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| Auditor Rob Sand (D-IA), one of the Dems' best chances at a gubernatorial pickup this cycle |
Idaho
Governor: There's been a lot of silly season talk about blood red states being in the same situation as Kansas & Texas, where they might actually be winnable, but Idaho is not one of the ones I'll buy. Brad Little cruises to another term...
Senate: ...as does Jim Risch, who will be almost 90-years-old by the end of his fourth term (I frequently forget how old he is because he's new compared to someone like Grassley or McConnell, but that's what happens when you become a Senate lifer after joining the body when you're 62).
Illinois
Governor: On the flip side, the very blue Illinois will stay that way this cycle, as Gov. JB Pritzker (D), now running with a different LG, seeks a second term (and possibly uses this as a springboard into a 2028 presidential campaign?).
Senate: Given some of his public comments about Trump's judicial nominees, I'm not going to be crying to see Dick Durbin (a congressional staple, one of the last members of Congress who has served since before I was born) go, and we will have a staunch Pritzker ally in his LG Julianna Stratton (D) succeeding him in the Senate.
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| Captain Beau Bayh (D-IN) |
House: The Republicans really wanted to redraw the state, and it's probable they will before 2028 to oust Rep. Frank Mrvan, but given Mrvan's district stayed intact, I don't see any reason that he won't get one more term out of the Gary-based 1st.
Secretary of State: As a rule, I'm not writing about downballot races in this recap, but I did want to take note of this one. Birch Bayh, the comely son of former US Senator/Governor Evan Bayh, is making a play for the open Secretary of State position in Indiana. If he wins (and polling shows it's a close race without much at the top of the ballot to drive out GOP turnout, so he might), it'd catapult him pretty quickly to the frontrunner status for a statewide race in 2028. If 2028 looks like a 2008 repeat (i.e. a Dem landslide due to Trump's dropping approval), I wouldn't be surprised if Mrvan and Bayh both run for Gov/Senate, respectively.
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| Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) |
Governor: The center of the beast for the Democrats' 2026 chances is in the Hawkeye State. Iowa spent much of the Obama years being a fertile place for the left, but has gone hard right in the Trump years, and given contests in 2018 & 2020, has been the source of much consternation. But at least for the Governor's mansion, I think we're looking at a clear victory as State Auditor Rob Sand (who won in 2022 by less than 4000 votes, and is the only statewide Democrat left in the state) appears like he will defeat businessman Zach Lahn, whose ties to Iowa are tenuous (hard not to look at the primary where they tossed aside Randy Feenstra as an unforced error from the Republicans). D+1
Senate: If you look at polling for the Iowa Senate race, pitting Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) against State Rep. Josh Turek, it is basically a tied race, perhaps more so than any other contest right now (I will own that I wrote this on October 17th as it's too much to write in real time, but right now Turek has an aggregate of about +1.2%, which is basically nothing). Hinson is one of the few Republicans running for Senate this year that you could call a decent candidate, and honestly after 2018 & 2020 I have had too much heartache in Iowa. I'm going to call it for Hinson, but Turek wouldn't surprise me (and, I'll note right now, this is the Senate victory I'm most hoping for given Hinson surely becomes a national player in the 2030's if we don't take her down now).
House: Iowa has been hit disproportionately hard by Trump's tariffs & the rising price of diesel, and so that will show up in a major way in the US House. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is a goner in the 1st, one of the first races that got triaged as State Rep. Christina Bohannan (on her third try, which sounds like a lot until you remember that Miller-Meeks didn't win until her fourth try) finally gets her victory. I also think that State Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott gets a victory over Rep. Zach Nunn in the third district, the most marginal of the four Iowa seats. The biggest question is in the 2nd (which Hinson is vacating). State Rep. Lindsay James (also a pastor) has done a much better job on the ground than former State Rep. Joe Mitchell, and most people seem to think the trifecta can happen here...and I'm going to join them. So yes, I'll go D+3 even with Turek, seemingly a contradictory play until you realize just how red Western Iowa is.
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| Pastor Adam Hamilton (D-KS) |
Governor: Another state that has been hit hard by Trump's diesel & tariff impacts, the Sunflower State is in a bizarre scenario where something unthinkable could happen: popular Gov. Laura Kelly (D) could be succeeded by another Democrat. State Sen. Cindy Holscher is not the ideal candidate (she's made some errors and is to the left of Kelly, at least in her rhetoric), but she's closing strong going after Ty Masterson's time at Wichita State University (which heavily looks like he was getting paid a solid salary for a no-show job). However, I don't think you know how hard it is to get an open seat win in a red state when the current Governor is a Democrat, and so I'm going to still say R+1, but it'll be close.
Senate: As the race here closes, Kansas & Iowa are oftentimes compared, but while Turek seems to have hit a stasis in a true coin-flip in the polling, it's very clear that Pastor Adam Hamilton (D) has the momentum against Sen. Roger Marshall (R). Marshall's personal foibles have come into view here (particularly his suing and even imprisoning of patients for small bills while his campaign has taken on outstanding debt from small businesses that they have put off paying). No Democrat has won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and honestly...I don't have the chutzpah to predict it now, and I suspect Marshall scrapes by here by less than 5-points, but I will own that Hamilton might be even closer to a win in terms of momentum than Turek, and should not be underestimated.
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| Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) |
Senate: In Kentucky, we have an end of an era as former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose health has been the subject of much speculation all year, will be succeeded by conservative Rep. Andy Barr (R), the rare situation where a Senate seat will 100% go right in 2026.
House: Barr has left what should've been an easy hold in the 6th district open, but Republicans are clearly nervous here (to the point that Trump spent one of the closing days of the campaign in the Bluegrass State stumping for Ralph Alvarado). I think Alvarado will win against Navy Veteran Zach Dembo, but given Kentucky is one of the first states to close their polls (and generally counts ballot at a solid pace), this is a good canary in the coal mine for if it's a blue trickle, wave, or tsunami (this flipping would be a tsunami situation). I will also note (this is a late add onto this article) that the floor seems to be collapsing a bit on KY-6 (some moved it to a Tossup after I wrote this), and there might be something happening on the ground here that wasn't anticipated, so watch this space but I'm still guessing Alvarado).
Louisiana
Senate: Part of me wonders what might have been here if Chuck Schumer was successful in getting former Gov. John Bel Edwards to run (I'm guessing Edwards is a decent guess to run for his old job next year in the Pelican State). But otherwise Rep. Julia Letlow won this seat the second she ousted Sen. Bill Cassidy in the primary.
House: Rep. Cleo Fields only got one term out of his comeback after the 2024 redraw here, with another redraw putting him in a seat no Democrat could win, and so his 6th district will be R+1.
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