Kalshi’s 2026 Senate election guide

Control of the Senate is up for grabs in the 2026 midterms, and traders currently see Republicans as having a two-in-three chance of retaining control of the upper chamber. If Democrats can manage to win a majority in the Senate, that could have important implications for, among other things, the fate of President Trump’s appointees and potential Supreme Court confirmations.

Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate and Democrats hold 47 (including two independents that caucus with Democrats). To win control of the Senate, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to get to 51, since Vice President J.D. Vance would break 50–50 ties. Looking at the Senate terrain in 2026, the path to 51 seats is certainly possible for Democrats, but it would require almost everything to go right for them.

Here’s a deeper look ahead at the nine races that will define the battle for Senate control in 2026, grouped into three broad categories of seats.

One of the most critical swing states in the last two presidential elections, Georgia voted narrowly for Biden in 2020 before Trump flipped the state back to red in 2024 by 2.2%. Nevertheless, Democrats won and currently hold both of the state’s Senate seats. Going into the 2026 cycle, incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff looked potentially vulnerable as the only Democratic Senate incumbent running for reelection in a state that Trump won.

But in 2025, Ossoff received a huge break when the state’s popular GOP governor, Brian Kemp, decided against challenging Ossoff in 2026. Instead, Ossoff is facing a divided GOP primary field led by Rep. Mike Collins, Rep. Buddy Carter, and former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, who has the backing of Kemp.

Georgia’s purple hue, a likely unfavorable midterm environment for the GOP, Ossoff’s prolific fundraising, and his public anti-corruption crusade in Congress have traders giving him a strong 76% chance of winning reelection as the year starts.

Beyond Senate control, this election could also hold presidential implications. If Ossoff does pull off a convincing victory, look for chatter around his viability for the 2028 Democratic nomination to surge.

After winning a squeaker in 2020, incumbent Democratic Senator Gary Peters decided against seeking reelection, opening up a critical Senate seat in a state that Trump carried twice.

Michigan had the closest Senate race of 2024, when Democrat Elissa Slotkin defeated Republican Rep. Mike Rogers by less than 20,000 votes. Now Rogers is running for Michigan’s other Senate seat and looks poised to sail through the GOP primary.

The Democratic primary, on the other hand, is quickly becoming a three-way slugfest between U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, state senator Mallory McMorrow, and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed. Stevens has the support of establishment Democratic figures in the House and Senate, while El-Sayed has more progressive support and looks to replicate Zohran Mamdani’s winning playbook statewide. McMorrow, meanwhile, has honed in on a populist, cost-of-living-focused campaign message in viral campaign ads.

Currently, Democrats maintain a 77% chance to win in the general election, likely due to the forecasted blue-leaning environment in 2026. Those odds could change, though, depending on which Democrat emerges victorious from the primary.

Longtime Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s retirement created another open Senate seat that Democrats need to defend in a blue-leaning state with a recent penchant for GOP governors.

Similar to Georgia, Democrats lucked out when popular former GOP governor Chris Sununu opted not to run for the seat. However, his older brother, John E. Sununu, who held this Senate seat from 2003 to 2009, did jump into the race instead. He will not have the GOP primary all to himself. Scott Brown, the former GOP senator from Massachusetts, also announced he would run for the nomination, setting the stage for a battle between two former senators.

On the Democratic side, Representative Chris Pappas has largely cleared the field, securing the backing of almost every prominent New Hampshire Democrat, including the endorsement of outgoing Senator Shaheen. He is trying to make history as the first openly gay man elected to the Senate in U.S. history.

Given the national environment and New Hampshire’s slight Democratic slant, traders give Democrats over an 80% chance of holding the seat in a race where both parties will likely field experienced candidates.

One of Democrats’ top targets in 2026, North Carolina has remained tantalizingly close but stubbornly just out of reach in federal races for Democrats. Hoping to break an 18-year losing streak is Roy Cooper, a former two-term governor and four-term state attorney general who is undoubtedly Democrats’ dream recruit in the state. Notably, Cooper was able to win North Carolina in both 2016 and 2020 even as Trump carried the state each time.

On the Republican side, GOP Senator Thom Tillis announced his retirement in mid-2025 after attracting Trump’s ire for voting against the OBBB and appearing vulnerable to a primary challenge. In Tillis’ absence, the Republican establishment has quickly coalesced around former RNC chair Michael Whatley, with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune all endorsing Whatley in the primary.

Looking ahead to the general election, Kalshi traders are quite bullish on Democrats in this must-win seat, with a 77% chance of victory reflecting the favorable environment and strong likely nominee in Cooper.

Maine’s GOP Senator Susan Collins is one of the last senators in the country who represents a state that reliably votes for the opposite party, and she is the only GOP senator up for reelection in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024 by around seven points.

Collins, who has sought to carve out an image as a hardworking moderate conservative, has seen her crossover support decline during the Trump era but still managed to defy the odds in 2020 and defeat Democrat Sara Gideon in a huge upset. Should she formally launch her reelection campaign, which she is expected to do, she would remain a formidable opponent.

Democrats, meanwhile, are facing a titanic primary battle that could have broad implications for the future of the party. On paper, the primary should be easy for two-term governor Janet Mills, who has national backing and was recruited into the race by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But it is actually Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran who has never run for public office before, who has made waves in the state and generated significant enthusiasm from the Democratic base. In many ways, the fault lines are as much generational as they are ideological, with the 77-year-old Mills representing the Democratic “establishment,” and the 41-year-old Platner running as an unabashedly populist progressive.

While the polls, and our markets, have Platner ahead in the primary, he has faced a series of scandals over past comments made on social media and tattoos that bear a striking resemblance to Nazi insignias. Time will tell if more scandals will emerge and whether they will have a significant negative impact on Platner’s candidacy.

As the Democratic primary rages on, traders have nonetheless grown more confident in Democratic chances in November, with their odds improving from around 50% in summer 2025 to 67% by year’s end. As ticket-splitting continues to decline, partisan gravity may finally catch up to Collins, as it did to Democratic senators in red states like Ohio and Montana in 2024.

Once the quintessential swing state, Ohio backed Trump’s reelection by double digits and also narrowly voted out Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in 2024. Now Brown is back, seeking to win the state’s other Senate seat once held by Vice President J.D. Vance.

To return to the Senate, Brown will likely need to oust incumbent GOP Senator Jon Husted, the state’s former lieutenant governor and secretary of state, who was appointed by Governor Mike DeWine to the seat following Vance’s vacancy.

Although by far Democrats’ best candidate in the state, Brown’s hopes lie in a combination of the strength of his personal brand and a significantly bluer environment in the state, driven by backlash against Trump.

Still, Brown likely has his work cut out for him, given that Husted is not a particularly controversial figure in Ohio. Entering 2026, traders see Democrats as an underdog in the general election, with around a 37% chance of flipping the seat blue.

One of the states that shifted the most from Obama to Trump, Iowa has emerged as a solidly Republican state in recent years, with Trump winning by 13 points in 2024.

Nonetheless, Democrats are eyeing both the governor’s mansion and the state’s Senate seat in 2026, hoping to capitalize on any discontent against GOP governance in Iowa (GOP Governor Kim Reynolds consistently polls as the least popular governor in the country).

Adding to Democrats’ hopes are the party’s several large 20-plus-point overperformances in Iowa state legislative special elections throughout 2025, which helped Democrats break the GOP’s supermajority in the state Senate.

The election will be an open-seat race, given that current GOP Senator Joni Ernst announced she would not seek reelection, perhaps influenced by public backlash over a disastrous town hall answer in which she said, “We are all going to die,” in response to a question on Medicaid cuts. The GOP then quickly consolidated behind Representative Ashley Hinson, a former news anchor from northeastern Iowa.

The Democratic primary, meanwhile, is a more contested affair, with state representative Josh Turek, a former Paralympic basketball player, currently leading state senator Zach Wahls and military vet Nathan Sage in the market.

Republicans are still favored in the general election, with a 66% chance of victory. However, traders currently see Iowa as Democrats’ second-best chance of a red-state pickup, likely driven by dissatisfaction over Trump’s tariffs, which have disproportionately impacted farmers and agricultural industries key to Iowa’s economy.

A state that voted for Trump by 13 points, the competitiveness of Alaska’s Senate race hinges largely on the decision of one person: former Representative Mary Peltola.

As a state with one at-large congressional district, Peltola is the most recent Democrat to win a statewide election, flipping the seat in a special election before holding it in 2022. She lost the House seat in 2024 by less than three points, notching one of the strongest overperformances of any Democratic House candidate.

Now, Peltola has a tough decision to make on her political future. She could run in the open race for the governor’s mansion, an election which early polls suggest she would likely be a heavy favorite to win. Or she could choose to challenge incumbent GOP Senator Dan Sullivan, likely creating an extremely competitive race that would nonetheless be an uphill battle given greater polarization in federal races and the added difficulty of unseating an incumbent.

The markets currently give Democrats a 42% chance of winning the Alaska Senate race, a number which likely factors in the uncertainty of Peltola’s ultimate decision. Her eventual announcement of her 2026 plans will provide a lot more clarity to traders on the state of the Senate race in Alaska, which remains one of the only states to use ranked-choice voting to determine winners in federal races.

Democrats’ dreams of a blue Texas faded dramatically in 2024 after Trump stormed to an almost 14-point win in Texas, undoing years of Democratic progress in moving the state toward a true battleground.

But in 2026, the Senate map is so challenging that Democrats cannot afford to ignore Texas. Their chances of victory are likely largely dependent on who ultimately emerges from the competitive primaries on both sides of the aisle.

On the GOP side, incumbent Senator John Cornyn is in the fight of his career, facing a tough challenge from the state’s controversial attorney general, Ken Paxton, as well as Congressman Wesley Hunt. Despite professional and personal scandals, including being impeached by the Texas House in 2023, markets currently give the hard-right Paxton a significant edge in the GOP primary over the establishment Cornyn.

On the Democratic side, an equally competitive two-way race is shaping up between state representative James Talarico and U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett. Talarico has made religious themes central to his campaign’s populist message, while Crockett has gained national attention as a vocal opponent of Trump and Republicans in Congress. She has, however, drawn controversy for past statements, including calling Texas Governor Greg Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels,” an apparent dig at Abbott’s wheelchair. Perhaps in response to such controversy and worries about Crockett’s electability, the market still gives Talarico a clear advantage in the primary.

One thing to remember: in Texas, candidates need to win over 50% of the vote to win primary elections outright; otherwise, the election will head to a runoff with the top two finishers. Given the three-way nature of the GOP primary, it is likely that a runoff in May will be required to determine the nominee.

In the general election, traders currently give Democrats only a 20% chance of flipping the seat, but both parties’ primaries are uniquely unsettled, and the final matchup may take months to emerge.

Follow Jaron Zhou on X: @ZhouJaron

^{Original image source: David}

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