THREE WEEKS OUT: Senate Map “Expands” For Democrats as GOP Sees “Rising Threat to the Senate Majority” on “Increasingly Shaky” Battleground

GOP Operative: “We were all hoping the war was going to be over now, but it’s not. We shouldn’t have a fight in a place like Texas, but obviously we do”

CNN: “Democrats increasingly believe they have a real chance to win seats deep in Trump territory as Republicans face their worst midterm environment in decades and the Senate map abruptly expands”

With less than three weeks to go until Election Day, coverage continues to highlight how Democrats are on offense, increasingly competing in “deep in Trump territory” as an “increasingly shaky” Republican Senate map “provide[s] little reassurance for the GOP” amid the potential “worst midterm environment [for Republicans] in decades.”

As the map expands for Democrats, Republicans’ “concern is evident” as their “faltering” Senate candidates fail to catch steam – forcing national Republicans to dump “resources into traditionally red districts and states at the expense of their once-expansive ambitions in Democratic areas.” 

Meanwhile, Democrats are “enter[ing] the final month of the campaign in a better position than anyone would have imagined when the year began,” continuing to expand the map thanks to a “significant advantage in candidate quality” after recruiting a slate of formidable, all-star candidates who are “both personally appealing and ideologically acceptable to red-state voters.”

See for yourself: 

CNN: Democrats eye ambitious Senate map that was once unthinkable as anti-Trump backlash grows

• […] Democrats increasingly believe they have a real chance to win seats deep in Trump territory as Republicans face their worst midterm environment in decades and the Senate map abruptly expands.
• Democrats are now adding Kansas to a growing list of unlikely targets as they also try to flip Texas, Alaska and Iowa – all four states that Trump won by double digits in 2024. With just 22 days to go, Senate Democrats’ top super PAC surprised some in its own party by investing $5 million in Kansas – a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century.
• “The gap is closing in Kansas,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
• […] Voters’ anti-Trump backlash is driving Democrats to gamble in even redder seats. In recent days, there’s a growing sense that their party has a real shot in Kansas, in particular, where Republicans are spending almost $10 million on air to defend incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall.
• Recent public polling showed a tied race between Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton in a state that Trump won by 16 points two years ago. Democrats’ own internal polling in Kansas, too, showed Hamilton in a true position to compete.
• “Democrats expanded the map deep into GOP territory and created new opportunities to flip seats – putting us in the strongest position yet to win the Senate majority,” Schumer’s campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spokesperson Maeve Coyle said. “Between now and Election Day, we will keep all options on the table and pursue every strategic path to victory as resources allow.”
• With Kansas now on the map, and optimism abounds, Democrats are privately talking seriously about having a real shot of defeating Republicans in states like South Carolina, Mississippi and Nebraska.
  
• Even so, Senate Democrats are not dismissing the chances outright of an upset in these states. Schumer’s campaign arm has encouraged senators to play up the expanding map, including tightening races like Mississippi or South Carolina, and has told senators directly, “We don’t take options off the table,” according to one person familiar with the discussions. And Schumer has personally told donors that Mississippi’s Senate race deserves attention, another person familiar with the discussions told CNN.

CNN: ‘Trump is dragging the party down’: GOP scrambles to stop steep midterm losses

• The Republican Party’s midterm campaign has turned into a triage operation just three weeks out from November, as officials race to avert losses in a string of once-safe seats that they increasingly fear could cost them total control of Congress.
• The worsening landscape has alarmed GOP operatives across several battleground states, forcing the party to pour resources into traditionally red districts and states at the expense of their once-expansive ambitions in Democratic areas.
• And after months of pressing President Donald Trump to ramp up his travel on behalf of key candidates, some Republicans now worry he’s grown so unpopular that his presence on the campaign trail may in some cases be doing more harm than good.
• The widening number of competitive races has complicated Republican leaders’ plans to make up ground by unleashing hundreds of millions of dollars down the stretch. Despite a massive cash advantage fueled in part by pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., the spending so far has failed to significantly shift Republicans’ fortunes as more money gets diverted toward races once counted on as comfortable wins.
• Already, the Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC in Senate races, has suspended its ad reservations in North Carolina and plowed at least $10 million into Kansas […]. It also recently invested $5 million in South Carolina to boost incumbent Sen. Darline Graham amid concerns among some Republicans she’s losing ground to Democrat Annie Andrews in the deep red state.
• That’s on top of the more than $100 million that the Senate Leadership Fund has spent in Texas to boost Ken Paxton, who is scrambling to shore up GOP support in his race with Democrat James Talarico after a bruising primary campaign. Trump himself has now traveled to Texas three times in one month to rally voters on Paxton’s behalf.
• “We were all hoping the war was going to be over now, but it’s not,” said one Trump adviser. “We shouldn’t have a fight in a place like Texas, but obviously we do.”
  
• The Senate map has also provided little reassurance for the GOP. Paxton is suffering a drip-drip of damaging audio leaks from a private fundraiser, further frustrating Republican officials who already believe he’s running a poor campaign. Democrats hold polling leads in swing states like Georgia and North Carolina, while making insurgent runs in solidly red states like Alaska and even Kansas.
• Inside the White House, Trump and his top advisers are clear-eyed about the difficult odds of keeping the House and the rising threat to the Senate majority, people familiar with the matter said.

Axios: Republican midterm triage puts bleak outlook into focus

• Republican super PACs are flooding the airwaves in once-safe states, and pulling down ads for races that look like lost causes. President Trump, his approval ratings near record lows, is popping up in some of America’s reddest states.
• […] money — and how campaigns and PACs spend it — rarely lies. Nor do the contrails of Air Force One.
  
• Republicans have been forced to pour well over $100 million into Ken Paxton’s Senate race in Texas against Democrat James Talarico, and to plead for millions more to defend Senate seats in Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.
  
• What they’re saying: Republicans’ efforts now appear more focused on calling for party loyalists to show up at the polls than on persuading new voters.
  
• “Every time they up a buy [ads] on their end, it’s always in the red states,” said J.B. Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, the Democrats’ main outside group working to win the Senate.
• Zoom in: After pulling out of North Carolina (which Trump won by 3 points) last Friday, the SLF — Republicans’ main Senate super PAC — put a fresh $14 million in normally deep-red Kansas.
• This week, it sent a $5 million “insurance policy” to South Carolina (which Trump won by 18 points) to boost Republican Sen. Darline Graham.
  
• But [Republicans’] concern is evident in their thundering attack ads in red states such as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas.

New York Times: Economic Pain and an Unpopular Trump Put G.O.P. on its Heels With Three Weeks to Go

• Three weeks from Election Day, deep frustration over an economy that feels unworkable for Americans at most every level, from farmers to truckers to consumers, has expanded the map of competitive electoral contests into areas that seemed safely Republican just a couple of months ago.
• Sustained high prices are putting at risk some of the constituencies, states and congressional districts that President Trump and Republicans won decisively in 2024. The widespread discontent has prompted candidates, parties and major G.O.P. fund-raising groups to shift their messages and ad spending in crucial races to try to move voters in the final days of the midterm campaign.
• With control of the House, Senate and the vast majority of the country’s governor’s offices and legislatures at stake, Republicans are examining their own deteriorating internal polling, along with their experiences with voters, and say they are reassessing their odds and triaging the map.
• Still, Republican baggage is piling up, regionally and nationally. Mr. Trump is facing backlash to mass deportations in South Texas and South Florida. His party is bracing for anger at expanding data centers in states including Ohio and Michigan. In big farming states, record diesel prices have arrived just in time for harvest season. In colder northern states, spiking heating oil costs loom for families.
• “When you’ve got a sitting president whose job approval rating is in the high 30s,” said Colin Reed, a veteran Republican strategist, “it makes it really difficult for any Republican candidate to compete and win.”
• Mr. Trump’s unpopularity over his handling of the economy — one of his biggest strengths when he ran two years ago — is driving Republican troubles in a nationalized political environment.
• Those advantages have provided little comfort to Republicans who see their candidates faltering in increasingly red corners of the nation.
• Republicans also recently pulled money from the Senate race in North Carolina, where Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, is retiring. They redirected cash to Kansas and South Carolina, which remain a stretch for Democrats but would have seemed out of reach earlier this year. The top super PAC backing Senate Democrats, Senate Majority PAC, is reserving $5 million in ad time in Kansas.
• “There are states right now in play that I would not have imagined being in play,” former President Barack Obama said at a fund-raiser for Democratic Senate nominees in Virginia on Wednesday, rattling off states such as Texas, Kansas and Nebraska.
• […] But polls show voters are focused squarely on their deep unhappiness with the direction of an economy that Mr. Trump had promised to fix.
• “The lower-income, blue-collar voters that Donald Trump brought to his winning coalition for Republicans is the demographic group of voters who are being impacted most by the higher energy costs,” Mr. Shumaker said.
  
• Recent New York Times/Siena University polls of red states show Democrats also doing well with younger voters, older voters, independent voters and Latino voters who backed Mr. Trump in 2024.