Final polls put Democrats ahead in five of seven Senate battlegrounds

Haley Stevens backs Republican rival after losing Michigan Senate primary

The final set of New York Times and Siena University polls, published Sunday, put Democratic candidates ahead in five of seven key Senate battleground contests. The advantage included Texas and Kansas, where voters had not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988 and 1932, respectively. Opinion surveys had separately suggested Democrats were well positioned to win the House, although the party faced a tougher task to regain the Senate and had targeted Republican-held seats in Ohio, Texas and Maine.

Michigan was widely seen as a crucial pillar of either party’s ambitions to control the Senate. On Sunday, Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost her party’s Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed Republican rival Mike Rogers. Fellow Democrats widely condemned the move after a feud with the El-Sayed campaign over an outside group’s advertisement blaming the high cost of living on U.S. support for Israel. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, described Stevens’s endorsement of Rogers as “a despicable betrayal.” Abdul El-Sayed told hundreds of supporters in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Monday: “Whatever they’re trying to distract you, it’s because they’re picking your pocket.”

The Michigan rupture came days after The Guardian reported that Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as her rival, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola denied knowledge of the reported scheme.

Before the report on Peltola’s campaign, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate results in the event of a Republican defeat. The department cited potential “voter confusion” over the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. A judge subsequently dismissed the lawsuit.

The underlying November 3 election put control of the House and Senate at stake, with Republicans holding both chambers. In Detroit, Michigan, voters filled out ballots on the last day of early voting while the parties made their final pitches. The election was widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s second presidency and a chance for opponents to rein in his power.

Trump staged several dozen rallies across the country and urged his MAGA base to vote for Republican candidates and pretend his name was on the ballot, while crisscrossing the country to deliver a succession of speeches for Republican candidates. Opinion polls put his approval ratings at record lows of between 33% and 37%. The party holding the White House typically loses congressional seats at midterm elections, and The Guardian reported that Democrats were counting on Trump’s declining popularity to generate the widespread popular opposition needed to win both chambers.

Democrats said they sought control of both chambers to put a brake on Trump’s presidential power, which The Guardian described as largely unchecked. They cited immigration enforcement actions involving mass arrests and deportations, the war with Iran, tariffs on foreign imports and building projects including a White House ballroom. Democrats also sought to reinforce the message that the election was about Trump while highlighting what they described as corruption involving Trump and his family, affordability and the Iran conflict’s impact on the cost of living.

Opinion surveys showed that voters had become increasingly concerned about corruption in government. A recent Harris poll for The Guardian found that 76% thought elected officials cared more about enriching themselves than improving the economy for ordinary people. Disclosures to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed that Trump had earned about $2.2bn since returning to the White House, including royalties from his own name-branded meme coin. With Trump having grown wealthier, The Guardian reported that voters were facing rising living costs after he vowed during his 2024 presidential campaign to reduce them.

The Guardian reported that the war with Iran, which Trump launched last February in tandem with Israel, had stoked inflation by increasing global oil prices. The report said higher oil prices led to higher prices at the pump for American motorists and raised the cost of diesel, a vital fuel for supply chains and farmers. Democrats cited the conflict and its economic effects as reasons for voters to reject Republican control of Congress.

The election also took place under uncertainty over whether Trump would accept results if they did not go the Republicans’ way. Alaska was one of the matters pursued by the Department of Justice, which operates under the control of Trump’s close ally, Attorney General Todd Blanche. Opponents said the department’s election-related cases were designed to cast doubt on election integrity, including through what The Guardian described as baseless claims of mass voting by non-U.S. citizens.

The Justice Department planned to deploy a record 1,000 election monitors at polling stations across the United States. Critics denounced the planned deployment as voter intimidation.