With the 2026 primaries fast approaching, there are three U.S. Senate seats onlookers should keep an eye on.
Republicans are currently enjoying a supermajority after sweeping the 2024 elections, controlling the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point.
After November, Republicans flipped four seats: Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Montana. These victories flipped the Senate and put Republicans in a comfortable 53-seat majority while Democrats fell back to just 47 seats.
Although the GOP has a healthy majority, there are some more potential pick-up opportunities — and losses — for Republicans going into next year's primaries.
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One of the most contentious Senate races will be for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff's seat in Georgia. Several prominent challengers have emerged in recent months, most notably with Republican Rep. Mike Collins throwing his hat in the race back in July. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has also been floated as a potential candidate, but she has not formally moved to run for the seat.
The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point against Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue. Given this razor-thin margin, Republicans have set their sights on taking back Ossoff's seat, and early polling suggests it's within reach.
The Cook Political Report currently rates Ossoff's seat as a toss-up, and some polls mirror this rating. In a hypothetical race between Ossoff and Collins, the Democratic incumbent has polled with an average three-point advantage, according to RealClearPolitics. Another recent poll shows Collins trailing Ossoff by just one point, according to findings from TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics.
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Another pick-up opportunity for Republicans emerged in Michigan after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced his retirement in January. Several Democratic candidates, like Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, have since launched their own campaign bids, but the future nominee will inevitably have to put up a fight against Republican challengers.
Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers is considered the frontrunner among the GOP candidates in the Michigan Senate race. Rogers previously ran and narrowly lost against Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024, but he has since relaunched his Senate campaign with the hopes of flipping the swing-state seat.
Slotkin managed to defeat Rogers by just 0.3% in November, signaling the support behind the Republican challenger. Earlier in the year, Rogers was polling several points ahead of his Democratic counterparts, and Cook Political Report has rated the Senate seat a toss-up.
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Although Republicans are poised to potentially flip some seats, there may be some warning signs in the Midwest.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) reportedly will not seek re-election in 2026, leaving a vacancy in the deep-red state. The Cook Political Report has rated the seat as leaning Republican, and the GOP has maintained a prominent presence in Iowa at both the local and national level.
Despite the success Republicans have enjoyed in the Hawkeye State, Democrats have begun to secure their own electoral victories. Most recently, Democrat Catelin Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch for an open state Senate seat, flipping the GOP's supermajority for the first time in three years.
Steve Deace, a native Iowan and host of "The Steve Deace Show" on BlazeTV, told Blaze News that this swing in favor of Democrats is taking place because Iowans are not energized by any Republican candidates they have to choose from.
"There are danger signs, because if it can happen in Woodbury County, Iowa, this can happen anywhere in America," Deace said.
"Our people are just not motivated, by and large, to vote for the Republican Party brand as a brand anymore. So you’ve got to prove to them you’re worth their time and effort for them to show up, and I think that this is a wake-up call for the next midterm."
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Some of the easiest ways for Democrats to pander to their audience are to entertain the idea of Trump’s impeachment or to tear up while discussing illegal aliens — which is why two senators couldn’t help themselves when recent opportunities to do just those two things arose.
“Why are there no calls for impeachment? This is unacceptable. I will not live in an authoritative country, and neither will any of these people. You can do more. I like you, and I will vote for you if you are brave and you do what we need. We need him impeached. We need him removed,” a woman said passionately to Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) at a town hall.
“There is no doubt that this president’s conduct has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment by the United States House of Representatives. I agree with you. But as I said at the beginning, I also have no choice but to be candid with you about the situation,” Ossoff responded.
Ossoff went on to claim that to impeach, Democrats must “have a majority in the United States House of Representatives."
“He just laid it out right there,” executive producer and co-host of “Pat Gray Unleashed” Keith Malinak says. “You give Democrats power, we will impeach President Trump regardless of what the issue is.”
Joining Ossoff in his delusion is Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who staged a theatrical display of fake tears while protesting America’s stance on deportations.
“Trump has gone too far. Even for his own supporters. When a father of three U.S. Marines is violently beaten and detained. When U.S. citizens are arrested for no other offense than the color of their skin,” Padilla said, close to tears.
“When a farm worker falls to their death during an ICE raid, we know it’s gone too far. Americans deserve a better path forward,” he continued, before introducing his new amnesty plan that would allow illegal immigrants amnesty after living in the U.S. for seven years.
“We’re going to reward you for living in the shadows successfully for seven years,” Malinak comments.
Gray takes Padilla’s plan a step further, joking, “If you’ve been breaking our laws for 20 years, we’re going to give you a new house.”
To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Republican Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia formally threw his hat into the race with hopes of flipping a Senate seat in the key swing state.
Collins announced his Senate bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia on Monday, pledging to "deliver on President Trump's America first agenda."
'Put the people of Georgia back in the driver's seat.'
"We need a senator who works for Georgia, not the California crazies or the New York nut jobs," Collins said in his campaign announcement. "I don't know who Jon Ossoff really works for, but it sure as heck isn't Georgia."
"It's time to send a trucker to the U.S. Senate to steamroll the radical left, deliver on President Trump's America first agenda, and put the people of Georgia back in the driver's seat," Collins added.
As Collins noted, he previously started a trucking company in the early 1990s with his wife that grew to employ over 100 Georgians, according to his congressional website.
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A key accomplishment Collins noted was his landmark legislation known as the Laken Riley Act, which became the first bill Trump signed into law during his second term. The bill was named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old student who was murdered by an illegal alien in February 2024 on the University of Georgia campus right in Collins' district.
The law now requires illegal migrants who are charged with theft-related and violent crimes, like the one who later murdered Riley, to be detained as a preventative measure.
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Although Collins is just months into his second term in the House, he is taking the charge to challenge Ossoff, who has served in the Senate since 2021. Collins is now the second Republican to enter the race to unseat Ossoff, joining his Republican colleague Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia.
Both Republican candidates have touted themselves as MAGA firebrands, but neither Trump nor the National Republican Senatorial Committee has issued a formal endorsement.
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