Senator Chuck Schumer and his allies are working aggressively to stretch a Senate map that offers precious few opportunities for Democrats to reclaim a majority in 2026, recruiting deep into the country’s most conservative corners to find viable candidates in red states.
Democrats have grown more bullish about their midterm prospects as President Trump’s approval rating has sagged. “We are going to be in the majority in 2027,” Mr. Schumer, the minority leader from New York, boldly predicted last month.
But Democrats also confront the brutal reality of a map where all but two of the 22 Republican seats up for election are in states that Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024.
Winning in such hostile territory has grown harder and harder as Senate contests increasingly align with presidential voting. Republicans now occupy every seat in the states that Mr. Trump won all three times he was on the ballot, powering their 53-seat majority.
To break that stranglehold, Mr. Schumer has been dialing up past and present politicians in hopes of landing previous red-state winners. Some, like former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and former Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, could instantly make their states’ races more competitive.
But party strategists are also thinking outside the box, looking for political lottery tickets in places like Alaska, Mississippi and Texas. Some are even quietly talking about backing independent candidates instead of Democrats in especially challenging states, including Nebraska, where the independent Dan Osborn is considering a second Senate run.
“This map is far more intriguing than initially meets the eye,” said Justin Barasky, a Democratic strategist who has worked on Senate races for years. “There are going to be a bunch of states that are incredibly competitive that people may not be thinking about.”
For now, Democrats aim to put as many politically viable boats in the water as possible in case a major backlash to Mr. Trump develops.
To have any chance at control, Democrats will need to venture far beyond the two clearly competitive states: Maine, where Senator Susan Collins’s moderate reputation has allowed her to succeed as a Republican, and North Carolina, a battleground where Senator Thom Tillis, another Republican, is seeking re-election.
And that doesn’t even take into consideration all the territory Democrats must defend. Retirements by the party’s senators have opened seats in Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire, and Senator Jon Ossoff is seeking re-election in Georgia. Republicans had hoped that Gov. Brian Kemp would challenge him, but Mr. Kemp said on Monday that he would not run.
Alex Latcham, the executive director of the leading Senate Republican super PAC, is confident of keeping the majority.
“Democrats are delusional,” he said. “We welcome their effort to waste resources in states they’re never going to win. We’re going to beat the hell out of them.”
A narrow map to start
Republicans are determined not to be caught sleeping in seemingly safe states, especially after Mr. Osborn forced the G.O.P. to scramble to save Senator Deb Fischer.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has told colleagues that a top priority is to avoid spending money in places that should not be competitive. Every Republican senator running in 2026 is expected to have struck a critical fund-raising agreement with the party by mid-May.
The Republican-held seats that everyone agrees are competitive are in North Carolina and Maine.
In North Carolina, Mr. Schumer has pursued Mr. Cooper, telling him during a conversation about disaster relief last year that he would make a great Senate candidate, according to a person briefed on the call. Mr. Cooper is unlikely to make any decision for at least another month, according to two people briefed on his thinking.
In Maine, it is less clear whom Democrats want to run against Ms. Collins. Gov. Janet Mills, 77, has left the door open, but some in the party worry about her age. Representative Jared Golden has expressed interest in statewide office and occupies a pro-Trump seat, but some Democrats dislike his moderate positions. A former congressional aide, Jordan Wood, is already running.
The next tier
The next tier of races is in once-competitive states that have slipped from Democrats’ grasp. That includes Ohio, where Senator Jon Husted, the Republican appointed to fill Vice President JD Vance’s seat, must stand for election, and Iowa, where Senator Joni Ernst is seeking her third term.
Ms. Ernst mollified some Republican critics when, under pressure, she backed Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. She has already drawn a Democratic challenger named Nathan Sage, who bills himself as a mechanic, a Marine and the product of a trailer park. His kickoff video was filled with working-class appeals: “I’m fighting for a Democratic Party that people like me will actually want to be a part of.”
J.D. Scholten, a state legislator who narrowly lost a 2018 congressional bid in Iowa’s most conservative district, said he was considering a Senate campaign. He is a rare Democrat in the state’s northwest — “a blueberry in a bowl of tomato soup,” he said — and has recently held rallies in other parts of the state. (Timing on a campaign could be complicated by his other job as a 45-year-old professional baseball pitcher; he just signed for another season with the Sioux City Explorers.)
Zach Wahls, an Iowa state senator who burst onto the political radar as a teenager testifying about growing up with two moms, said he was also exploring a Senate run. “Ernst is vulnerable,” he said.
The longer shots
The last bucket of races is the biggest and most daunting: states that are solidly red, but where Democrats hope that some combination of fortune, uniquely strong challengers, bloody G.O.P. primaries and a poor 2026 environment for Republicans could give them a chance. That list includes Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and Texas.
The top potential Democratic recruit in Alaska is Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman who narrowly lost her seat in 2024 and has since joined a lobbying and law firm. But she might instead run for governor or even seek to return to the House. Anton McParland, her former chief of staff, said she was probably months away from a decision, though he added, “No Alaskan really wants to be in D.C.”
Mr. Schumer has told associates that he sees an intriguing opportunity in Mississippi, which has the largest percentage of Black residents of any state. One possible candidate there is Scott Colom, a district attorney who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to a federal judgeship — only to be blocked by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, whom Mr. Colom would be running against in 2026. The state is also appealing for Democrats because it is small and relatively cheap to compete in.
Democrats also hope that states with bruising Republican primary races could create openings, though Democrats themselves face potentially messy primaries in Minnesota and Michigan.
In Louisiana, Mr. Schumer has spoken by phone and met once in Washington with former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, according to a person briefed on their conversations. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican incumbent, faces at least one primary challenger after voting to convict Mr. Trump during his second impeachment trial. Mr. Edwards has signaled to party leaders to circle back to him closer to August, the person said.
In Kentucky, Republicans appear headed toward a three-way primary scrum to replace the retiring Senator Mitch McConnell. But Democrats have yet to land a prominent candidate. Mr. Schumer has pressed Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, to consider a run, but Mr. Beshear appears more interested in a 2028 presidential bid. “I’ve said no to running for Senate,” he said in a brief interview.
In Texas, Democrats are energized by a Republican primary between Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton that is expected to be costly and ugly — though the winner will still be heavily favored.
“There is a civil war rolling through the Texas Republican Party right now,” said former Representative Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat who broke fund-raising records during his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2018. He said in an interview that he would consider running again if it were “where I am most useful.”
Terry Virts, a former astronaut and International Space Station commander, has sounded out Democrats, including Mr. O’Rourke, as he seriously considers a campaign, according to a person briefed on his deliberations. He has begun sharing more political opinions — like his opposition to Elon Musk — with a social media following that he amassed partly through his space photography.
Colin Allred, a Democratic former congressman who lost last year to Senator Ted Cruz by nine points after raising nearly $100 million, said he was “seriously considering” another run and would decide by summer.
“It won’t be dependent on what other folks do,” he said in an interview. “I’ve made that clear to anyone who’s asked.”
Another option for Democrats is to avoid fielding a candidate altogether — and to back an independent candidate instead. That strategy made recent races more competitive in Alaska, Utah and Nebraska, though Republicans ultimately prevailed.
In Nebraska, Mr. Osborn is exploring a second independent run on a populist message. A Navy veteran and mechanic, he far outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris and forced Republicans to spend millions of dollars to keep the seat last year. Mr. Osborn reported several big donations from national Democrats after the election.
Paul Rieckhoff, who runs the group Independent Veterans of America, predicted that as many as five independent Senate candidates in the mold of Mr. Osborn could run in 2026, though he acknowledged that Mr. Osborn would probably have “much more of a hill to climb” as a second-time candidate.
“He doesn’t get a second bite at that,” Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans, said of Mr. Osborn’s attempts to run as an independent.
Last week, an independent candidate, Brian Bengs, entered the South Dakota Senate race after losing heavily as a Democrat in 2022. That year, he said in an interview, he met many voters who agreed with him only to add that they would never vote for him.
“They ruled out any possibility of supporting me,” he said, “because the letter D was beside my name.”
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
