Tuesday is election day and 7 states hold the keys to control of the U.S. Senate and the next president’s legislative agenda.
Those states are Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada. In almost every state, Democrats are on the defense.
The Dallas Express examined the latest 5 polls on the website FiveThirtyEight to create a primer for each battleground state’s senate race. FiveThirtyEight is a polling website that catalogs nearly every public poll in high-profile races across the country,
Montana is one of the few states that is not also a presidential swing state. Trump has consistently led Harris by around 20 points in the presidential polls. However, only one of Montana’s two senate seats is a Republican. Montana’s longtime Democratic senator Jon Tester is facing down Republican businessman Tim Sheehy.
Sheehy has maintained a consistent lead over Tester for months. The five most recent polls show Sheehy leading with somewhere between 3 to 11 points, with the exception of one anomalous poll in mid-October that showed a tie.
Margins in the senate race in Wisconsin are razor thin. Incumbent Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin is fighting Republican philanthropist Eric Hovde.
Polls showed a significant tightening of the race in mid-October. Three of the last five polls have shown Baldwin ahead while two have shown Hovde ahead. In each case, the lead was 1-2 points, which is considered to be within the margin of error in most polls.
The margin of error in polling is a measure of how much the poll results might differ from the actual opinions or behaviors of the entire population due to sampling limitations. It indicates a range within which the true value likely falls, with smaller margins indicating higher confidence in the poll’s accuracy.
Michigan senate polls are less close. Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin and Republican former congressman Mike Rogers are both seeking the senate seat held by retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow.
Michigan has reddened in recent years; however, four of the last five polls show Slotkin with a 1-6 point lead. One right-leaning poll had the two tied, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Pennsylvania’s polls generally show incumbent Democrat Bob Casey leading Republican businessman and previous 2022 GOP primary senate contender Dave McCormick by about 2-3 points. However, one poll showed Casey winning by eight points and another showed McCormick claiming victory by two.
While Republicans may capture a long-desired senate seat in Montana, hopes of a similar advance in Ohio are being revived by recent polling. Excitement swept through GOP circles earlier this year at the prospect of wresting Ohio’s Democratic senate seat from Sherrod Brown, a man who has held numerous seats in Ohio for decades.
However, polls for much of the summer showed a decisive Brown victory over Republican challenger, Colombian-born Bernie Moreno.
Now, four of the last five polls five polls have favored Moreno. The last poll showing a Brown lead occurred at the end of October. The succeeding polls have shown a Moreno lead of around 3 points.
Arizona’s polls have also largely been within the margin of error. The senate seat up for election this year is held by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema. Former news anchor and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake holds the GOP nomination while Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego has taken his party’s nomination.
The most recent poll, conducted from November 3 to 4, showed Lake with a one-point lead. Three other recent polls showed Gallego with a 1-2 point lead. One poll showed Gallego with a 2.7-point lead which was also the poll’s margin of error.
These figures differ from the presidential polls in the swing state where Trump has maintained a sizeable but varying lead over Harris, usually around 5 points, since early October.
Polls show Nevada’s senate race will likely escape Republican capture. Incumbent Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen has led Republican veteran Sam Brown consistently with a lead that is usually around 6 points.
This is a stark contrast from the presidential race where FiveThirtyEight shows Trump’s average lead over Harris has been just 0.2 points. However, the most recent polling has shown a break in Trump’s favor in the Silver State by 3-6 points, with only one poll showing a tie.
If the current polls are accurate and the candidate who won the most of the five most recent polls became the next senator from their respective states, control of the senate would be held by 53 Republicans.
This shift would have major consequences for the next president’s legislative agenda, as all laws passed by the U.S. House of Representatives must also pass the U.S. Senate.
It would also have an impact on the direction of the federal judiciary which includes the Supreme Court of the United States, the circuit courts, and the district courts. All presidential nominations to the federal courts, except for temporary recess appointments, must be approved with the advice and consent of the Senate but not the House of Representatives, as dictated by Article II of the United States Constitution.
