The Senate
Of the 35 seats on the ballot, Republicans hold 22. Democrats hold 34 seats that are not on the ballot and Republicans 31, so Democrats need to win 17 of the 35 for an outright majority, or 16 if an unaligned independent takes a seat from the Republicans: the party with more seats organizes the Senate, and the vice president only breaks ties. A national polling miss moves every race together in the simulations, which is why the seat distribution is wider than the race-by-race odds suggest.
| If… | Democrats win control | Republicans win control | Democratic seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| No direction assumed (still carries the usual uncertainty) | 72% | 28% | 51.5 |
| Polls overstate Democrats as they did, on average, in 2016–24 (1.8 points) | 48% | 52% | 50.1 |
| Polls understate Democrats by the same amount (1.8 points) | 88% | 12% | 52.7 |
“No direction assumed” does not mean the polls are assumed to be exactly right: every row above, including that one, already carries the historical size of past misses as uncertainty (see Uncertainty) — the win probabilities and seat ranges everywhere on this page are built from that spread. It means only that the model does not bet on which direction the next miss runs, unlike the two rows below it. From 2016 through 2024 the projections this method would have made ran too Democratic on average; before that they ran about even, and in the 2025 governor's races the polls missed the other way. These rows show what a repeat of that pattern, or its mirror image, would mean on top of the uncertainty already built in.
All 35 seats on the ballot
Sorted from most Democratic to most Republican. The heavy rule is the line for control: Democrats need the race just above it, and every race above that. Where an independent stands in for a missing Democratic nominee, the margin is independent minus Republican, and a win there counts for neither party, which lowers the number Democrats need. See how the intervals are built.
Every race, sortable
| Candidates | Rating | Raised (D / R) | Cook | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | Markey v. Deaton | SAFE D | D+29.1 | >99% D | D+27.1 | 13 | D+30.6 | D+27 | $1.0M / $339K | Safe D |
| Rhode Island | Reed v. McKay | SAFE D | D+28.3 | >99% D | D+27.9 | 6 | D+28.6 | D+15 | $1.6M / $55K | Safe D |
| Delaware | Coons v. Katz | SAFE D | D+28.2 | >99% D | — | — | D+28.2 | D+16 | $1.5M / $12K | Safe D |
| Oregon | Merkley v. Smith | SAFE D | D+25.7 | 99% D | — | — | D+25.7 | D+16 | $2.1M / $75K | Safe D |
| Colorado | Hickenlooper v. Baisley | SAFE D | D+23.7 | 98% D | — | — | D+23.7 | D+12 | $4.3M / $73K | Safe D |
| New Jersey | Booker v. Murphy | SAFE D | D+22.1 | 98% D | — | — | D+22.1 | D+7 | $5.0M / $7K | Safe D |
| Virginia | Warner v. Mizusawa | SAFE D | D+21.0 | >99% D | D+19.6 | 2 | D+21.4 | D+7 | $5.2M / $50K | Safe D |
| New Mexico | Luján v. Marker | SAFE D | D+17.4 | >99% D | D+16.7 | 3 | D+17.8 | D+7 | $1.6M / $25K | Safe D |
| Illinois | Stratton v. Tracy | SAFE D | D+16.3 | >99% D | D+12.7 | 3 | D+17.6 | D+12 | $3.7M / $368K | Safe D |
| Georgia | Ossoff v. Collins | SAFE D | D+11.0 | 99% D | D+10.6 | 17 | D+11.7 | R+1 | $28.6M / $2.2M | Lean D |
| North Carolina | Cooper v. Whatley | SAFE D | D+9.1 | 97% D | D+11.4 | 43 | D+3.9 | R+2 | $6.6M / $4.0M | Lean D |
| New Hampshire | Pappas v. Sununu | SAFE D | D+8.1 | 95% D | D+6.9 | 29 | D+9.9 | D+4 | $5.6M / $1.4M | Tossup |
| Minnesota | Flanagan v. Tafoya | LIKELY D | D+7.0 | 93% D | D+6.3 | 20 | D+8.5 | D+6 | $2.0M / $2.1M | Likely D |
| Michigan | El-Sayed v. Rogers | LIKELY D | D+4.2 | 83% D | D+4.0 | 63 | D+5.2 | Even | $5.6M / $3.4M | Tossup |
| Maine | Jackson v. Collins | LEAN D | D+3.5 | 78% D | D+3.0 | 30 | D+4.9 | D+8 | $6.2M / $6.3M | Tossup |
| Texas | Talarico v. Paxton | LEAN D | D+2.5 | 71% D | D+3.5 | 74 | R+3.1 | R+12 | $29.5M / $11.3M | Tossup |
| Ohio (sp.) | Brown v. Husted | LEAN D | D+1.7 | 65% D | D+3.1 | 39 | R+2.8 | R+10 | $17.6M / $5.1M | Tossup |
| Kansas | Hamilton v. Marshall | TOSS-UP | Even | 50% D | D+3.1 | 18 | R+6.6 | R+15 | $3.0M / $1.8M | Likely R |
| Iowa | Turek v. Hinson | TOSS-UP | R+0.3 | 53% R | D+1.2 | 37 | R+5.1 | R+12 | $3.1M / $4.3M | Tossup |
| Alaska | Peltola v. Sullivan | TOSS-UP | R+0.6 | 55% R | D+2.5 | 21 | R+5.0 | R+12 | $7.7M / $2.6M | Tossup |
| Nebraska | Osborn (I) v. Ricketts | LEAN R | R+1.9 | 64% R | R+1.9 | 17 | R+12.5 | R+19 | $2.3M / $2.1M | Likely R |
| South Carolina | Andrews v. Graham | LEAN R | R+3.9 | 80% R | R+1.5 | 14 | R+8.6 | R+16 | $3.1M / $1.4M | Safe R |
| Florida (sp.) | Nixon v. Moody | LIKELY R | R+7.2 | 94% R | R+6.2 | 31 | R+11.1 | R+12 | $177K / $2.3M | Safe R |
| South Dakota | Bengs (I) v. Rounds | LIKELY R | R+9.4 | 95% R | R+9.4 | 14 | R+22.9 | R+28 | $315K / $1.1M | Safe R |
| Mississippi | Colom v. Hyde-Smith | SAFE R | R+10.9 | 96% R | R+3.2 | 3 | R+13.0 | R+21 | $1.6M / $1.8M | Safe R |
| Idaho | Achilles (I) v. Risch | SAFE R | R+11.3 | 96% R | R+11.3 | 8 | R+27.5 | R+35 | $461K / $1.9M | Safe R |
| Louisiana | Davis v. Letlow | SAFE R | R+12.3 | 97% R | R+4.0 | 3 | R+14.2 | R+21 | $151K / $977K | Safe R |
| Arkansas | Shoffner v. Cotton | SAFE R | R+18.2 | >99% R | R+10.7 | 7 | R+21.6 | R+29 | $894K / $2.7M | Safe R |
| Montana | Bankhead v. Alme | SAFE R | R+19.9 | >99% R | R+24.8 | 18 | R+14.4 | R+18 | $27K / $730K | Safe R |
| Alabama | Wess v. Moore | SAFE R | R+20.4 | >99% R | R+14.4 | 5 | R+25.1 | R+29 | $2K / $1.7M | Safe R |
| Kentucky | Booker v. Barr | SAFE R | R+20.9 | >99% R | R+12.5 | 2 | R+22.9 | R+29 | $192K / $4.3M | Safe R |
| Oklahoma | Thomas v. Hern | SAFE R | R+25.8 | >99% R | R+24.0 | 1 | R+26.2 | R+33 | $14K / $1.0M | Safe R |
| Tennessee | Bradshaw v. Hagerty | SAFE R | R+28.4 | >99% R | R+24.7 | 1 | R+29.3 | R+28 | $250 / $2.7M | Safe R |
| Wyoming | Byrd v. Hageman | SAFE R | R+33.7 | >99% R | — | — | R+33.7 | R+44 | $6K / $427K | Safe R |
| West Virginia | Anderson v. Capito | SAFE R | R+38.2 | >99% R | — | — | R+38.2 | R+40 | $10K / $2.3M | Safe R |
Bold surname = incumbent running. Settled = only one major party is on the November ballot. Lean = presidential vote relative to the nation. Cook = Cook Political Report rating as listed on Wikipedia, shown for comparison only; it is not an input.