Politics

Final polls put Democrats ahead in five of seven Senate battlegrounds on election eve

Washington • November 2, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

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Democrats lead their Republican rivals in five of the seven Senate battleground states that will decide control of the chamber, and trail within the margin of error in the other two, according to the final set of New York Times/Siena University polls before Tuesday's midterm elections.

Democrats need to flip a net four Republican-held seats while holding every seat they already control to win the Senate majority. The final polls, conducted October 23 through November 1, suggest that path — long dismissed as a long shot in states President Donald Trump carried — is now genuinely open, though several races remain close enough that Election Day turnout could still decide them.

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico led Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton 50% to 43%. In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton led Republican Sen. Roger Marshall 49% to 44%. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed led Republican Mike Rogers 53% to 42%. In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson led Republican Sen. Susan Collins 51% to 45%. And in Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown led Republican Sen. Jon Husted 49% to 44%.

The other two races in the set were effectively tied. In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola led Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan 48% to 46%. In Iowa, Democrat Josh Turek led Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson 48% to 47%. The polls' margins of error ranged from 3.3 points in Texas to 4.8 points in Alaska.

Ohio is central to both parties' math. CNN's separate ranking of the 11 Senate seats most likely to flip, published Monday, puts Ohio second — behind only North Carolina — with its Poll of Polls average showing Brown ahead of Husted 50% to 45%. Ohio's Senate race has drawn the second-most spending this cycle, and Republicans outspent Democrats there by about $141 million to $102 million in October, according to AdImpact data cited by CNN. Across the 11 races on CNN's list, Republicans outspent Democrats $560 million to $521 million in the final month.

The polling backdrop for Republicans is grim. Trump's approval rating stands at 36%, with 61% disapproving, according to the New York Times poll tracker — the lowest approval rating for any president heading into a midterm election in the last 80 years, and the lowest pre-midterm favorability since President Harry Truman, according to the Times' chief political analyst Nate Cohn. The Times found just under three in 10 likely voters support how the president has managed Americans' cost of living, and more than four in 10 Republicans dislike his handling of fuel costs.

Trump is set to deliver his closing midterm message Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, after a weekend of campaign stops in Kansas and Iowa. He has said he will wield the veto if Democrats win either chamber, telling reporters as he left Washington on October 27, "Look, I have a strong veto," while adding that he hoped that outcome would not happen.

The Michigan race carries a late twist: the Times/Siena poll there was conducted before Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Rogers on Sunday. Democrats rallied around El-Sayed afterward, and his campaign said it raised $2.4 million on Sunday from more than 65,000 contributors, nearly 30,000 of them first-time donors, at an average of $36.74. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Stevens' move a "despicable betrayal," while former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said El-Sayed "must win."

Polls are a snapshot, not a result. CNN stresses that its ranking is not a prediction of who will win individual races or which party will take the Senate, and the Times/Siena leads in Alaska and Iowa sit inside the margin of error. Alaska's count, with ranked-choice voting and mailed ballots accepted for 10 to 15 days after Election Day, could take weeks in a close race. But on the eve of the vote, the final numbers point the same way in state after state: a midterm map that began the year as a Republican defense has become a genuine fight for the Senate.

Sources: USA TODAY election live updates (Nov 2, 2026), reporting The New York Times/Siena University final polls; CNN, "The top 11 Senate seats most likely to flip, the day before the midterms" (Nov 2, 2026).