2026 United States Senate elections (Hairy Woodchuck)

The 2026 United States Senate elections were very pivotal in many ways. To start, there were 7 retirements from incumbents, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which was a number much higher than average. Turnout for this midterm was extremely high. After the 2024 Presidential election where President Joe Biden redefeated Donald Trump in a huge landslide, the 2026 midterm elections were actually considered to be favorable for Democrats.

Things went wrong for Republican from the start. In many states, a large crowd of squabbling moderates allowed for rightwing extremists to shore up their support and win the nomination. This was the case in Georgia, a state that was considered to be in play for Republicans until fascist Marjorie Taylor Greene got the nomination, after which incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff pulled away in the polls and there was no longer any doubt he would be reelected. The same happened in New Mexico and Colorado, 2 states where early on it was believed that Republicans may have had chances but squandered those opportunities when Lauren Boebert won the Republican primary in Colorado and Claire Chase did so in neighboring New Mexico.

However, the worst case of this was in Illinois, where another crowded primary allowed Nazi supporter Art Jones to win the nomination. Many prominent Republicans refused to condemn Jones- in fact, many chose to endorse him, basically saying "While Mr. Jones's beliefs are wrong, I have no choice but to support him because America cannot become a socialist country". This is largely what caused the downfall of Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, with Cheri Beasley surging past him in the polls after Tillis made an equivalent statement to the one above. Democrats pulled off an even more impressive defeat in South Carolina, where Senator Lindsey Graham's endorsement of Jones was only the tip of the iceberg; Graham also was embroiled in a major corruption scandal involving Russian money and he also voted against many popular pieces of legislation signed into law by President Biden. Ultimately, all this cost him his seat.

Nonetheless, Republicans were able to run some strong candidates. In Texas, for example, Congressman Tony Gonzales narrowly edged out former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, as Gonzales was able to appeal to enough moderate voters in the suburbs. In Michigan, incumbent Senator Gary Peters was in hot water over several campaign finance violations, and the very moderate Peter Meijer was able to defeat the weakened Senator Peters. This was the only seat flipped for Republicans. In addition, despite Democrat success in formerly red states, veteran moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins was able to narrowly win reelection in Maine. Collins' success largely was because she had broken with her party on many issues.

The biggest upset of the night occurred in Iowa when J.D. Scholten ousted incumbent Senator Joni Ernst, who was widely expected to win reelection. Scholten relied on massive in-person campaigning in every single county in the state. In addition, Democrats started a youth movement in the state which targeted millennial voters and urged them to break with their conservative parents and vote Democratic. Ernst, meanwhile, didn't hold any campaign events and spent much of the campaign season on Fox News where she repeatedly called her opponent a "socialist." The resulting Democratic victory enabled Democrats to gain 4 seats in the Senate.