Updated October 29, 2026, 8:08 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Democrats have led the way in Senate races in Michigan, Texas, Maine and Kansas ahead of next week’s midterm elections, according to new CNN polls, putting the party in a strong position to take control of the Senate.
In Michigan and Texas, Democrats are leading elections outside the polls’ margins of error, while elections in Maine and Kansas are closer and within the margins of error. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats in the Nov. 3 election to take control of the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 seat advantage.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed holds a 7-point lead over Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan (49% to 42%), according to a poll of likely voters, in a race long seen as the best opportunity for Republicans to flip a Democratic-held seat.
In Texas, Democrat James Talarico is ahead of Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate, by 6 percentage points (49% against 43%). Texas last elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 1988, and President Donald Trump won the state by nearly 14 points in the 2024 presidential election.
Democrat Troy Jackson leads Republican Sen. Susan Collins by four points (49% to 45%) in Maine, putting the Republican incumbent in danger of losing a seat she held for five terms in the Senate.
And in Kansas, where no Democrat has won a Senate race since 1932, Democrat Adam Hamilton holds a four-point lead over Sen. Roger Marshall (49% to 45%), according to a CNN poll. Trump won Kansas in the 2024 election by 16 points.
Each of the polls, conducted by the nonpartisan research firm SSRS, was conducted over the past week starting October 20. The polls, conducted online and by telephone, have margins of error ranging from plus or minus 4.2 to 4.7 percentage points.
In other Senate battlegrounds not surveyed by CNN, Democrats widened their leads in North Carolina (+11%) and Georgia (+8), according to a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown leads Republican Sen. Jon Husted by nearly three points, according to polling averages.
In the homestretch of the midterm campaign, Trump has crisscrossed the country — including visits to historically red states like Mississippi and South Carolina — as Republicans seek to avoid a blue tsunami that would give Democrats control of the House and Senate.
Yet Trump’s popularity is at an all-time low in many of the states he visits, according to CNN polls in all four battlegrounds, suggesting the president’s firestorm of rallies intended to inflame the MAGA base could backfire.
In Michigan, 66% of likely voters disapprove of Trump’s performance as president; in Texas, 59% disapprove; in Maine, 67% disapprove; and in Kansas, 57% disapprove.
The backlash comes as polls consistently show that Americans are concerned about the state of the economy and inflation, and blame the president’s policies for cost-of-living issues primarily.
Contact Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
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