The 2026 Midterms Must-Watch List

Tired of rage scrolling through AI Slop and Clickbait just to get a handle on today's news?

Meet InPress, the algorithm-free news app that makes it fun and rewarding to stay informed.

Track your media literacy and rediscover reality.

Download today at inpress.app.

That's I, N as in NewsNerd. Press.

This episode is brought to you by PayPal.

You know how a mom's bag has everything?

Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler,

The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money.

Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place.

And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys,

you're protected at every step.

Download the new PayPal app to get started.

See PayPal.com slash protection terms.

The map has become so wide for Democrats, and this is sort of the big surprise of the year right now,

as we're, you know, talking in early October.

It's possible that Democrats could lose Michigan and still win the Senate.

They have a chance in other red states, Texas, Alaska, even Kansas seems to be very close and competitive right now.

Control over the House and Senate hangs in the balance of this upcoming midterm election.

Republicans hope to retain thin majorities in both chambers,

but Democrats are hoping to gain four seats in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives,

control Congress, and curb President Trump's power in his final two years.

That's the big picture, but it doesn't necessarily offer the texture of why Democrats believe

they can win back power. The national trends give some indication. Democrats are focusing their

message on salient issues, the price of gasoline, and household items often boil down to the

catch all of affordability, and the President's sinking approval ratings in the shadow of the war

in Iran. But national trends can only explain so much. This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Adam Harris,

and this week my colleagues Atlantic staff writers Russell Berman and David Graham

join me to share the five races they are following most closely this midterm cycle.

We'll discuss why they're following these contests beyond the facts that the polls say that they're

close and what they'll be looking out for in the closing weeks of this campaign. Let's get to

questions. David Russell, thank you so much for joining me today.

Great to be here. My pleasure. So over the weekend we asked you to think about the five most

interesting races to you, and we appreciate your doing so. And today we're going to work through

those lists together. We ask you not to share your lists with each other, so where everybody's

coming to this fresh. David, I'm going to go to you first. What's the first race that you want to

talk about that you think is important and why? Let's talk about the main Senate race, which is

maybe one that people will be familiar with. But I think one that is just really important. And

and we're talking about this is where Susan Collins, the longtime Republican incumbent, is running

for another term. And she is after a raucous primary and then withdrawal by Graham Platner,

facing off against Troy Jackson, who is another sort of populist Democrat. And I think an interesting

test of both national currents and also, you know, this the main is a weird state politically. And I

think we're going to see how that plays out in this race. Yeah, Russell, are you nodding as well?

It seems that Maine was on your list too. Bingo. That was my first one as well. This one should be

one on paper. It should be an easy one or maybe the easiest for the Democrats to flip. It is by far

the bluest state of the Senate seats where Republicans have an incumbent on the ballot. But, you know,

as as David mentioned, you know, Susan Collins has been become like a white whale for Democrats over

the course of her career. In 2020, she won the state. She beat the polls. She won the state by nine

points on the same day that Joe Biden won the state by about the same amount. And that was kind of

a huge shocker. And, you know, we don't see as much split ticket voting as we used to. And so she's

certainly not only one of the more moderate Republican senators, but perhaps the most resilient.

And Jackson is he's more authentically working class than the last candidate that the Democrats

had Graham Platner. He's less flawed as far as we know. But he's also less charismatic. And so I

think that's one reason why we're seeing the race, you know, go down to the wire even though the

environment is so favorable to Democrats. I mean, it was unthinkable that the Democrats could

win back the Senate without Maine. And now it's possible that even if the Democrats win the Senate,

as we'll talk about in other races, they still might have trouble beating Susan Collins.

Why is Susan Collins so strong politically in Maine? Why does she have such staying power?

You know, you have this kind of politician that just sticks around forever. And I think she is one

of the few remaining of that type. And I think to the questions about how Maine is an unusual state,

from a national perspective, she does look like a flip flopper and she has these weird views. And she,

you know, expresses concern about things like Roe v. Wade, but then votes for justices who,

I think most people believed correctly would vote to overturn Roe. So she's in this strange place.

But I think maybe that gets a little bit more, that represents some mainers,

accurately. And I also think that Maine is a small off state that she is someone who people

feel like they know. And so she has a kind of credibility with voters that extends past the brand

of the Republican Party and extends well before the Trump era as well. I also, I would add that

Democrats in New England, in particular, it's kind of, I think it's a little bit of a weird thing,

which is such a blue area. They like voting for Republicans or moderate Republicans occasionally.

So you see this in Vermont where they've elected and reelected a moderate Republican Phil Scott

as governor, even though they elect and love Bernie Sanders, the most progressive as of now

as Senator in the country. And then in Massachusetts, fairly recently, they elected and

a moderate Republican governor, Charlie Baker as well. We're seeing that less in Congress and

on the federal level, but Collins is sort of the last of this breed of Republican in New England,

or one of the last. And she's, her approval ratings are lower now than they were six years ago.

So that's giving Democrats some hope that this will be different. But Republicans say that the

Democrats are basically running the same campaign. They've run in the past against her and just

hoping it'll work this time. And does Troy Jackson's late entry into the race actually

change the context of anything? Does it put them in a disadvantage against Collins?

I think it does because, you know, Platner was such a lighting rod, obviously, but he had such deep

support among people and seem like people who, you know, were, you know, regular voters and the

type of sort of low-prepensity voters that Democrats need to get. And Jackson is not as well known.

He was a logger before he entered politics up in the northern, more rural part of Maine. He talks

like he's from northern Maine. And so, you know, that can be compelling, but of course, he has to get,

he has people have to get to know him and he hasn't had as much time. It's a little bit of the

Kamala Harris, you know, effect that we might see from two years ago.

Yeah. All right. So Russell, we're going to move out of Maine into your next pick. What's the next

one on your list? Well, I've got one that Adam, you and I have talked about before, the Michigan

Senate race, which is, you know, as we've talked about, Democrats need to flip four Republican seats,

but that's only if they hold all of their own seats. And Michigan is the one seat that they

currently hold, or the incumbent Gary Peters is retiring, that Republicans have a decent

chance to flip. And of course, the candidates are Abdul Al-Sayed and Mike Rogers. And the big

question is whether Abdul Al-Sayed, somebody as progressive as he is, he's another Bernie Sanders

type of Democrat. He's running on Medicare for all. He's a harsh critic of Israel. He would be the

first Muslim elected to the Senate. And can he win in not a blue state like Vermont, but in a

purple state like Michigan? And Rogers of all the Republican candidates aside from maybe Susan

Collins in the races that were watching is a really strong recruit for Republicans. He's supportive

of President Trump, but not Supermaga. He doesn't have a ton of scandals in his past. He's a long

a former longtime member of the House with national security experience. And most importantly,

nearly one the state's other Senate seat just two years ago. He lost narrowly to

Alyssa Slotkin. And so he's kind of a, you know, a middle of the road in this modern era of

Republicanism. And so the polls have Al-Sayed up. And I think that's partially because the national

environment is so favorable for Democrats. So this is one that even though he has a lead,

it's worth watching until the end. Yeah. David had seen Michigan was also on your list.

It was also my list. And I think it's interesting, you know, to Russell's point, I think

my graduate is maybe about as close as you can get to a kind of generic Republican in a race.

He is, he's a conservative, but he's not wildly out there. He is supportive of Trump, but he is not

like a very clear Maga candidate. And so you have this kind of almost generic Republican,

albeit one with a long reputation in Michigan politics. Running against a Democrat who is very

much atypical in his background. He is a medical doctor. He's atypical in his politics.

He's run for positions before but hasn't won a statewide race. And so I think it's a very

interesting clash of different styles in that race. If Democrats lose the seat in Michigan,

does that, I guess, is there another likely pickup for them? Is there somewhere else that they

would be looking if they don't feel that the seat is as secure? Well, the map has become so wide

for Democrats. And this is sort of the big surprise of the year right now as we're, you know,

talking in early October, is that the answer is yes. Like with Maine, it's possible that Democrats

could lose Michigan and still win the Senate. Now could they lose Michigan and Maine? And when

the Senate probably not, but they have a chance in other red states, Texas, Alaska, even Kansas

seems to be very close and competitive right now. North Carolina is one that they're probably going

to win if the polls are close to right. So it's possible that they might not need Michigan, but

they don't, they certainly don't want to take that risk. Yeah. All right. So David,

what's the next one on your list? We've got Maine and we've got Michigan.

And that's actually a good segue to my next one. I have flagged the Ohio Senate race.

And part of this is just home cooking. I grew up in Ohio, so I feel, I feel a little bit

parochial about this one. But I think this is a really interesting race. We have

former Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat running against current Senator John Hustard, a Republican.

Yeah, polls have been close. They suggest that maybe Brown is up a little bit in some polls,

but it's fairly close. I think this is interesting. I mean, Brown has been such a dominant figure

in Ohio politics for a long time. There was a story recently about how voters kind of think of him

as the incumbent and don't really realize that Hustard is the incumbent. That was fascinating.

Is it because of the name ID or? Yeah. I mean, Hustard has been in state politics for a long time,

but doesn't have the same sort of name ID and has just been in the Senate for a short time.

The last Democrat to win a statewide race in Ohio was one Sherrod Brown. That was in 2018 when he

won a Senate seat that he then lost six years later two years ago. And so to see someone

from the Democratic Party win, even one is unusual to Sherrod Brown. I think would be a remarkable

moment. I don't know if it would be a turning point for Ohio politics or sort of one,

unjust another weird outlier. But I would note that Amy Act and the Democratic

Gouverneutorial candidate has also been leading in some polls against former presidential candidate

Vivegrama Swami, which is not something I would have predicted six, eight, 12 months ago, certainly.

Russell, did you have Ohio? I didn't, but only because I was pretty sure David would,

given his pedigree in Ohio. But no, it's a very important race. This part of the country is where

Democrats are trying to win back. Iowa is another place where Trump has won after Obama won twice that

Democrats might be on the comeback trail. I think the governor's race, as David mentioned,

is fascinating. The other thing for Republicans is that they don't seem to love any of their

candidates or a lot of their candidates in Ohio. There's Ramos Swami. And Ramos Swami has other

issues in that he can come off arrogant. And I think flying out to the US open in the middle of

the campaign to have a prominent seat there, which wasn't a good look. And so there's a question

of whether the Republican base, the turnout, I think, in Ohio is worth watching. And so you might

have an interplay up and down the ballot for some of these races. Yeah. So what was the third one

on your list then? For me, we have to talk about Texas, right? Is this the year that Texas goes blue?

And Democrats, in politics, we've been watching this for the better part of a decade now with

demographic trends and watching the Hispanic vote, which is obviously huge in Texas. And

Democrats have kind of needed a perfect storm. And they might actually have it this year, right?

So they have a strong candidate in James Talleriko, who's young and charismatic. They have kind of a

ridiculously flawed Republican opponent in Ken Paxton, the attorney general, who has a messy

divorce where his wife is now actually on camera in an ad telling Republicans to vote for the

Republican ticket without mentioning the fact that she sued her ex-husband for divorce and he's

the Senate candidate. And so, and then, of course, the Democrats need a strong national environment.

And that's, of course, what it looks like they have here. The Hispanic vote is going to be key.

We're seeing polling out of some house races in the Southern Texas that looks like the Hispanic

vote is swinging back pretty hard toward Democrats after trending toward Republicans in the last

couple of elections. And it would just be a huge, I mean, to use the cliche, huge tsunami politically,

if Democrats did win this Senate seat beyond. We've talked about the importance of each of these

races for the balance of power. And of course, that's important. But the symbolic, more of the symbolic

significance of Democrats winning Texas, right? So then we immediately start talking about whether

Texas is in play on the presidential level in 2028, which would change the entire political map for

both parties. And then, of course, Talarico, if he were to win, would immediately go into the

conversation for future national office, because that's how things work these days, right? Whether it's

in 2028 or later. But it's just, you know, Texas is big for a reason. And the Senate seat is

fascinating. Yeah, David, it seems like Texas was in years as well. I did not have the Texas Senate

race partly because I suspected Russell might. But I do have a third race that is also in Texas,

which is the 15th House District. And Russell is sort of touching on this. This is where Monica

De La Cruz or Republican incumbent is running for reelection. She won, I believe by 14 points two

years ago. Trump won this district by 18 points. And it's in the Rio Grande Valley, which

an area that non-texans got to learn about after the 2024 election. As a place where there's a huge

swing from a historically democratic area towards Republicans and toward Trump. And we were talking

a lot about sort of Hispanic shifts in the vote and how enduring this would be.

If this race is an indication, it may not be all that enduring. Democrats have a really strong

candidate, they believe. Again, I'm bully Bobby Polito, who is a well-known Tejano singer. He has

a couple Latin Grammys. And so, you know, he's a moderate Democrat. He's, I think he's a really

compelling individual. And he seems to be a relatively compelling candidate also. This race looks

really close. I think a Polito win would be a huge moral victory for Democrats and, you know,

contribute to a potential house majority. I think even if he loses seeing where the vote comes out

in that district, we'll be a really interesting indicator of the Hispanic vote and of the Rio

Grande Valley and maybe of the future of Texas as well. Yeah. The Democrats actually put out an

internal poll. So, take it with a grain of salt that had Polito winning by 13 points in this race.

And this is not, was not seen as like a toss-up race, like one of those, like, you know,

dozen or so races that we knew were going to be close. This is a race that started pretty favorably

toward for Republicans. In part, because I'm pretty sure it was made even redder in their

gerrymandor that they did last year. But of course, when Republicans did all that gerrymandering in

Texas, they were basically betting that the Hispanic shift that we saw in the last couple of

elections would hold. But if it doesn't hold, then they could be, you know, up the creek, so to speak,

you know, this could be a big problem. There's a couple of other house races in Texas where we could

see Democrats win that Republicans kind of thought that they had put in the bag. When we come back,

we work through the rest of David and Russell's lists.

Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, and as in news nerd press.

Protect it at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started.

see PayPal.com slash protection terms.

So David, we have main Michigan, Ohio, Texas house. Russell so far, we have main Michigan, Texas

Senate. Russell would cheer for. My fourth is another red state where Democrats have a decent

chance to win for the first time in a while. And that's all the way out in Alaska.

So this is they have a pretty strong centrist type of candidate in Mary Peltola.

She has one statewide in Alaska before. She briefly held the at large house seat there. She

lost narrowly in her reelection bid in 2024. And she's going up against the incumbent Dan Sullivan,

who's a fairly standard issue Republican, you know, similar, I guess, to Mike Rogers and

Michigan. But the crazy thing about this race, one of them is that there is, he's not the only

Dan Sullivan on the ballot. There is another Dan Sullivan who much to the chakirin of Republicans

in Alaska and nationally was able to get on the ballot. And of course, and he could siphon away,

you know, votes from the Senator Dan Sullivan in a closer race. The other wrinkle with Alaska is

that they use ranked choice voting. And so it's possible, you know, we've seen ranked choice

voting as a system does not advantage either party, but in Alaska, it has seemed to help the more

moderate candidate, which tends to be the Democratic candidate or the the other one example there

is Lisa Murkowski, who is another sort of moderate survivor among Republicans in the Senate.

And so, you know, Alaska is one of these states because of the population is so small.

It doesn't take a big shift of voters for it to go the other way. And that's what Democrats

have seen here, you know, on the presidential level, it hasn't looked completely out of reach.

There, you know, Democrats, you know, some of them joke that all they really just need to have

to take like a, you know, 50,000 Democrats from like Brooklyn or Washington, D.C.

and have them move to Alaska. And it could really change the entire equation for them.

So this one is interesting. And the Democrats did, you know, unlike in Texas, more recently,

at least than in Texas, they won a Senate seat in Alaska during a good Democratic year. I believe

that was in 2008 with Mark Begich. And he served for a term before losing his reelection bid.

So those are the dynamics there. And again, this is one of those races that either could

pad if the Democrats have a really good night, could pad their majority or make their majority,

or it could save their majority if they end up losing in one of these other races that we

talked about like in Maine or Michigan. All right. We are down to our final race for each of you.

David, I'm going to go to you first. Where are we on the map?

I am once again doing some home cooking. And I'm hoping I can keep Russ Lennon's toes a little bit

with this one. I've put down North Carolina's first district. He saw this coming probably.

Not exactly, not exactly, but I was like, oh, there's one of those house races. That's right.

Going against the grain here. So in this race, you've got Don Davis, who is a moderate Democrat,

who is running for reelection against Laurie Buckout, who is a Republican. And he's running for

reelection, but it's not really in the same district. So this is a race that was, we talked about

this a little bit with Texas. This is a map that was redrawn by North Carolina Republicans

when President Trump was pushing a lot of Republican legislatures and Republican states to

redrive their maps. North Carolina has seen a lot of gerrymandering already. And so there was only

so much squeeze left in this map, but they thought they had drawn a map that would be very hard for

Don Davis to win. Davis decided to run anyway, which not everyone was sure he would do.

And he seems to be running a pretty close race. The polling on this, you know, house polling can

be really unreliable. Most of the polls are partisan. The Republican polls show Laurie Buckout up.

The Democratic polls show Don Davis up. So it's hard to know. But I think it's a really interesting

test of of this Republican gerrymandering and whether we might be pushing into what they call

dummy mandor territory where you just stretch your voters out so much that you end up not being

able to win these districts. I was out in this district a couple months ago and there were billboards

up that said, Don Davis, he's one of us. Not Don Davis, he's a Democrat. Notably. And so I'd be

curious to see regardless of who wins this race, where it comes down and sort of what that tells us

about the gerrymandering push that we saw around the country.

Yeah. And Russell, what's your big five?

Well, we're staying in the same region and we're going down to South Carolina.

And that's the first district there. This is in in and around Charleston, the low country includes

around Charleston, includes Hilton Head. And so this is the race that is the seat that is

currently held by Nancy Mace. She is a social media star, if you will. But she is not very popular

anymore in her district. And she's not running for re-election. She ran for governor and she lost

pretty badly. And the fact that she's on popular in her district is one of the factors that's helping

Democrats. And the Democrats have a very interesting candidate in Nancy, another Nancy,

a Nancy LaCore, who is a former Republican. And she was the chief of the Navy reserve until Pete

Pete Hegseth fired her last year. She was among many military leaders that he fired and

continues to fire. Many of them are women or people of color. And this is a seat that's,

it's not a toss-up. This is one where if the Democratic wave is pretty big, it's going to continue

again the metaphor in the cliche to wash over places like South Carolina's first district.

Because this is a district that does still lean Republican. Democrats actually won the seat in

their last wave year and then Trump midterm in 2018. A moderate named Joe Cunningham and

pretty big surprise won the seat. And then he lost two years later to Nancy Mace. And then the

Republicans, Jerry Mandered the seat to make it a little bit more Republican and help them hold it.

But and so that's making it still a pretty tough seat for Democrats to win. But the Democrats,

as David mentioned, these polls are partisan, but they have a poll showing that it's very close.

They seem cautiously optimistic in part because of Mace's unpopularity. The Republican candidate

is a woman named Jenny Kasa, who seems to be a perfectly fine candidate. But it's kind of telling

that she's running a campaign where she is running against what she calls clickbait politics,

which seems to be a not-so-veiled reference to, I am not Nancy Mace and I will be a different

type of member of Congress. So this is one that I'm actually heading down to to report on.

And I'll be watching closely. We've zoomed in a lot, Y'all. I want to broaden this back out to

bring it to a close. If you had to draw a through line out from your list kind of heading into the

midterms, what is the through line to your list? Well, it's not on all of them, but on a lot of them,

it's Democrats trying to make inroads in red areas and in a way that can really unlock a lot of new

territory for them in future elections. If they're able to sort of make these connections with voters,

if they actually win these races and then govern in a way that the voters like, it could change

the political map going forward in a way that we haven't seen since on their Democratic side,

since really the Obama era and their first midterm win during the Bush years in 2006 and 2008

with Obama. And so I think that is a through line. And then of course, the obvious one is just how

unpopular President Trump is and the impact that that's having on Republican candidates in,

again, these states that they usually win pretty easily. And David, for yours.

I mean, one other thing that I note going through my list through most of these races is just the

these candidates have particular connections or roots to to electorates. You look at a guy like

Bobby Polito. You look at a guy like Sherrod Brown, who seems to be the only Democrat maybe who can

win a statewide in, you know, Ohio. You look at Don Davis, somebody who's saying he's one of us.

You look at Troy Jackson, who's a logger, but also Susan Collins, who's had that race for a long time.

And so although there are big national waves and big national currents and I think the economy

and Trump's unpopularity are so dominant, what does make a lot of difference in these races are

the waves voters connect with individual candidates and the way candidates can connect with the

voters. Well, David Russell, thank you so much for helping us process the sort of big national

picture and understand it at a more more local granular level as we head towards the midterm

elections given a lot for us to think about. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

It was great. Thanks. Thank you. That's all for today's show. This episode of Radio Atlantic was

produced by Mike Pissoli and edited by Hadley Robinson. It was engineered by Miguel Cascale and

has original music by Rob Smersyak. Claudine Abade is the executive producer of Atlantic audio and

Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. If you like what you saw here, a new episode of Radio

Atlantic dropped every Monday and Thursday. You can subscribe on the Atlantic's YouTube page on

Apple or Spotify or wherever it is you get your podcasts. And if you want to support this work

and the work of my colleagues, you can subscribe to the publication at theAtlantic.com slash listener.

Until next time, I'm Adam Harris.

If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms at Ragebait and Day

I noise. Thanks social media. That's where InPress comes in. It's a social platform on top of

factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like

Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine

curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with InPress. Download it today for iOS or Android

at InPress.app. That's I and is in News Nerd. Press.