The Key Senate Races to Watch on Election Night

0:00If you're an RIA, Schwab Advisor Services is the Watson to your homes. Smart, dependable, always has your back. With all the wealth services, technology, and support your firm needs, the difference is so obvious, it's Schwabius. Follow the clues at schwabius.com. From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. The battle for control of the United States Senate enters its closing days with at least five or six crucial races too close to call. How are they breaking now? And what's at stake in Maine, Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, and Iowa? That's our subject for today.

0:41On Potomac Watch, I'm Paul Gigo with The Wall Street Journal. Opinion pages, and I'm here with sage and savvy election watchers, Kate Batchelder, Odell, and Kyle Peterson. Oh, sage ones, we are waiting to hear your analysis and predictions today. So let's take stock of first of where we are in the Senate contest and the battle for control. Republicans hold 53 seats now. I think everybody concedes that North Carolina is going Democratic with Roy Cooper, the former governor, at the top of the ticket. You can chalk that one up to Donald Trump's mistake in driving incumbent Tom Tillis out of the race.

1:21So that gets you to 52, okay, Democratic pickup. Up next, we have Ohio, which has been trending Republican throughout the Trump era, but seems to be turning against incumbent appointed Senator John Husted. Mike DeWine, the current governor, appointed him to the seat to replace J.D. Vance, who became vice president. And he's running against Sherrod Brown, the former senator, Democrat, who Bernie Moreno beat two years ago. Some of the polling anecdotal evidence suggests that people still think Sherrod Brown is the senator from Ohio, but he's a kind of consistently ahead here. And the state of Ohio, Kate, seems to be trending against Republicans, including the governor's candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.

2:08And it seems to be basically economic issues. Is that what you see? Yeah. I mean, look, to your point about Jared Brown, he's got tremendous name ID in the state and that poll you referenced. I mean, almost a quarter of voters or something very large still thought he was still the sitting senator. It's always a good reminder that, you know, voters are busy. They're tuning in late to elections and don't always have a command of what's going on bit by bit. But I think also, you know, in recent weeks, the ad that Vivek Ramoswamy ran over his opponent's mother, Amy Acton's mother, has become a major flashpoint in the campaign.

2:40And so the question has become in Ohio whether that is going to hurt, you know, other races as well, bleed into other races or depressed turnout. Look, I mean, I said one thing I would say, though, is it's unfortunate that I think he hasn't broken through on some of the issues actually in Congress. He has been somebody who kind of learns about policy details, has proposed some things on welfare reform and other subjects where he might have a good story to tell about the economy and mobility, but it does not seem to be catching fire in Ohio at this point. This is often the problem with appointed senators.

3:13They've never won in their own right, So their name identification and their experience level, just what they've done in office, doesn't always register with voters who don't follow politics closely. So if Republicans lose that, that's 51 seats. They're going to lose one more. But then there are six other Senate seats held by the GOP that are in trouble. Alaska, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, and Maine. Let's go through them one by one and start with Alaska, Kyle, where there are new revelations this week about the Democratic plot to pick so-called Decoy Dan to challenge Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, and to confuse voters.

3:56Tell us about the latest. Yeah, this has to do with Alaska's weird open primary ranked choice voting system. So on Tuesday, there are multiple candidates on the ballot and voters go through and are supposed to rank them in order of preference. But two candidates notably named Dan Sullivan won the incumbent senator Dan S. Sullivan and won this other guy running as a Republican, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The Mary Peltola Democratic campaign has been denying all along that they had anything to do with this shenanigan that seemed obviously intended to confuse Alaska voters. Daniel J. Sullivan has admitted, acknowledged supporting Democrats in the past.

4:38At one point, he was using a campaign logo and colors that seemed like they were meant to be confusing. They were very similar to the incumbent senator's logo and colors. This actually was a dirty trick, and I'm just going to point to what Peltola has finally said. Quote, this is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions. Nobody at The New York Times cares about affordability in Alaska. That's what's called a non-denial denial or maybe an admission by misdirection. I mean, if she didn't deny that the campaign played a role in it. Well, it seems pretty hard to deny at this point because one of her former top campaign staffers, who is no longer with the Peltola campaign, went on the record with The New York Times and tried to take it back.

5:18You know, it seems like there was an employment termination dispute lawsuit that was maybe going to be filed there. But the news report on this is quoting from text messages that have been reviewed, from group chats where they're cheering. OK, the question is, what is the impact going to be on the race? Is this going to upset enough Alaskans that they'll say, we don't want to be fooled. We're going to vote for at the margin. Dan S. Sullivan, Kate, what do you think? I think this could really backfire. And if you made me color in my Senate map, I would have this as one Republicans are going to hold.

5:49Because I think this has, you know, to your point, so brazen, you know, out there looking for Dan Sullivan's to put on the ballot. Also has larger questions about that rank choice voting system about, you know, that was supposed to produce more moderate candidates. But also, I think Mary Pilatola has run a rough campaign. Her debate a couple of weeks ago, she was reading from note cards the entire time. She had no answer on the Iran war other than, let's just give up. I mean, these kinds of, she's had those kinds of basic problems too. So I think this is, the trick is dirty and brazen enough that I think that one backfires.

6:21But I guess, you know, on the other hand, one quick note, I mean, Republicans now, because the system of ranked choice voting is so obtuse and silly, you know, Republicans are having to say, OK, but if you vote for both Dan Sullivan's, eventually your vote will get to the right Dan Sullivan. I mean, so the instructions to voters are also quite difficult. Yes. Yeah. We're going to take a break and when we come back, we'll have more commentary on the Senate races across the country. You're either all in on this model or maybe you're building with another. You're either speed or is it security? You're either custom or are you ready to use.

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8:06Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here in Potomac Watch with Kate O'Dell and Kyle Peterson. All right, let's turn to Maine, where Susan Collins, the incumbent, is running to save her seat against Troy Jackson, who is a former state senator, I guess. I can't remember if he's in the Senate or not. He's a failed candidate for governor, but he is the candidate who replaced Graham Plattner, who was run out of the race based on some of his deceptions about his background. Let's listen to an exchange between Jackson and Collins on Medicaid. It's interesting that Senator Collins has brought up how the reimbursement rates are not high.

8:44She's been in Congress for 30 years. She touts how she's chair of appropriations. Yeah, it would be great if she actually worked on that and got that done because we're not getting enough reimbursement. Medicaid rates are set by the state. They are not set by the federal government. Medicare rates are set by the federal government. So it is Augusta that is responsible for the inadequate reimbursements under the Medicaid program. The federal government puts in money as well, but it is a joint program. Kate, she nailed them. I mean, without a doubt. And I think Jackson just showed his kind of rookie chops there.

9:28Yeah. I mean, I think this has been her theory of the case all along. I mean, she said in another part of a debate that none of Troy Jackson's bills have managed to get passed. He struggles to find co-sponsors for even the most basic stuff in the legislature. And she just shows a lot more sophistication on the questions before Congress. And she's got a record there. I mean, and she's also zooming in on the tariff exemption she's managed to get for the state as the chair of the Appropriations Committee in Congress. She has a lot of spending power. And sometimes I'm not always thrilled with how she uses that, but she has been able to get money to the state to its benefit.

10:03And another thing that sometimes comes up in this race that's worth noting, too, is, you know, Collins came up as a defense appropriator. She just has a record here of getting things done that I think she's been able to show her opponent just simply can't even compete with. I think, Kyle, and briefly, we'll move on to another state, but Collins has typically outshone, outperformed even the top of the ticket, Republican top of the ticket. She vastly outperformed Trump in 2020. But Trump is not on the ballot this time. So the risk she has is that she's running against Democrats, voters who want to exercise their opposition to Trump and voting against Collins, who they might like, is the way they want to do it.

10:45So that's created a little problem for her this time. That is definitely the challenge for her, but it's hard to counter out. She was down by, I don't know, eight in the polls in 2020 and then won by something like eight. And I watched, I think, four of these debates between these two candidates. And now I kind of understand how she pulls it off, how she is a survivor, because she's very prepared. She knows her stuff, you know, down to the dollar of the amount of money that she brought to that specific community for the port dredging project or whatever it is. And she casts herself as kind of an old-fashioned political figure.

11:20I mean, one of the great attack lines against her is you voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And her response to that is, yes, but I also voted for Sonia Sotomayor. I also voted for Ketanji Brown-Jackson. I'm an old-fashioned Senate figure. I look at who the president nominates, and I try to figure out whether they're qualified for that position. And I agree the question is whether there is enough of an independent spirit left among many of these main voters or whether it's going to be pulled down by the Trump undertow. The stakes here are considerable ideologically, I would say, because if Collins wins, she's a centrist Republican who will vote against the president on occasion, more than on occasion, often.

12:04And that would make her in a very closely divided Senate influential figure, somebody who's a swing senator. Troy Jackson, if he wins, He will reinforce the energy on the Democratic left, but he'll be just a backbencher, another progressive who will not have much influence at all in the Senate other than casting a vote for the majority. That's it. Arguably, I would say the first or second most important race in the Senate this year. Let's turn to Texas, Kate. Ken Paxton versus James Tallarico. If Paxton loses, looks like another own goal for Donald Trump. It certainly does. I mean, look, how many times have we heard that Texas was going to go blue and then it doesn't?

12:47But you have a unique set of circumstances this cycle with a uniquely unpopular candidate on the Republican side who, when we hear from him, he's, you know, in Dubai with fugitives from U.S. justice. I mean, really no good story about him coming out in months. You have a fair amount of Democratic migration into the state of Texas over several years that eventually could help candidates like Tallarico. And so and you have the president's unpopularity. So I think that is one where actually Democrats could pick it up. Yeah, I would suggest based on the polls that Tallarico does win this. And we have Kyle Iowa, Ashley Hinson, the Republican congresswoman from the state versus Josh Turek, who is a state representative and is running on prices, tariffs, the farm economy, fertilizer costs and all of that.

13:36Yeah. And I think the tariffs are a huge part of what is dragging down Hinson, who I think is a fairly good candidate. She has debated well. But the retaliation, the foreign retaliation on U.S. agricultural products by China, but not only China, I mean, those countries, when they get hit with U.S. tariffs, they know how to go after states that supported President Trump. And unlike some of these other rural states where the margins for Republicans are big enough that even if there is some loss in movement from the Republican column to the independent or the Democratic column, Iowa is fairly closely divided state.

14:13I mean, this is a state with a really kind of central big city, Des Moines. It's a state that went for President Obama twice in two general elections not so long ago. And so I think that's part of it. I also think Josh Tark also strikes people who are worried about Democratic radicalism as a fairly normal figure, an admirable figure, a Paralympian. And so I think that's part of it, too, is Democrats recruited a strong candidate for the state. All right. And let's turn to real surprise, Kate, at least if you look at the history of politics in the state. And that's South Carolina, where Darlene Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham, was rushed through by Donald Trump to endorse by Trump to become the nominee, despite the lack of any experience in politics, except, I guess, maybe at the Thanksgiving table talking to her brother.

15:02because she nonetheless did win with the endorsement of Trump, the primary there. But she's running against Arlene Andrews, a pediatrician, and the racist looks to be dead even. It does look close. This is one where I would predict Republicans hold because of the state's fundamentals that you describe, but it is much closer than it needs to be. And I think there are lessons for Republicans, namely the one that you just mentioned, which is that, you know, having extended primaries where candidates have to show their record can be valuable. I think in Darlene's case, you know, I'm thinking of a moment early on, she had in one of her debates where she was asked about what her view on U.S.

15:40policy toward Taiwan was. And she, you know, said, basically said, I don't know. And of course, South Carolina voters are not voting on what she thinks about Taiwan, but it creates the larger impression that she's simply just not up to speed on some of the major issues that would face her for a senator. So I think this one does hold, but I think it's much closer than it needs to be. And finally, on this list of states, Kansas. Republicans bleeding in Kansas, Kyle. Roger Marshall is the incumbent versus Hamilton, who not too long ago was a Republican. He's a minister and casts, he's almost running as a Republican in the race and places where he stands.

16:16He's running on the affordability issues, for example. But when the social security issue came up, Hamilton said, yeah, I would raise the income cap on which social security taxes apply somewhat And Marshall said, I would lift the tax entirely. So Hamilton is now to the right of Roger Marshall when it comes to payroll taxes, which is not where you want to be if you're a Republican. And Roger Marshall has not been a good senator in the sense that he's not been a leading light in the Senate. I think this story about Kansas is a mix of all the stuff that we're talking about. I mean, it's the farm economy.

16:51It's the overall frustration with President Trump and the affordability issue, inflation. and then the kind of the candidate quality issues that you're talking about, where you have a Republican senator who is not just like in a negotiation, acknowledging that there may be some taxes that need to be raised to show up Social Security, but saying like, I'm leading the way and joining arms with Elizabeth Warren, and we're going to eliminate the payroll tax and have an enormous... Eliminate the payroll tax cap. Correct. And have an enormous tax increase on workers. I think there are a lot of conservative voters who think to themselves, What are we really doing here?

17:28Yeah, and Kansas has elected Democratic governors in the past. It's just not tended to do so for about a century, almost a century in the Senate. But this could be the exception of the year. Looking at all of these races, maybe with the exception of Maine, where Susan Collins has her own brand, and this is a purple Democratic-leaning state, All of these other ones are states that should go for Republicans in a normal election year. So one of the big questions here in the closing days is, can Trump, with his rallies, motivate the Republican base and the Republicans, even the Republicans on the fence, to come out and say, we need to vote for the Republican here to deny the majority to the Democrats?

18:17Because when the Democrats run all of Congress, we know what happens. and you get your taxes raised, spending's out of control, et cetera, et cetera. That's the argument the Republicans are making. A vote for Andy Hamilton, they're saying in Kansas, is a vote for Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer to become a majority leader. And I don't know whether that argument this year carries over the issues of prices and the cost of living. I don't know that it carries over those issues, no. But look, I mean, you have to marvel at Democrats who are suddenly saying we want lower gas prices after they have spent all of their time in power as a matter of policy trying to increase energy prices through less production.

18:58I mean, so the idea that voters are now supposed to swallow the idea that they're going to come in and lower gas prices, it's just not credible. And I do think some of the better candidates, including, I mentioned Dan Sullivan for Alaska, are making that argument that high gas prices are as painful as they are, and the yes, the Iran war is contributing to them. It's largely a question of production for the United States. So that's an example of where I think that argument does have some potency. And I think if the results are closer than they appear from the polling, it will be because the country really is quite polarized.

19:28I think some of those Trump voters will come out and see a Democratic Congress as something they want to prevent. All right. The one other race I want to mention is Michigan. You guys have talked about this in previous shows. El-Sayed, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic challenger for the seat with Mike Rogers, former House member, former head of the Intelligence Committee, good candidate. But El-Sayed is pretty smooth. He's articulate. And this is a race that the Republicans hope to pick up a seat because it's currently held by a Democrat who is retiring at the end of this Congress. And the key here, it seems to me, Kyle, and I want to get this briefly, is whether or not Rogers can cut into the black vote in Wayne County, which is around Detroit, because Abdul El-Sayed did not do well with black voters in the Democratic primary.

20:21And then the other point is, will Rogers' theme here at the end, that El-Sayed is a radical who is preoccupied with Hamas and Israel and Iran and not with the affordability he claims to, whether that triumphs over El-Sayed, who's trying to link Rogers to Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Right. I think Democrats know about that vulnerability for El-Sayed. That's why you've seen President Obama, for example, out campaigning and trying to shore up that element of it. It's hard to tell because part of what is difficult to gauge here is how many Democrats are quietly uncomfortable with some of the radicalism of El-Sayed.

21:01The candidate he defeated in the primary, Haley Stevens, her fiance, is now saying that he is a vote for Rogers. And so that is part of what is hard to know if it's being picked up by the polls or not. You know, this ad in recent days about people in the grocery store saying they can't buy eggs anymore because all of their tax money is going to bomb Gaza. This was an ad that was for a supporter of El Sayed, who was essentially blaming Israel for U.S. affordability problems. Exactly. And it's hard to know how much Democratic discomfort among Jewish voters, but also just mainstream Democratic voters there is that is not being picked up in the polls.

21:41So that is something to watch, I think, on election night as well. We're going to take a break and when we come back, we'll have more commentary on the Senate races across the country. You're either all in on this model or maybe you're building with another. You're either speed or is it security? You're either custom or are you ready to use? or your AWS AI. With hundreds of models, ready-to-use agents, speed and security built in, you don't have to pick a side. You can have them all. How will AI revolutionize your business? AWS AI is how. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime.

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22:37From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here on Potomac Watch with Kate O'Dell and Kyle Peterson. All right, let's sum it all up here for listeners, Kate, and I'll just say this. if you add up all these races and let's say Democrats run the table, which has happened on election year for one party or another, sometimes does even close outcomes, but you run the table, you can end up with Republicans being down from 53 to 45 seats in the Senate, which would be a real blow to Donald Trump's ability to govern the next two years and maybe to the Republican Party's ability to get back a majority in the Senate for some time.

23:19Now, that would be sort of, I think we're at the worst case there. The best case for the Republicans, I would say, right now is 50 or 51. That's if some of these red state Senate campaigns break for the Republican and they don't lose any more than North Carolina or Ohio. I think that's unlikely. I think at least a couple of these are going to go against the Republicans and the Democrats That's the most likely outcome now, 48, 49 seats for the Republicans, 51, 52 majority for the Democrats. How do you see it, Kate? I suppose my base case at this point is 50-50 or maybe a little more optimistic toward 51.

23:56I do think this late problem for Mary Piltolla is just really significant. And so I think Dan Sullivan is a decent candidate, could hang on there. And I think to Kyle's point, there's a lot of reason to think Susan Collins also hangs on. And so I would say 50 or 51 is likely. But I mean, any less than that, Paul, when you talk about the worst case scenario that Republicans have to consider, I mean, anything less than that is going to very much change the last two years of Donald Trump's presidency. So it's not just nominees. So he won't be able to forget about judges, forget about executive branch nominees that he needs to govern.

24:30That will be impossible in a Democratic majority, but also just even basic matters like funding the government. Everything will become a shutdown fight. But I think Republicans keep it at a tie is my outcome, my prediction for posterity. Well, you will have fans across the country who sure hope you're right, Kate, with that. What about you, Kyle? I tend to think that Democrats take it over simply because the polling and the undertow of inflation is pretty bad out there. And some of the candidate choices Republicans have made, particularly Ken Paxton in Texas. Susan Collins is hard to predict. And then the Alaska race, I tend to agree that this is a real problem for Peltola, not even just that this has been exposed as a dirty trick, but the idea that all along she's been denying it.

25:20I think that that may cause some people who are frustrated with Trump and Dan Sullivan to go in the voting booth and say, you know, she really just ginned up this whole thing and then denied it all along. That's not the kind of representation I want in Washington. However, Alaska is also a state with a lot of rural areas, a lot of mail votes that are already probably in the postal box. And so that will be something interesting after the fact to figure out is how much of the gap between how mail voters broke and how in-person voters broke, how much of that might be a result of this late-breaking October surprise that Dan J.

25:57Sullivan was a Peltola plant all along. Well, you know, the tragedy for the country here is that when you get these big sweeping public moods against the sitting president or either party, you often get some good candidates who are good senators who get washed out. Two that I would pick are Susan Collins and Dan Sullivan. Both of those are valuable members of the Senate. They're grownups. They understand policy. They care about policy as opposed to just getting on cable news or becoming a social media star. and we need those kinds of people in Congress. And I agree that I think Collins pulls it out, though it's going to be close.

26:36I think Sullivan, I don't have a read on it. Our colleague, Kim Strauss, who's up there, thinks that he's going to pull it out. But boy, I don't see Paxton winning in Texas at this stage. And Roger Marshall has managed to meet everybody's low expectations as an incumbent. And I think he could lose too. Hamilton's not a bad candidate for Kansas. Now, Hinson, I would think, still can pull it out. But if Marshall and Paxton lose and Husted loses and North Carolina comes in, that's still 49. And that means Democrats get the Senate. And they put Chuck Schumer up on a sedan chair and carry him through the Capitol, Kate?

27:18Well, just to put a finer point on your— How do you like that image? It's frightening, really. But just to put a finer point on your remark about, I think the outcome does matter for the intellectual direction of the GOP. And Susan Collins and Sullivan, you mentioned them. They're substantive. They do stuff. But they also do, Collins in particular, just her being in the conference changes what Republicans can do on the floor because they need her vote. And so if you want a more moderate Republican party, you want Susan Collins to be in it. And Sullivan also, Sullivan said in his debate, you know, behind the scenes, I was calling the Trump administration and saying, don't execute the Fort Hood terrorists on live stream, please.

28:00And so he also is has been behind the scenes, I think, particularly influencing the party in that direction. So I think that matters. But my second point would be one of the real lessons, I think, of a loss would be that you have to do have to create a distinct alternative. And that Marshall going along with the massive tax increase is one example of the failure to do that. Failing to prosecute Medicare for all as hard as Republicans should have in this campaign. I mean, the Democrats are trying to outlaw private health insurance. And this is just, you know, lurking under the surface as a campaign issue.

28:30So I think that would be, I think, my big two takeaways from a GOP defeat. All right. We shall see which of us is humiliated in a week. Well, yeah, anyway, we got to have some fun here and put ourselves on the line just a tad. We'll see who wins. There's enough caveats in here. It's very close in so many of these races. Could go either way. I guess I'm siding with the overall public mood more than anything, which I've looked through a few of these. And they do tend the mood in the end, the public, the underlying, you know, kind of wave underwater, water, the current does tend to prevail in most of these election years.

29:11But then again, I've been wrong before, 2016 being the big one, which I may never live down. All right, Kate, a bachelor, thank you so much. Odell and Kyle Peterson, thank you. Thank you all for listening. We are here every day on Potomac Watch. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready. How do we keep data secure? AWS AI cuts through the noise. With ready-to-use agents and the broadest set of AI tools, stop overthinking, start building. AWS AI is how.