The predictions for the Senate races in North Carolina, Ohio, and Alaska shifted further left on Tuesday, according to a forecast update from the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
The election forecaster shifted the ratings for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-OH) from “leans Republican” to “toss-up” on Thursday, while shifting North Carolina’s open Senate seat, to fill the vacancy of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic.”
The rating shifts make four of the Senate seats up for election in 2026 “toss-ups,” per the election forecaster, and give the Democrats a possible opening to take the Senate majority, but only if they win all four.
“If Democrats sweep the Toss-ups, they would win the Senate, assuming that the favored party wins the seats rated as Leans, Likely, and Safe. But Republicans can block Democrats by winning just one of the Toss-ups, meaning that they’re still better-positioned to hold the majority,” the report from Sabato’s Crystal Ball reads.
In North Carolina, former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) is taking on former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. Polling in the general election matchup from early March has consistently shown Cooper leading Whatley by single digits, with some polls giving Cooper a double-digit lead. But in North Carolina, which has voted for President Donald Trump in the three past presidential elections, Democrats have historically had a hard time winning federal elections.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball report said that although Cooper is in a strong position, North Carolina has “proven elusive for Democrats,” particularly in Senate races. The forecaster pointed to Tillis’s 2020 results against Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham, who had “led in most public polls and appeared well-positioned for much of the campaign,” but ultimately fell to Tillis by just under 2 percentage points.
“Democrats have repeatedly come close in high-profile federal races in North Carolina without quite getting over the finish line,” the report reads.
Trump won North Carolina by over 3 percentage points in 2024, and the last time the state had a Democratic senator on Capitol Hill was in January 2015, when Tillis replaced Sen. Kay Hagen (D-NC). Tillis beat incumbent Hagen in 2014 by just under 2 percentage points.
In Ohio, former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is challenging incumbent Husted. Polls have been quite back-and-forth in the race, but a recent June poll sponsored by Fox News had Brown leading by 8 percentage points. But Brown fell just two years ago to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) by 3.6 percentage points, while running as an incumbent.
The election forecaster pointed to the Fox News poll and said the results “turned heads,” but said Brown could still be pinned by the GOP as “yesterday’s man.” Trump also won Ohio in 2024 by a whopping 11.3-point margin.
“We doubt Brown is actually up by that much but he very well may be leading, even as scattered, earlier public polls more often than not showed Husted ahead,” the Sabato’s Crystal Ball report reads.
In Alaska’s Senate race, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who was courted to run for the Senate seat by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) despite her 2.4-point loss to Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) in 2024, is challenging incumbent Sen. Sullivan in the August open primary race. The race was recently thrown into greater flux when a GOP candidate also named Dan Sullivan filed to run in the primary, infuriating Senate Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) called the second Dan Sullivan filing “bizarre,” saying it “obviously is designed to confuse the electorate in the state of Alaska.”
“Alaska, meanwhile, does not get polled very much, at least publicly,” the election forecaster wrote in its report of why it moved the race to a toss-up. “The only recent public polling is from Ivan Moore’s Alaska Survey Research (Moore has worked for Democrats). Peltola has been leading Sullivan in those polls after Sullivan led last summer, before Peltola was a candidate.”
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Trump has won Alaska in every presidential race he has run in, besting Vice President Kamala Harris by over 13 percentage points in 2024.
The Alaska primary will be held on Aug. 18.