ANALYSIS – The 2026 election cycle began in November with a historically small universe of competitive Senate races. More than eight months later, not much has changed, and that’s good news for Republicans hoping to maintain their majority.
Since late January, seven senators have announced they’re either retiring or running for another office, and yet the Senate battleground hasn’t fundamentally changed. Even while President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has dipped from 51 percent at the beginning of his term to about 43 percent, according to G. Elliott Morris’ average, the national political environment hasn’t deteriorated enough, nor have local dynamics changed enough in individual races, to diminish Republicans’ advantage in the fight for Senate control.
The cycle started with five races rated as competitive by Inside Elections, which was the smallest initial Senate battleground going back to 1994, when The Rothenberg Political Report (Inside Elections’ predecessor) first started rating races. The number of competitive races has crept up in the past few months (all the way to eight now), but only on the periphery.
