I've put up a YES limit order at 35%. With Peltola's imminent announcement of a Senate run, I see a fairly plausible path, which I have decided to write a gigantic essay about because of...boredom, I guess?

North Carolina: Roy Cooper, the popular former governor, is running for Senate, and the incumbent, Thom Tillis, is retiring. North Carolina is a swing state that only supported Trump over Harris by 3% in 2024, unlike the other Republican-held seats Democrats need to flip, and given Cooper's popularity (he won re-election by 4% in 2020, even as Biden narrowly lost the state) and massive polling lead, the seat is extremely unlikely to remain in Republican hands.

Maine: Maine is a solid Democratic state that Kamala Harris won by 7% in 2024, but Susan Collins has a long history of overperforming in the state. She won by 4% in 2020*, outperforming Joe Biden by about 13%, but she hasn't ever run in a Democrat-leaning midterm, and the blue lean of the state may be too much for her to overcome in one. Democrats do have some candidate quality issues with this seat though - former governor Janet Mills is 78 years old and Graham Platner, who is running against her, was embroiled in scandals over old Reddit posts and a Nazi tattoo last year. Polls suggest a close race regardless of which candidate Democrats choose, although it's worth noting that polling in 2020 underestimated Collins by a ridiculous 8%.

* (assuming most of Lisa Savage's votes would have gone against her in the RCV tabulation)

Ohio: The election here is a special election for JD Vance's seat in Ohio, a state that voted for Trump over Harris by 11% in 2024. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown lost re-election by 3.5% in 2024 and is running again in 2026. Brown is a strong candidate and is likely to do better in a blue-leaning midterm than he did in a Republican-leaning presidential year; he won by 7% in the last blue-leaning midterm (2018). Also helping Democrats here is that Jon Husted, the incumbent running against Brown, was appointed to fill Vance's seat and has not won a Senate election in Ohio before, likely making him a weaker candidate than a true incumbent. Polling for this race narrowly favors Husted, but the margin has narrowed since early 2025.

Alaska: Alaska is an even redder state than Ohio (Trump beat Harris by 13% in 2024), but today an Axios article came out saying Mary Peltola is preparing for a Senate run. Peltola ran twice in 2022, a red-leaning midterm year, for Alaska's House of Representatives seat (Alaska only has one House district, so its House races are over the entire state, just like its Senate races). The first win was a bit of a fluke, where Peltola barely edged out unpopular former governor Sarah Palin in a special election by 3%, in a race that was likely swung by RCV, but Peltola seems to have become well-known and popular within the state since then, beating Palin again in the regular 2022 midterm election by 10% before narrowly losing the seat in 2024 by 3% to Nick Begich. To win the 2026 Senate race Peltola would need to beat incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, who is likely a tougher opponent than both Palin and Begich, but it's worth noting that despite losing, she outperformed Harris by 10% in 2024, a bigger overperformance than Brown in Ohio. There's not much polling yet since Peltola hasn't formally announced a run, but the few polls that have been conducted show a close race.

There are also potential Dem pickups in Texas, Iowa and Florida, but these all seem much less likely than the above seats, even if controversial Republican Ken Paxton is nominated in Texas. Winning the above four seats would give Democrats a 51-seat Senate majority assuming no Democrat incumbent loses re-election, which seems like a safe bet.

Some general notes:
- It has been harder recently for both parties to win Senate seats in the other party's safe states than it was even 5 years ago (the organization running Sabato's Crystal Ball has an interesting write-up on this from 2023). After 2018, there were 6 senators representing safe states typically won by the other party; Susan Collins is now the only one left. This trend suggests better odds for Mills/Platner in Maine but worse odds for Brown and Peltola than their electoral history might suggest.
- Polling error tends to be correlated. This means that these Senate races are not independent events; if polls show close races in all of Maine, Ohio, and Alaska, and there is a national polling error inflating Republicans' vote share, the likely outcome is that Democrats take all three seats. (This is the same reason Trump was able to win in 2016 and almost win in 2020 despite polls showing him losing in every swing state.)
- For some reason my gut is telling me that Maine is going to be the toughest of these four races for Democrats to win, probably because I'm scarred by Collins winning in 2020, and Platner has potential to be an unusually weak candidate. This makes no logical sense given how blue Maine is but it's somewhat supported by polling.

From Nate Silver: https://www.natesilver.net/p/its-2004-all-over-again

For competitive seats the democrats will be defending Michigan and Georgia (Ossoff) and the republicans will only be defending Maine. With the democrats likely only having 47 senate seats after 2024 election it's hard to see why this shouldn't be lower. Especially because the democrats need 51 seats in 2026 since Trump will be in office.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_elections#Georgia

@DanielBets Joni Ernst won by 6 points in 2020, Thom Tillis is retiring in competitive NC, Vivek might make Ohio competitive, Beto came within 2 points of beating Ted Cruz in 2018, Alaska is a ~10% shot for Dems etc That is 6 plausible seats (not likely, but still). In the right environment there are no non-competitive seats

@DanielBets midterms are usually bad for the incumbent party

@DanielBets wdyt now @DanielBets

@dlin007 I definitely underestimated how much Trump wants to lose the Senate and House. I think your comment is well taken that Joni Ernst in Iowa, Thom Tillis in NC, and Vivek in Ohio are all very winnable seats now. That combined with Maine could give Dems the Senate!

Still seems like a long shot, but if things continue in the direction they've been going I expect it will be a likely outcome by the time midterms come around.