Thread: 2026 Midterm Election

Originally Posted by S Landreth

2026 Generic Congressional Vote

47.4 - Democrats

42.5 - Republicans

Update……..

48.6 - Democrats

40.9 - Republicans

Cook Political Report shifts Texas Senate race toward Democrats after Paxton runoff victory

The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the Texas Senate race toward Democrats on Tuesday from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” after state Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the marquee race’s GOP runoff.

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Judge clears way for Trump mail-in ballot executive order

A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for President Trump’s March executive order beefing up rules surrounding mail-in ballots to stand in the face of legal challenges from Democrats.

The order would require the federal government to establish a list of eligible voters based on available citizenship data and direct the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver mail-in ballots to individuals on each state’s approved voter roll.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in his ruling said the lawsuit brought by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, NAACP and League of United Latin American Citizens is unlikely to succeed on the merits and largely speculative.

Plaintiffs argued Trump’s order violates the Privacy Act by creating a list of individuals who are citizens and over the age of 18 in an attempt to establish an inventory of eligible voters based on federal data, even if no information is ever transmitted to any state. They also alleged the order treads on states’ constitutional authority over elections.

However, Nichols said the argument would only stand if a “purely intra-federal government list is created.”

“But Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that such action — that is, the sharing of name, age, and residence information between and among government agencies, if already known to the federal government — would cause a harm sufficient” to bring the lawsuit.

The judge also rejected the argument that there’s a serious risk that Democratic voters are more likely to be erroneously left off state citizenship lists than Republicans and that they therefore face burdens on their ability to vote.

The federal judge said injury again rests “on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities.”

His ruling comes as Trump and the GOP fight to maintain a majority in both chambers of Congress. The president has also pressed lawmakers to push through the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote ahead of the midterm elections.

Next week, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Obama, is set to hear arguments against Trump’s mail-in ballot restrictions in a case brought by Democratic states in Boston, according to Reuters.

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Republicans stare down inflation abyss with midterms fast approaching

Republicans have said for months that inflation is former President Joe Biden’s problem. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of an inflation crisis of their own making just in time for the midterm election, and the blame game is just getting started.

Inflation ticked up to 3.8% year over year in April, the highest mark since 2023. Much of that spike is coming on the back of soaring energy prices, which have persisted since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran.

Trump and congressional Republicans swept into power in 2024 by promising to defeat the inflation that dogged Biden’s presidency. But they now risk getting trounced in the 2026 midterm election due to their own inflation crisis, and they are struggling to find a clear message to battle high prices as the president pushes for a $400 million White House ballroom and a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded legal relief fund for victims of government “weaponization.”

Members of the congressional GOP are now left wondering whether their priorities are in the right place.

“When half of America is living paycheck to paycheck, the word ‘ballroom’ should not be in anyone’s vocabulary,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a moderate who represents a swing district, told reporters at the Capitol. “We should always be focused on affordability, always. Both parties have gotten it wrong. That’s why we’re in the crisis we’re in now.”

Little more: Republicans stare down inflation abyss with midterms fast approaching

Talarico leads Paxton by 3 points in Texas Senate race post-runoff poll

The Democratic candidate in the Texas Senate race has a slight edge over his Republican opponent in a new poll released Friday.

Forty-seven percent of likely general election voters in the state backed state Rep. James Talarico (D) in the poll from Texas Public Opinion Research, compared with 44 percent for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).

The survey was conducted after the Republican primary runoff contest Tuesday, in which incumbent Sen. John Cornyn lost to Paxton, who had been endorsed by President Trump.

The latest poll follows a decision from the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, to adjust its rating of the race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican” following Paxton’s win.

Nearly a third of the respondents who voted for Cornyn in the runoff indicated in the poll that they will support the Democratic nominee in the November election. A plurality — 44 percent — of these voters said they will now choose Paxton, and 23 percent were undecided.

In a social media post following Cornyn’s defeat, Talarico thanked the incumbent senator for his years of public service and extended an olive branch to his supporters.

“We don’t agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service. To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign,” the state representative wrote in the post.

Of the Cornyn voters who said they will now back Talarico, more than half cited the criminal charges against Paxton and corruption concerns.

Paxton was indicted in 2015 on felony charges in a securities fraud case. Republican state legislators voted to impeach the attorney general in 2023, and he was later acquitted by lawmakers in the Texas state Senate.

The two candidates have ramped up political advertisements targeting one another’s character and campaigns in the aftermath of the GOP runoff.

Talarico’s campaign posted Paxton’s mug shot on social media following the state attorney general’s victory and highlighted criticism from GOP state lawmakers from the impeachment vote in another post.

“Ken Paxton has a criminal record; I have a legislative record,” the state legislator told MS NOW.

Paxton has criticized the state lawmaker for his previous decision to follow a vegan diet and his comment that “God is nonbinary.”

Trump weighed in on the fight in a post on Truth Social following Paxton’s victory, calling Talarico “the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen.”

“A Strong Open Borders advocate, he is WEAK ON CRIME, believes there are 6 genders, is insulting to Jesus Christ, will never support the Military, was a big Mask Wearer until recently, and is a Vegan who dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas,” the president wrote in the post.

Trump also pledged in the post to “do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken.”

The Texas Public Opinion Research poll was conducted May 27-28 among 1,670 likely Texas voters and has a margin of error of approximately 2.8 percentage points.

Taarico leads Paxton by 3 points in Texas Senate race post-runoff poll

Fox News poll finds Brown leading Ohio Senate race by 8 points as Trump favorability drops

Former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) is leading current Sen. Jon Husted (R) in a Senate race in the Buckeye State by 8 points as President Trump’s favorability rating falls in the state.

In the Fox News poll, 53 percent of respondents backed Brown, while 45 percent backed Husted. Two percent were uncertain about whom they supported.

Brown lost his seat to current Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) in 2024, capping an 18-year Senate career when he left office in 2025.

Husted and Brown won their respective primaries last month, setting up a showdown in the fall in one of the most contested midterm races in the country. Husted did not face any competition in his primary, and Brown trounced a long-shot Democratic rival. The two candidates will face off in November for the seat Husted took over after Vice President Vance became a part of the Trump administration.

Republicans are facing a rocky path to the midterms, with Americans expressing concerns about the economy, war in Iran and Trump in recent polling. The war itself has driven up gas prices as a result of the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with the average price of a regular gallon of gas in Ohio at about $4.18 by Thursday morning, up from about $3.06 last year, according to AAA.

In the Fox News poll, 42 percent of respondents said they either felt “strongly” or “somewhat” favorable toward Trump, down 5 points from October 2020. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they either felt “somewhat” or “strongly” unfavorable toward the president, up 5 points from October 2020.

According to a polling average from Decision Desk HQ, Trump’s approval rating was sitting at 38.90 percent as of Thursday morning, while his disapproval rating was sitting at 56.8 percent.

The Fox News poll took place between May 28 and June 1, featuring 1,015 registered voters in Ohio and 3 percentage points as its margin of error.

Democrats need to net four Senate seats to take back the majority. That has been seen as a tall task, but Trump’s approval ratings have given the party hope it may be able to capture the upper chamber.

Winning the Ohio race would be critical to this pursuit.

His chances will be slim in the November election.

Platner-Collins matchup set in high-profile Maine Senate race

Graham Platner, a progressive oyster farmer and political newcomer whose campaign has been wrought with controversies, will face off this fall against Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, Decision Desk HQ projects.

Collins, who is seeking a sixth term, was unchallenged on Tuesday, while Platner easily advanced from the Democratic primary despite questions about whether he’s become a liability for the party in the must-win race.

Democrats are eyeing a rare pickup opportunity in the Pine Tree State, where Collins has held onto her Senate seat despite its blue leanings. It’s one of just a handful of races in the upper chamber considered toss-ups this cycle, and it could be pivotal to Democrats’ hopes of taking back the Senate in the midterms.

Platner’s campaign, however, has faced growing scrutiny that sparked Democratic anxieties about his candidacy ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

The New York Times published a report last week in which previous romantic partners suggested his behavior was toxic, while he has drawn criticism for months about a now-covered up tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol and a series of since-deleted offensive Reddit posts. He also came under fire over reports that he sent sexually explicit text messages to women while married.

Platner vehemently denied “anything alleging physicality” and “anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was” in remarks to MS NOW about the Times’s reporting. He also said he’s “not once” considered dropping out of the race.

A UMass Lowell/YouGov poll released last week, but taken before the most recent sexting scandal and Times reporting, found Platner with 48 percent support from Maine voters in a hypothetical general election, 5 points ahead of Collins’s 43 percent with another 6 percent undecided.

Another late May survey from the University of New Hampshire found Platner up 9 percentage points over Collins, with 51 percent and 42 percent, respectively.

An internal from the Platner campaign released last week by Public Policy Polling, found Platner with a 4 point lead over Collins, though analyst Nate Silver said the results are “not super reassuring given that internal polls typically exaggerate their candidate’s standing by 4 points or so.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) was also on the Democratic ballot Tuesday, after starting the cycle as Democratic leadership’s favorite to take on Collins this fall.

The outgoing governor, however, suspended her bid back in April after struggling for traction in polls and fundraising against Platner.