Democratic candidates are leading in five of the seven closely contested states that could decide control of the US Senate, according to the latest New York Times/Siena polls ahead of the Midterm elections. They hold leads in Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas, and a narrower advantage in Alaska. The race in Iowa is tied, the surveys found.
To take control of the Senate, Democrats would need to hold all the seats they currently occupy and win at least four Republican-held seats. The party faces a difficult path because many of its targets are in traditionally Republican states. The new polling nevertheless showed gains for Democrats in six of the seven states surveyed since September; Alaska was the exception.
In Texas, Democratic state representative James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by 50% to 43% among likely voters. Paxton also has the weakest favorability rating among the candidates included in the surveys: 54% of likely voters view him unfavorably, compared with 33% who view him favorably.
In Maine, former state senator Troy Jackson leads Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is seeking reelection, by 51% to 45%. The polling cautions that surveys have previously underestimated Collins: she was behind in polls before her last election but won comfortably.
Democrats are also ahead in Ohio, where former senator Sherrod Brown leads Republican Senator Jon Husted by 49% to 44%, and in Kansas, where pastor Adam Hamilton leads Republican Senator Roger Marshall by the same margin. In Iowa, state representative Josh Turek is statistically tied with Republican Representative Ashley Hinson.
In Michigan, the only one of the major Senate battlegrounds surveyed where Democrats already hold the seat, Abdul El-Sayed leads former Republican representative Mike Rogers by 11 points. However, the poll was conducted before a public dispute among Democrats escalated. Primary rival Haley Stevens endorsed Rogers on Sunday, a move described in the source report as an unusual cross-party alliance that renewed Republican hopes.
The surveys point to dissatisfaction with Trump and his handling of the economy as factors weighing on Republicans. Across the seven states, 38% of likely voters approved of the president’s performance. Democrats held a nine-point advantage on the cost of living overall and led on that issue in each state surveyed. Voters also said Democrats would do a better job addressing living costs and overseas wars, and acting in the interests of ordinary people.
Democratic candidates led among independent voters in every state included in the polling. Their improved standing was also linked to stronger support among younger and Latino voters, while Republicans appeared weaker among white working-class voters. In the seven states, Republican Senate candidates received about a quarter of the votes of younger and Latino voters, and 56% among white voters without a college degree.
The poll findings also showed potential risks for Democrats: some voters remained undecided, and voters who said they had made up their minds in the previous month favored Republicans by nine points. The report also notes that white working-class voters have been difficult to reach in surveys and that polling errors have historically been larger among this group.
The surveys were conducted by telephone from October 23 to November 1, 2026, with 610 likely voters in Alaska, 705 in Iowa, 714 in Maine, 717 in Ohio, 736 in Kansas, 1,011 in Michigan and 1,215 in Texas. The reported margin of sampling error ranged from 4.8 percentage points in Alaska to 3.3 points in Texas; for the seven states combined, it was 1.5 points.
Sources: Folha Mundo.