The RealClearPolitics polling average now has GOP candidates trailing in eight battleground Senate races with just two months left, prompting warnings and skepticism from Republican strategists about what the numbers, and the campaign environment, really mean.
Republicans are facing an uphill battle in several pivotal Senate contests according to the most recent RealClearPolitics (RCP) aggregate, which reports GOP candidates are behind in Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Texas. While Democrats currently hold three of these seats and Republicans six, the RCP figures show the GOP at a disadvantage in all eight, with margins ranging from just under two points to as much as eight points in North Carolina.
Some Republican strategists are sounding the alarm about the state of play. Terry Holt, a longtime GOP strategist, put it bluntly: “It points out the obvious that Republicans are in pretty bad shape going into the midterms and that they’re looking at historic losses.” Holt questioned whether the party could change the trajectory, saying, “The question is whether some of these races can be saved with some miraculous turnout that apparently is going to be very expensive or whether or not the mood in this country can be changed fundamentally.”
But not everyone in the party sees the polling as the final word. National Republican Senatorial Committee press secretary Bernadette Breslin argued that the party remains focused on stopping what she called the “Democrats’ socialist insurgency, which would raise taxes on working families to bankroll free benefits for illegal immigrants.” And a Republican operative involved in Senate races insisted, “Republicans continue to believe we’ll hold the Senate,” even as they warned that “not a single race should be taken for granted.”
Even among pollsters, there is skepticism about the accuracy of public polling this cycle. Veteran Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin pointed to his own private polling in key races, claiming, “I’m seeing private polling in some of these [races]... where they’re continuing to underpoll Republicans and Trump voters.” He added, “I think the Republicans are in much better shape than what a lot of these media polls are showing, and look, we still got a long way to go between now and Election Day.”
According to the RCP numbers, the Republican deficits in these eight races are generally slim, within the margin of error for a typical poll, except in Georgia (down 7.5 points) and North Carolina (down 8 points). The other states show Republicans trailing by 2 points in Alaska and New Hampshire, 2.3 in Maine, 1.8 in Michigan, 2.6 in Ohio, and 1.9 in Texas. Iowa is the exception: Republican incumbent Ashley Hinson leads Democrat Josh Turek by 1.4 points.
Pollsters and analysts have cautioned that summer polling tends to exaggerate Democratic strength. Echelon pollster Patrick Ruffini’s analysis, cited in the New York Post report, found that 3,312 polls over four election cycles overestimated Democratic support by an average of 3.7 points, with summer polling errors averaging 5.9 points. In 2020, RCP showed Senator Susan Collins of Maine trailing by a significant margin, but she ended up winning reelection by 8.6 points. A recent Michigan Democratic primary also showed Abdul El-Sayed ahead by 10.2 points in the average, but he won by just one point against Haley Stevens.
Holt, the GOP strategist, raised concerns about the national mood, saying, “The mood is sour, and I think nobody’s really questioning that, and even if you’re oversampling Republicans in your poll, you’re going to get that.” He also expressed doubts about the reliability of the polling itself, remarking, “I’m very suspicious of the RCP polling in general, but they do a lot of it, and it’s trackable... I think that might be the real problem that this doesn’t show how really, truly bad it is.”
For Republicans, a key challenge will be ensuring that Trump voters, who historically have lower turnout in midterm elections, come to the polls. McLaughlin put it plainly: “One of the most important things is going to be for these campaigns to turn out Trump voters that don’t normally show up.”
Republican operatives have been warning since last year that midterms are always hard for the party in power, but the stakes this year are higher with the Senate majority on the line. The cost of campaigning is also expected to be significant, as Holt noted, raising questions about whether big GOP donors, such as Elon Musk, who was referenced in the reporting, will spend enough to close the gap in key races.
Affordability could also become more pressing in four of these states, with the outcome potentially affected by President Trump’s ongoing trade dispute with Canada, though no specific government action or policy was detailed in the reporting.
It’s clear from both the polling and the commentary that Republicans have ground to make up in the closing months of the campaign. But with margins close in most battlegrounds, historical polling errors favoring Democrats, and the unpredictable nature of turnout, no outcome is set in stone.
Republicans who want to avoid “historic losses,” as Holt warned, will need to run disciplined, focused campaigns, making the case for lower taxes, secure borders, and an economy that works for working families, rather than handing power to a left that promises more spending, more government, and fewer checks on illegal immigration.
Polls don’t vote, people do, and the next two months will show whether Republican campaigns can turn out the voters who will decide the Senate’s future.
