Senate races in Republican states tilt toward Democrats, polls find

A month before the midterm elections, Democrats have opened leads or battled their way to ties or near-ties in five reliably Republican states where they are trying to flip Senate seats to win control of the chamber, according to new New York Times/Siena University polls.

Democrats lead among likely voters in the Senate races in Texas and Alaska, two states that consistently vote Republican, the polls found. They have an edge in Ohio, which has been tilting rightward for years. Republicans have a slim edge in Iowa, and Democrats are neck-and-neck with Republicans in Kansas, which has not voted for a Democratic senator since 1932.

President Donald Trump’s deep unpopularity, disapproval of the Iran war and frustration over high gas prices and the cost of living are reshaping the electoral landscape, the polls found.

Taken together, the new polls suggest that the Democrats have multiple paths to retake the Senate majority, despite a challenging map that had favored Republicans going into the midterms. To win Senate control, Democrats need to flip four Republican-held seats while holding on to their current seats in three battleground states, a difficult task.

But there are signs that it is increasingly possible. On Friday, a top Republican super political action committee pulled its money out of the Senate race in North Carolina, signaling that the party is not optimistic about being able to defend its seat there. The super PAC, called the Senate Leadership Fund, plans to redirect resources to Kansas, where Republicans have growing concerns about holding their seat.

The polling suggests Democrats are increasingly competitive in these Republican states.

In Texas, James Talarico, a Democratic state representative, has opened up a 6 percentage point lead in the race against Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued attorney general and Republican nominee who has been strongly supported by Trump.

Austin Vaughn, 30, an independent voter who works for a nonprofit and lives in the Houston area, said he voted for Trump in 2024 but plans to support Talarico this fall.

“He’s the one actually listening and hearing that those are problems,” said Vaughn, referring to rising costs. “And the Republicans on the other side are gaslighting everyone and saying they aren’t real problems.”

In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, is ahead of Sen. Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, by 7 percentage points. The polling aligns with the results of the state’s nonpartisan primary in August, when Peltola and Sullivan appeared on the same ballot, and she won by 8 points. A majority of voters there said that they viewed Peltola favorably; the poll was conducted after allegations of poor treatment toward her staff came to light.

In Ohio, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, holds a narrow 3-point edge in his comeback bid against Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican incumbent, with voters saying they prefer the well-known Brown over Husted on nearly every issue in the poll. Brown has an 11-point advantage over Husted on the question of who would better handle the increasingly potent political issue of data centers, the poll found.

And in Iowa and Kansas, two Midwestern states that have been hit hard by the economic effects of Trump’s policies, the races are neck-and-neck. In Iowa, Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee, has a 1-point edge over state Rep. Josh Turek, the Democrat. In Kansas, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee, and Sen. Roger Marshall are locked in a dead heat.

The polls suggest Democrats are performing well with independent voters, who often decide elections. Across the five states, Democrats hold a 24-point advantage with the group. On issue after issue, independent voters say they trust Democrats over Republicans — including a 30-point advantage on which party does what’s best for ordinary people in their state.

In all but one of the states, Democratic candidates are seen as less ideological than their Republican counterparts. In Ohio, voters were about equally concerned that the candidates were too ideological; 37% said they thought Brown was too far to the left, and 36% said Husted was too far to the right.

It is a striking transformation in five states Trump won every time he was on the ballot. In Ohio, which he carried with 55% of the vote in 2024, only 38% now approve of Trump’s job performance, down from 44% in June.

Soaring gas prices, which were driven above $4 a gallon by the Iran war, have continued to hurt the president’s popularity, particularly in the Midwest. About half of Republicans in Iowa and Ohio said that they disapproved of Trump’s handling of gas prices. Across all five states, Democrats are now more trusted than Republicans to handle the cost of living — reversing the advantage Trump had on the issue in those states just two years ago.

“You used to be able to get a house — a pretty good house — for under $200,000,” said Bethany Deines, a 58-year-old Democrat in Hamilton, Ohio, who supports Brown for Senate. Homes in her area now go for more than double that, she added: “I mean, it’s just not manageable for everyday people to be able to really even afford quality housing.”

Perhaps nowhere is Democrats’ advantage more remarkable than in Texas, where Talarico has been boosted by a growing share of voters — now 60% — who say that he has the right kind of moral values, up from 51% in June.

Many establishment Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn, whom Paxton defeated in a primary, warned this year that Paxton was a flawed candidate who could put what had been seen as a safe Senate seat at risk.

The poll suggests that may have proved true, with a majority of Texas voters saying Paxton does not have good character. And 45% say his past scandals, including his impeachment over corruption charges and a messy divorce from his wife, make them question supporting him — or mean they will not support him at all.

But Paxton will have a big financial advantage heading into November. Republican groups recently began spending large amounts of money to prop him up, reserving about $190 million in ads supporting him for the final two months of the race.

About half of voters across the five states — 49% — say they want a candidate who can provide a check on the president, according to the polls. Just 27% say they would prefer candidates who support Trump.

Nowhere is that more apparent than Iowa, where 53% of likely voters, including nearly 20% of Trump’s own supporters, say they want a candidate who can provide a check on the president.

Brayden Blocker, an 18-year-old Republican and college student in Iowa City, said Congress should be “less extreme.”

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“With the new Congress coming in, I would say that I think it should just be more moderate members that aren’t necessarily, like, just what Trump wants to do,” he said. “It’s what their constituents want to do instead.”

The divide in voter concern about parties being too ideological is particularly stark in Kansas, where voters are more likely by a 10-point margin to say that the Republican is too far to the right than to say that Hamilton, the Democrat, is too far to the left.

Marshall, the state’s Republican incumbent, is an obstetrician-gynecologist who filed lawsuits against hundreds of patients over outstanding bills, leading to the arrest of at least 81 patients, a New York Times investigation found. That has become an issue in the campaign.

Half of voters also say they worry that he will support Trump too much.

“You couldn’t pay me enough money to back Donald Trump or anybody that backs him,” said Alexis Price, 42, a travel adviser in Kansas City who said she does not align with either party. “I think what the Republican Party and a lot of the Republican nominees are doing is disgraceful and disgusting. And I have to vote to my conscience over any sort of party affiliation.”

Across the five polled states, Democrats hold an advantage on nearly every issue, including on the cost of living, which is the single most important issue to voters, along with the economy. Even Republicans’ edge on immigration is slipping. Republicans held just a 3-point advantage on the issue across the five states.

Among the strongest measures for Democrats is that voters say that they trust them more to do what’s best for ordinary voters. In Alaska, Peltola has a 8-point advantage on that question.

Peltola is viewed very favorably by a majority of Alaskans, including 15% of Republicans, and has managed to grow her lead in a state that nonetheless favors Republicans continuing to hold control of the Senate.

“I see her out in the community,” said Jessica Romer, a 38-year-old Democrat in Anchorage. “And I just really like that she’s interacting with people, like getting to know them and what their needs and wants are.”

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Here are the key things to know about these Times/Siena polls:

Between Sept. 22 and Oct. 1, 2026 interviewers spoke with about 600 voters per state in Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Kansas, and about 500 voters in Alaska.

The polls were conducted by telephone using live interviewers. Overall, nearly 99% of respondents were contacted on their cellphones.

Voters were selected for each survey from a list of voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For these polls, interviewers placed more than 480,000 calls to more than 170,000 voters.

To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. The margin of sampling error among likely voters is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points when the five states are analyzed together and between 4.5 and 5.5 percentage points in each state. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error.