Elections We Are Watching: Alaska, Iowa, Montana, and Texas races give Democrats hope of flipping seats
Democrats are seeing new opportunities to flip Republican seats in a bid to take back the Senate and the House of Representatives. Here are some of the elections we are watching.
The 2026 midterms are heating up across the country. Democrats are over-performing and defeating Republicans. The political world is buzzing with new data and polling, shifting the likelihood of races into new territory. This also means that there is a lot of drama starting to show itself in some races.
The recent election results show a shift towards the Democratic Party, and it is putting some seats in danger of flipping away from Republicans. We live in a time, politically, where being an incumbent comes as extra baggage rather than an advantage. It has led to some wild political moves. Here are some of the elections that we are watching after some sudden shifts caused drama.
Montana: Senate Race
The Montana Senate race took a turn on March 4 when Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines withdrew from the race three minutes before the filing deadline. He then endorsed Kurt Alme, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana. Many in the political world see right through the façade and call the move a trick to allow Alme to file to run while keeping other candidates out of the race.
By waiting until the last minute and essentially choosing a successor, Sen. Daines is putting his finger on the scale. The maneuver shut out Democrats from mounting a strong challenger in the now open Senate race. Independent candidate Seth Bodnar is capitalizing on the drama Sen. Daines created. Before the announcement, Sen. Daines held a sizable lead, and the story was that Republicans would hold onto the Senate seat.
However, the decision could put the seat into play for the 2026 midterm elections, costing Republicans a seat in the Senate. Inside Elections moved the race from Solid Republican to Likely Republican in the aftermath of Sen. Daines’s sudden retirement. President Donald Trump won Montana in 2024 with 58.4 percent of the vote. Sen. Daines intentionally injected uncertainty into the race with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Alaska: Senate Race
Mary Peltola is giving Democrats hope of a potential flip in the Senate. Peltola is no stranger to defying the odds when it comes to politics in Alaska. She won a special election in 2022 after the Republican incumbent Don Young died. She became the first Native Alaskan and woman elected to represent Alaska in Congress. She also became the first person born in Alaska elected to serve in Congress and the first Democrat elected to Congress in Alaska since 1972.
Polling shows Peltola leading the pack in Alaska’s jungle primary and ranked-choice voting system. Peltola's entering the race moved what would have been a Solid Republican seat to Lean Republican across several organizations tracking elections. She is challenging incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan. A recent survey from The Alaska Current shows that Alaska voters are not happy with Sen. Sullivan’s work in the Senate. The survey reports that 41 percent of Alaska voters think the senator should have another term, while 53 percent believe that he should be replaced.
Iowa: Senate Race
Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa threw the Senate race into chaos long before 2026. During a town hall in 2025, Sen. Ernst was asked about Medicaid cuts that were coming as part of the Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans supported. Her response was, “Well, we are all going to die.” The comment landed as well as you would expect. The backlash was swift and severe, eventually forcing Sen. Ernst to announce her retirement from the Senate, a seat she has held since 2015.
With Sen. Ernst out of the race, national Democrats are hopeful that the right candidate could turn Iowa from a Republican state back to a battleground state. Iowa voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Current polling shows a close race with 3 percent between Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Zach Wahls. Wahls is currently leading in the polls for the Iowa Democratic Senate primary. Cook Political Report names the Senate race in Iowa as Likely Republican, showing a shift towards Democrats.
Texas: Senate Race
The Texas Senate race drama has less to do with party affiliation and more to do with unwavering loyalty to the president over country. Democrat James Talarico won the party’s nomination after the primary election on March 3. However, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to get 50 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, triggering a runoff election.
Where this gets dicey is AG Paxton’s claim that he will drop out of the race if Sen. Cornyn commits to suspending the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act. Sen. Cornyn had previously stated that he would not support suspending the filibuster for the vote, and it has thrown the Republican Party into chaos over the election. Why? Well, President Trump was set to endorse the incumbent, but he is determined to pass the SAVE Act in an attempt to disenfranchise voters ahead of the midterm elections.
AG Paxton’s announcement leaves President Trump unable to endorse one candidate over the other. On the one hand, he could endorse the incumbent to protect the seat. On the other hand, he can endorse a man who said he would drop out of the race if the incumbent changes his thoughts about the filibuster.
Meanwhile, recent polling shows both Sen. Cornyn and AG Paxton trailing Talarico by very slim margins. Talarico leads Sen. Cornyn 44 to 43, and he leads Paxton 47 to 45. Democrats have been trying to flip a Texas Senate seat for a decade, and this could be their best shot in a long time to turn a statewide seat blue.
Texas: 23rd Congressional District
Running from San Antonio to El Paso, Texas’s 23rd Congressional District is one to watch. Rep. Tony Gonzales has represented the district since 2021. However, a political scandal upended his reelection bid after admitting to an affair with a staffer who committed suicide last year. For months, Rep. Gonzales denied the affair, despite text evidence that he engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship.
After he dropped out, YouTube personality Brandon Herrera, also known as the “AK Guy,” became the Republican candidate. He was quickly endorsed by President Trump. Herrera has a long history of posting Nazi and gun content on social media. Texas’s 23rd Congressional District includes Uvalde, the site of the Robb Elementary School shooting.
Recent polling shows that Democratic challenger Katy Padilla Stout is within striking distance of Herrera in a district that is largely Latino. Stout is polling at 40 percent compared to Herrera’s 42 percent.
Why do these elections matter?
Democrats are capitalizing on disenchanted voters who are moving away from Republicans. Recent special elections show Democrats over-performing in even the most Republican districts with strong support for President Trump in 2024.
On January 31, 2026, Taylor Rehmet pulled off a major upset for Republicans when he flipped Texas’s 9th Senate District for Democrats. The seat had been held by Republicans since 1992, ending a 34-year streak of Republicans representing the district. Rehmet won the district by 14 points, a dramatic swing from the 20-point victory by Republican Kelly Hancock in 2022. The 34-point swing is largely attributed to the shift of Latino voters back towards Democrats following the 2024 presidential election.
Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives that could disappear after the 2026 midterms. Republican leadership has regularly stated that if Democrats control the Senate and the House, it would be an effective stop to President Trump’s agenda. Americans, according to polling, are unhappy with the president’s job. Fifty-five percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s job performance, with factors like the economy, the Iran war, and tariffs dragging down his approval rating.
Independent and Latino voters are shifting to the left. In a survey with Latino business owners by Politico, 42 percent said that their economic situation has gotten worse under President Trump. New data shows that 45 percent of Americans now identify as politically independent, the largest number ever recorded. The shift, however, seems to be favoring Democrats leading into the 2026 midterm elections.