Cook Political Shifts Four Senate Races Toward Democrats, Key Race Now a Toss-Up

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for The Cook Political Report, dropped the political forecaster’s latest analysis on the state of the 2026 U.S. Senate races and offered some dire news for Republicans hoping to keep their slim majority.

Cook Political shifted four Senate races toward the Democrats: an open seat in North Carolina, Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) reelection bid in Georgia, the open race in Ohio, and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) reelection bid in Nebraska. Both the Georgia and North Carolina races shifted from “toss up” to “lean D,” while the key Ohio race moved from “lean R” to “toss up.”

Ricketts’s race moved from “solid R” to “ likely R” – leaving the seat firmly in likely GOP hands.

“With an increasingly sour national environment for Republicans, the Senate battlefield is shifting in Democrats’ favor. But due to the difficulty of the map, winning back a majority still remains a tall order. The GOP remain the narrowing favorites to retain the upper chamber. However, that outlook could change in the coming months,” wrote Taylor in her analysis on the shifts.

As of right now, the Democrats would have to win all the seats leaning their direction, and the three toss-up races – Maine, Michigan, and Ohio – to get to a 50-50 split in the Senate. A split would still leave the GOP with the majority as Vice President JD Vance would have the tie-breaking vote. In Cook’s race standings, Alaska is the only “lean R” state the Democrats could possibly take to win an outright majority.

Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas are in the “likely R” column and appear out of reach as of now.

Read Taylor’s full breakdown here.

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