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Democrats Show Strength in Final Days of Race for the Senate, New Polls Find

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Democrats are up in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio, have an edge in Alaska and are effectively tied with Republicans in Iowa, new New York Times/Siena polls found.

The New York Times/Siena poll

Oct. 23-Nov. 1

If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, who would you be more likely to vote for?

Among likely voters. Shaded areas represent the margin of error.

Nov. 1, 2026, 7:53 p.m. ET

Democrats are ahead of Republicans in almost all of the seven battleground states that will determine which party controls the Senate, according to the final set of polls from The New York Times and Siena University before the midterm elections.

The surveys found that Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.

To win a Senate majority, Democrats need to defend all the seats they currently hold and flip at least four seats that are currently held by Republicans. It has been seen as an uphill battle because many of the seats they need to win are in Republican strongholds.

But the new polls found Democratic candidates ahead in five states that now have Republican senators and effectively tied in a sixth. They hold leads in Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas and a narrow edge in Alaska. They are effectively tied in Iowa.

In Michigan, the lone top Senate battleground already held by Democrats, the poll found the Democratic candidate leading by double digits. (It was conducted before a Democratic feud erupted in Michigan this weekend.) The surveys did not include North Carolina, where polls have long found the Democrat leading and Republicans have pared back their campaign spending.

Dissatisfaction with President Trump and frustration over his management of the economy are dragging down Republicans, according to the polls. Just 38 percent of likely voters approved of the president’s job performance in the seven states in the poll, a strikingly low figure given that Mr. Trump had won five of the states by double digits just two years ago.

The New York Times/Siena poll

Oct. 23-Nov. 1

Favorability ratings of U.S. Senate candidates in each state

Iowa

+15 pts.

Even

Michigan

+12 pts.

–12 pts.

Texas

+10 pts.

–20 pts.

Kansas

+9 pts.

–10 pts.

Alaska

+5 pts.

–7 pts.

Ohio

+2 pts.

–12 pts.

Maine

–3 pts.

–1 pt.

OctoberSeptemberJune

Alaska	D+1	D+7	R+2
Iowa	D+1	R+1	R+2
Kansas	D+5	Even	No poll
Maine	D+6	R+3	D+2
Michigan	D+11	D+5	No poll
Ohio	D+6	D+3	R+3
Texas	D+7	D+6	Even

The New York Times/Siena Poll

Oct. 23-Nov. 1

Do you trust the Democratic or Republican candidate for U.S. Senate to do a better job on the following?

Mich.

Kan.

Texas

Ohio

Maine

Iowa

Alaska

Here are the key things to know about these New York Times/Siena polls:

Interviewers spoke with 610 voters in Alaska, 705 voters in Iowa, 714 voters in Maine, 717 voters in Ohio, 736 voters in Kansas, 1,011 voters in Michigan, and 1,215 voters in Texas from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, 2026.

The polls were conducted by telephone using live interviewers. Overall, nearly 98 percent of respondents were contacted on their cellphones.

Voters were selected for each survey from a list of voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For these polls, interviewers placed more than 915,000 calls to more than 400,000 voters.

To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of respondents and the weighted sample at the bottom of the results and methodology page, under “Composition of the Sample.”

The margin of sampling error among likely voters ranges from plus or minus 4.8 percentage points in Alaska to plus or minus 3.3 percentage points in Texas, and plus or minus 1.5 percentage points when the seven states are analyzed together. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error.Polls of Maine in 2026 were conducted in collaboration with The Portland Press Herald and sponsored in part by The Maine Trust for Local News.

You can see full results and a detailed methodology here. If you want to read more about how and why we conduct our polls, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.