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Four Seats. No Room for Wishful Thinking.

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Democrats have a real road to a Senate majority. Count it honest or lose it.

Wayne Ince | Tampa, Florida | Election War Room

On October 15, 2020, nineteen days before Election Day, the Bangor Daily News ran the kind of headline Democrats screenshot and pass around: Sara Gideon leads Susan Collins by 7 points. When the votes were counted, Collins won by more than eight.

Six years later, almost to the day, Maine is back on everybody’s phone. On Wednesday, Suffolk University released a new poll: Troy Jackson 49, Collins 47. Five hundred likely voters. A margin of error of 4.4 points, which is more than twice the size of the lead. Somebody is already cropping that part off the screenshot. Pollsters say they fixed what broke in 2020. Maine is where that promise gets tested.

Here is my verdict. Democrats have a real path to the Senate majority, and it runs through North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska. Not one of those seats is won. Election Day is November 3, nineteen days out, and anybody in Washington measuring drapes should put down the tape measure and pick up a call sheet.

The arithmetic comes first

Democrats hold 47 seats. Republicans hold 53. A 50-50 split hands the tiebreaker to Vice President JD Vance, which makes 50 a loss with a better seating chart. The number is 51.

That means four net pickups if Democrats hold every seat they already have. Drop one, and the number climbs to five. The Cook Political Report rates Iowa and Texas as toss-ups too, so my four states are a route, not the only route.

Twenty-three years in the Air Force taught me to brief what the Intel cut-sheet says, not what’s in an email or a note passed in the hallway. Campaigns work the same way. You count what you have, then you go get the rest.

So how solid are the four? One is solid. One is a coin flip. One has pollsters who can’t agree on who is ahead. And one depends on a math model and a second man on the ballot with the incumbent’s name.

North Carolina is the strongest ground

Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley 54 to 40 in a SurveyUSA poll for WRAL and WSOC, taken October 7 through 11 among 643 likely or already-voted respondents. One big number proves very little. What matters is that other pollsters see the same race: Trafalgar has Cooper up 49 to 41, and a Democratic-sponsored Change Research poll has him up 50 to 40.

Three pollsters, one direction. That is what a lead looks like. Start the count in North Carolina.

Maine runs on older voters

Suffolk’s poll, taken October 8 through 11 by landline and cellphone, has Jackson up two. An AARP survey from September 20 through 22, run by the bipartisan team of Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research, had Jackson up 50 to 47 among 982 likely voters. CBS News and YouGov, in the field September 23 through October 1, had it dead even at 50 to 50.

Look underneath that AARP number. Voters 50 and older favor Collins 53 to 44, and 87 percent of them call themselves extremely motivated to vote. Among voters under 50, that figure drops to 73 percent. Those are intentions, not turnout receipts. They also tell you exactly where Collins plans to win this race, and she has done it before with the polls against her.

A two-point lead inside a 4.4-point margin leaves Jackson no room for a soft week. Maine is a real pickup chance with zero slack.

Ohio’s pollsters can’t agree, and that is the story

The newest Ohio poll, from co/efficient on October 5 and 6, has Jon Husted ahead of Sherrod Brown 44 to 43, with 9 percent undecided.

CNN and SSRS, in the field September 29 through October 5, had Brown up 49 to 43. The New York Times and Siena, September 22 through October 1, had him up 49 to 46.

So which is it? Nobody can say yet. Different pollsters on different dates do not make a trend line, and grabbing either side’s best number is cheerleading. Ohio is a toss-up, and Democrats should spend like it is one.

Alaska’s first count is not the final count

InsiderAdvantage polled 1,200 likely Alaska voters October 9 and 10. In first choices, Mary Peltola leads Dan Sullivan 48 to 43. After the pollster models the ranked-choice rounds, the race narrows to 50 to 48. Alaska Survey Research found nearly the same thing in early October: Peltola up 51 to 49 in the final round.

Read the fine print on that second number. “Modeled final round” means a simulation of how second choices might transfer. Nobody has counted a single ballot. And here is the detail that should keep every Peltola volunteer up at night: a second candidate named Dan Sullivan is on the Alaska ballot. Pollsters have to get the names right on the questionnaire, and voters have to get them right in the booth.

Alaska is a plausible fourth seat. It is also the shakiest of the four, and I haven’t seen InsiderAdvantage’s full questionnaire, weighting, or transfer method. A bigger sample doesn’t tell you how a simulation was built.

The seats Democrats cannot give back

Every one of those pickups means nothing if Democrats lose ground at home. Cook rates Michigan a toss-up and New Hampshire only Leans Democratic, and InsiderAdvantage’s October 9 and 10 poll has Abdul El-Sayed up just 48 to 46 over Mike Rogers in Michigan.

Texas and Iowa could cover a missed pickup, but they are not spare tires in the trunk. Marist has James Talarico up two over Ken Paxton in Texas, and Iowa’s October polls split between Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek. Races that close are alternatives. They are not insurance.

Kansas and the cookie bill

In 2020, Roger Marshall threw a primary-night watch party for his first Senate run and ordered the treats from Holly’s Sweet Treats in Hutchinson, Kansas. Fudge brownies. Mini strawberry muffins. Sugar cookies with blue and yellow buttercream that spelled out his name. The bill came to $678.75, and he never paid it. Not that year, not the next, not for six years.

This month the bakery’s owner posted the unpaid invoice online. Once the post caught on, Marshall announced on X, “We have repaid the bill from 2020, double.” The invoice he attached shows $1,300. Double would be $1,357.50. Six years late, and he still came up $57.50 short on his own victory lap. MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow did that math on her October 12 show.

The cookies would be a punchline if not for what Marshall did before Congress. He practiced as an OB-GYN, and a New York Times investigation found he sued more than 700 patients over medical debts. Eighty-one of them were arrested after missing court dates. He charged 18 percent interest on unpaid bills, the highest rate among roughly 150 Kansas practices the Kansas City Star reviewed, and by MS NOW’s account patients were arrested over balances as small as $114. Marshall says he wasn’t personally involved in the arrests. The lawyer who filed many of those suits told the Star that Marshall’s office set the interest rate. Marshall had patients arrested over $114. A baker in Hutchinson carried his $678.75 tab for six years.

That is the man Kansas voters are sizing up, and the Senate seat is the backdrop. Kansas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. The Cook Political Report moved Marshall’s race to a toss-up on October 6. His opponent, Adam Hamilton, leads the largest United Methodist church in the country and has endorsements from two former Republican governors of Kansas. A joint MS NOW and Kansas Reflector review also found Marshall’s FEC filings listed no paid campaign staff for five years. MS NOW’s own election desk still rates the race Lean Republican, so call it a long shot with a pulse. But character shows up in small bills, and Kansas just got the receipt.

Count it honest

If you’re reading this in Tampa, none of these four races is on your ballot. That doesn’t take you out of the fight. A phone bank reaches Raleigh, Bangor, Columbus, and Anchorage from a kitchen table off Dale Mabry, a call sheet in one hand and a cup of coffee going cold beside it.

So here is the count. One solid lead in North Carolina. Two coin flips in Maine and Alaska. One race in Ohio where the pollsters can’t agree who is ahead. Two home seats to hold, with Michigan inside the margin. Democrats need nearly every one of those to break their way, which is why Texas, Iowa, and Kansas matter.

That is a path to 51. Calling it a sure thing would take more confidence than this evidence has earned, and overconfidence costs votes when people decide their ballot isn’t needed. Gideon’s supporters learned that in 2020. Defend what we hold. Fight for the four. Let the voters have the last word, because they will take it either way.

Nineteen days.

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