“Underwhelming,” “Flailing,” “Disaster” Senate Campaigns Put “Once-Solid” GOP Majority “At Risk” Amid “Rapidly Deteriorating Political Environment”

Punchbowl News: “But the fact that the battleground is shifting to seats Trump carried by 10 or more points in 2024 is the clearest sign that things are trending in the wrong direction for the GOP”

Axios: “Democrats who have made the [Big Beautiful bill’s] Medicaid cuts a leading message are tied or leading in many battleground races, including in states Trump previously won”

With less than two weeks to go until the midterm elections, coverage continues to highlight how Senate Republicans are “scrambling” to defend their “underwhelming recruits” and “endangered majority” amid a “rapidly deteriorating political environment” where “Republicans have lost the electorate on the economy,” as the Senate battleground map expands to states “Trump carried by 10 or more points in 2024.”

GOP Senate candidates’ “disaster” campaigns have “wilted as they face prominent Democrats with wide name recognition and strong fundraising” and “struggled to land effective hits” against Democrats. Meanwhile, Democratic candidates have wielded Republicans’ toxic records – like their record gutting health care – against them as a “potent weapon.” Voters’ negative views about GOP control of Washington have “crystallized” amid “soaring gas and diesel prices” – “upending long-held views about the national map” and putting the “once-solid” Republican Senate majority in jeopardy. 

See for yourself:

Punchbowl News: Republicans pin hope on ‘red wall’ this November

• If a year ago we’d said Senate Republicans would be scrambling to save their endangered majority in October 2026 by building a “red wall” in Kansas, Texas, Ohio and Alaska, you never would’ve believed us.
• But that’s exactly the predicament GOP leaders find themselves in just two weeks before Election Day. Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Texas since the 1980s and in Kansas since the 1930s. Now a rapidly deteriorating political environment is upending long-held views about the national map. Much of it has to do with President Donald Trump and the GOP candidates.
• The Iran war. One of the great truths of American politics is that voters hate paying more at the pump. Trump’s decision to start a costly and drawn-out war with Iran has resulted in soaring gas and diesel prices.
• Anger over high gas prices in particular, which are hitting $4.30 per gallon nationwide, has crystallized everything voters feel is wrong with GOP control over Washington — and Trump especially. Republicans have lost the electorate on the economy. Because of that, the GOP could lose its once-solid 53-47 majority.
• In 2025, the party’s top leaders had predicted they could expand their Senate majority to 55 seats. They still, at least publicly, assert that the GOP will hang on to their gavels. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso reiterated that prognosis to us just last week.
• “We’re going to be in the majority,” Barrasso declared.
• But the fact that the battleground is shifting to seats Trump carried by 10 or more points in 2024 is the clearest sign that things are trending in the wrong direction for the GOP.
• Candidate quality. In the two key southern states of Georgia and North Carolina, Republicans ended up with underwhelming recruits in Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) and former RNC Chair Michael Whatley, respectively.
• The two GOP candidates have wilted as they face prominent Democrats with wide name recognition and strong fundraising. Things are so bleak that Republicans are shifting funds out of these two Trump-won states to defend other deep-red turf.
• In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s candidacy has been a disaster from the start. After GOP groups spent tens of millions to defeat Paxton in his primary against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the same organizations are now spending tens of millions more to prop up Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.
• In Alaska, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has struggled to land effective hits against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. And in Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) is flailing as he’s stuck in a neck-and-neck race against megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton. GOP Sen. Jon Husted is locked in a down-to-the-wire contest against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
• But Republicans up for reelection this fall are stuck in the Trump trap. Even with the president’s approval ratings sagging to historic lows, GOP candidates can’t break with Trump because he still controls the party’s base. It’s a tough spot for Republicans eager to create distance between an unpopular president and a worsening economic landscape.
• For example, Trump is all in for data centers. But the issue is a political loser for Republicans and is coming up time and time again in Democratic attack ads.
• [E]ven the most dominating cash advantage can’t upend a negative political environment. That’s what Senate Republicans face with just two weeks left to go.

Axios: Decades-old GOP winning streaks are suddenly at risk

• Democrats are running surprisingly competitive races in traditionally Republican territory across the country this midterm election cycle, and it’s putting GOP winning streaks at risk that stretch as far back as the 1930s.
• Why it matters: Democrats hope ending political droughts in states such as Kansas, Texas and South Carolina will help make inroads in what has long been off-limits territory.
• Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) is facing a surprisingly tough challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor who has significantly outraised the incumbent GOP senator.
• The two are neck-and-neck in the polls, and Cook Political Report rates the race a tossup.
• Democratic state Rep. James Talarico is giving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) a real run for his money in the Senate race. Talarico generally leads in polls by low single digits. Cook rates it a tossup.
• Polls have routinely shown Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to replace her late brother Lindsey Graham following his death in July, leading Democrat Annie Andrews by just a few percentage points.
• Andrews, like other Democratic Senate candidates, has raised colossal sums, while Graham has struggled as a political neophyte.

POLITICO: Medicaid cuts haunt Republicans in battleground states

• Democrats in battleground states seeking to flip control of Congress in November are counting on a potent weapon: the deep cuts to Medicaid that Republicans approved last year in their signature legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
• In recent Senate debates in Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and South Carolina, Democratic candidates went after their opponents for supporting the law, which will reduce federal funding to the low-income health insurance program by hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years. They also vowed to restore the money to the program if elected.
• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who voted to advance the bill […] pointed to the rural health fund when defending that decision.
• Jackson had a quick retort. “What she brought back is a pittance [compared] to what we’re losing in this state,” he said. “Senator Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire, and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out.”
• Other Democrats candidates echo his response. They note that the rural health dollars states will receive over the next five years is a fraction of the federal funding deficit they’ll face due to other provisions in the bill. They also argue the program has done little to stem the tide of hospital closures and service reductions in rural America.
• In Maine, for instance, one hospital recently eliminated its labor and delivery services, while others are struggling to keep their doors open amid a sharp dropoff in federal funding.
• Polling and ad spending suggest Democrats’ health message appears to be resonating. A POLITICO poll released last week found that an overwhelming majority of voters are aware of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and oppose its contents, which include tax cuts for individuals and corporations, restrictions on food stamp eligibility and provisions to encourage fossil fuel extraction.
• In addition to imposing mandatory work requirements on millions of low-income adults without children enrolled in Medicaid, the bill’s health care provisions also reduce the health funding states receive by hundreds of billions by changing their ability to tax hospitals and kick the money back to them via higher reimbursements. Beginning in 2027, it also boots millions of legal immigrants from Obamacare’s individual market, a move predicted to raise costs for citizens as immigrants are on average younger and healthier than the general population.
• The GOP’s attempts to rebrand the package as the “Working Families Tax Cuts,” POLITICO’s poll additionally found, have done little to win over the electorate. In fact, Americans’ view of the legislation is slightly worse today than upon its enactment last year, when a poll by the health policy think tank KFF found opponents outnumbering supporters two-to-one.
• Now, in the final weeks of the campaign, Democrats who have made the bill’s Medicaid cuts a leading message are tied or leading in many battleground races, including in states Trump previously won.
• Another survey by KFF released last week found that voters favor Democrats over Republicans on tackling the rising cost of health by 20 points — a sharp increase over the 11-point margin the same survey found earlier this year. A Quinnipiac poll in late September yielded similar results. And according to a national survey conducted by the left-leaning health advocacy group United States of Care, three in four Americans say health care will be one of the top three issues deciding their vote, and nearly as many reported feeling “frustrated, overwhelmed, or helpless” about health care costs.
• Health care is also the number one issue in Senate advertising and the number two issue in House advertising, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report’s Battleground Issue Tracker, which found that Democrats are airing tens of thousands more ads and spending tens of millions more on the issue than Republicans.
• Republicans in competitive races, meanwhile, have run a total of just four TV ads about the Big Beautiful Bill since the beginning of last year, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.
• [I]n Alaska, where more than 36% of the population is on Medicaid and where Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola’s health care-focused campaign is threatening to topple longtime GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan.
• “My immediate priority is reversing the damage to Medicaid and restoring health care tax credits that Dan Sullivan voted against seven times,” she said in Thursday night’s debate. “He voted for the Big Beautiful Bill and had the audacity to call it the Alaska Opportunity Act. This has been the opportunity for a third of Alaskans to have their Medicaid benefits reduced.”

‘Washington Post: Trump approval hits record low, handing Democrats a clear midterm edge

• Two weeks from Election Day, Republicans face a bleak political landscape. President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to a new low, and support for Democrats in the race for control of Congress is rising as inflationary pressures contribute to an acrid mood among voters, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
• The poll also finds that, for the first time in more than a decade, Democrats are seen as more trusted to deal with the economy.
• The collective results of the new survey reveal an electorate that has lost faith in the president, is deeply worried about his decision to go to war with Iran, is feeling the effects of that war — especially the price of gasoline — on their pocketbooks and now has more confidence in Democrats than Republicans to deal with major issues. Today, 72 percent say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up five points since April.