Voters’ decisions in the November midterms are set to reshape the balance of Washington and beyond.
Democrats are seeking to capitalize on favorability ratings that fell below 40 percent for Republicans in the latest RealClearPolitics polling summary.
Here are a few top elections and candidates to watch this cycle.
Georgia Senate
In Georgia, Republicans are again seeking to flip one of the state’s two Senate seats, which have been held by Democrats since 2020.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), elected to his first six-year term in a January 2021 runoff, is up for reelection. Republicans selected Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) to take him on.
Polls taken in the state have shown that Ossoff is favored to hold the seat, leading Collins in almost every poll so far.
In 2024, President Donald Trump won Georgia by about 2.2 percentage points, Republicans’ lowest margin of victory in the Peach State since 1996.
Maine Senate
In Maine, incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will take on former state Senate President Troy Jackson in one of the year’s top Senate fights.
Collins, a long-serving political juggernaut in the state, ran unopposed for her party’s nomination.
Maine Democrats selected Jackson on July 25 as their party’s nominee to challenge Collins, taking over after the previous nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out of the race.
Platner, a progressive, was one of the first candidates to capture the populist mood of the national Democratic base, building a campaign that championed pro-working-class policies. But after accusations of sexual and other misconduct emerged, which he denied, Platner ultimately departed the race.
Collins faces a difficult fight to hold the seat; polls show that she’s running behind either Democrat in most polls conducted since March.
Texas 34th Congressional District
In Texas’s 34th Congressional District, which is one of the Lone Star State’s most evenly split seats, incumbent Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) is seeking to hold off a challenge from Republicans, who see the House district as a potential pickup opportunity.
The seat was among those redrawn by the state legislature last year at the request of the White House.
In the primary, Trump-endorsed candidate Eric Flores, a former federal prosecutor, defeated former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) for the Republican nod.
In 2022, Flores made headlines with a special election win in District 34 before its map was redrawn. But after she lost to Gonzalez in 2022 and again in 2024, the party is making a fresh bid with Eric Flores.
The Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.
Ohio Senate
Ohio is another key battleground this year, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is set for a November fight against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio).
Brown was unseated just two years ago in the 2024 election, losing to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) by about 3.6 points—far outrunning Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s approximately 11-point victory that year.
Without the benefit of the “Trump effect,” which refers to Trump’s impact on close down-ballot races during presidential election years, Husted faces a race against a politically powerful opponent with deep name recognition in the state.
Husted was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat held by Vance. The winner will serve out the final two years of Vance’s term.
North Carolina 1st Congressional District
In North Carolina’s First Congressional District, Republicans selected retired Army Col. Laurie Buckhout as their nominee on March 3, setting up a November rematch against incumbent Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.).
The district was altered to favor Republicans, although analysts still consider the seat competitive.
Davis won a second term in 2024 by less than 2 points, becoming one of 13 House Democrats to win elections in districts won by Trump. He’s been critical of the redrawing of his district, which will make reelection a tougher challenge this cycle.
Check out the full story for all 37 midterm races to watch here.
—Joseph Lord; Jackson Richman
BOOKMARKS
The Supreme Court has agreed to take a second look after a federal judge ordered the government to turn over records related to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The judge said DOGE was subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, but the government has argued that it’s a presidential advisory board and immune from those requests.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes has again blocked the Trump administration from cutting down more trees as it seeks to renovate a Washington golf course. The DC Preservation League and two golfers sued the administration, arguing that the government didn’t do a proper environmental impact assessment.
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday said that neither he nor President Donald Trump were notified before federal agents executed a search warrant at the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a day earlier. “If there’s a real case there, we’re going to follow the facts,” Vance said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Monday that he wants to remain the Republican House leader if the GOP loses the midterm elections next month. Check out Jack Phillips’s latest for more.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham wants to negotiate a new post-Brexit deal at a summit with the European Union next month. “This summit presents an opportunity to make progress on two crucial issues: boosting UK growth and controlling illegal immigration,” he said.
—Stacy Robinson
