in our ranings.
Here is Week 7, one week out:
| CAUCUS+ SENATE TOP 9 · WEEK 7 · 1 WEEK OUT | ||
1 | North Carolina Roy Cooper vs. Michael Whatley · open | Expected D |
2 | Alaska Mary Peltola vs. Dan Sullivan | Toss up |
3 ▲1 | Ohio Sherrod Brown vs. Jon Husted · special | Toss up |
4 ▼1 | Maine Troy Jackson vs. Susan Collins | Toss up |
5 | Texas James Talarico vs. Ken Paxton | Toss up |
6 | Iowa Josh Turek vs. Ashley Hinson · open | Toss up |
7 | Kansas Adam Hamilton vs. Roger Marshall | Toss up |
8 | South Carolina Annie Andrews vs. Darline Graham · appointed | Expected R |
9 | Florida Angie Nixon vs. Ashley Moody · special | Expected R |
| Kansas leaves R Advantage for Toss up. Ohio and Maine trade places after a week of Ohio polling. | ||
Kansas is the move. Hamilton closes with more than three times Marshall's cash, $3.2 million to $922,000, and Trump spent part of last week rallying outside Wichita. The last Democrat Kansas sent to the Senate won in 1932. Republicans are spending their closing week on a seat they didn’t even plan to think about six months ago.
Ohio earned third. Brown led both public polls out of the state last week and Fox News moved its own rating of the race to Lean D. We didn’t see much movement in either direction in Maine while that happened, with five days of surveys there producing a two-point spread at most.
Texas would reframe the whole night. Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 was the last Democrat to win a Senate race there. Five surveys came out in six days and Talarico was ahead or level in all five. We’re holding it at Toss up because a one-point lead in a state that size can disappear on turnout alone.
And here are the Democratic-held seats that are not completely safe:
| SEATS DEMOCRATS ARE DEFENDING | ||
1 | Michigan Abdul El-Sayed vs. Mike Rogers · open | Toss up |
2 | New Hampshire Chris Pappas vs. John E. Sununu · open | D Advantage |
3 | Minnesota Peggy Flanagan vs. Michele Tafoya · open | Expected D |
4 | Georgia Jon Ossoff vs. Mike Collins | Expected D |
| Ranked by risk of loss. None of the four has moved in two weeks. Democrats need all of them plus a net four pickups for 51. | ||
Michigan is the only one Democrats are currently worried about. Every other toss up on our board would be a gain. Three polls since Friday put El-Sayed ahead, by one, two and six, with the six coming from the Detroit News yesterday.
New Hampshire and Georgia have gone quiet enough that both parties have moved their money out. Minnesota is tighter than anticipated, but we’re holding it at Expected D still.
And this is how The Caucus sees the whole Senate map:
| SENATE RATINGS SUMMARY · DEMOCRATS NEED 51 | |||||
| CATEGORY | SEATS | D TOTAL | |||
| Safe D | 9 | 43 | |||
| Expected D | 3 | 46 | |||
| D Advantage | 1 | 47 | |||
| Toss up | 7 | ||||
| R Advantage | 1 | ||||
| Expected R | 2 | ||||
| Safe R | 12 | ||||
| No election 34 D, 31 R | 65 | ||||
HELD NOW  47 Democratic 53 Republican | |||||
| Democrats reach 47 without the toss ups, which is where they sit now, and 54 with all seven. | |||||
