The midterm battle map continues to expand, as Republicans scramble to put out brush fires across the country in the all-out fight for control of the House and Senate.
On Saturday, Trump flew to Clarksville, Tennessee for a rally in his latest jaunt into deep red southern states. The president scratched plans to fly to Tuscaloosa to catch the Alabama-Georgia game Saturday night because of Hurricane Isaias.
Last week, Trump was in Ohio, a state he carried by 11 points in 2024, to try to bolster incumbent Sen. John Husted (R-Ohio) and candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy, who each find themselves in tight races. A new Marist University poll has former Sen. Sherrod Brown up 8% over Husted, who was appointed in 2027 to fill the seat of Vice President JD Vance.
Some experts, including prognosticator Nate Silver, consider the state a “slightly easier” flip for Democrats than Maine, where Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is relying on decades of experience outperforming her party while her opponent Troy Jackson has made stumbles after prior nominee Graham Platner’s implosion.
Even deep red Nebraska is getting the president’s time and attention, as soaring gas and diesel prices take a toll on farmers. He traveled there Oct. 5 for the first time since 2022.
“I think the president’s coming to Nebraska to help me campaign so I can get reelected,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) told reporters bluntly before the visit, after polls showed a tight race with Dem-backed independent Dan Osborne.
It’s the same prairie fire that has put GOP Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall into the column of competitive races.
“They will win in all those places. The atmosphere is not great but I’ve seen worse,” said longtime political operative John Feehery.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and a slim 218-214 edge in the House.
The GOP is boosted by Trump’s $400 million war chest and a $100 million advantage in funding controlled by its party committee compared to scrounging Democrats. The Texas Senate race alone could cost Republicans $300 million, Daines said, as the party tries to prop up AG Ken Paxton after some self-inflicted wounds.
Trump is also planning an Oct. 13 trip to Alaska to boost Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and announced a $54 billion South Korean investment in an LNG pipeline there – although the Koreans say it’s not a done deal yet.
“It’s a tough environment. Second midterms are tough,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) told the Richard Nixon Foundation at its October conference in DC.
He compared this election to 2006. “Think about the condition of the country back in ’06 – an unpopular war. Six in 10 Americans opposed the Iraq War at that point. Gas prices had doubled. Does it sound familiar? We ended up losing six seats,” he said.
Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom, 43, even has a chance of winning in that Republican stronghold if turnout is down to 2023 governor’s race levels. He is taking on incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who was appointed in 2018 and was reelected in 2020. Democratic polls show Hyde-Smith leading by 6 points, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) has steered some donors to give there, according to the Washington Post.
In heavily Republican South Carolina, Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) held tiny leads within the error margin in polls by the Trafalgar Group and Inside Advantage.
The House isn’t immune. Republicans redrew the lines of a Toledo-based district so that Trump would have carried it by 11 points. But longtime incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is now in a tossup race.
Upstate Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was down 2 points to Democrat Cait Conley in his competitive district in a new Emerson College poll this week. A new New York Times Siena poll published Friday had dairy farmer Blake Gendebien leading GOP businessman Anthony Constantino 46-42, in a district Trump carried by 16 points in 2024.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who isn’t up for reelection this year, described the grim results of a poll he commissioned in his deep red state. “People are unsettled,” he told The Post.
