The final round of New York Times and Siena College polling, released on Sunday evening, gives Democrats a lead in every one of the seven Senate races rated most competitive. Abdul El-Sayed leads Mike Rogers by 53 to 42 percent in Michigan, and James Talarico leads Ken Paxton by 50 to 43 in Texas. The other five are inside the polls’ margins of error: Maine at 51 to 45, Kansas and Ohio at 49 to 44 each, Alaska at 48 to 46 for Mary Peltola over Dan Sullivan, and Iowa effectively tied at 48 to 47.
The arithmetic is demanding even on those numbers. Republicans hold the Senate 53 to 47, 35 seats are on the ballot on Tuesday, and only Michigan of the seven battlegrounds is currently held by a Democrat. Democrats must defend everything and flip at least four Republican seats. Don Levy of the Siena Research Institute called a Democratic Senate majority a distinct possibility while noting a majority for either party remains possible. Across the seven states, only 38 percent of likely voters approved of President Trump’s job performance, and Democrats led by an average of nine points on which party would better handle the cost of living.
The campaigns closed accordingly. Trump held final rallies in Dubuque, Iowa, and Salina, Kansas on Sunday, two states his party would normally hold comfortably, campaigning for Ashley Hinson and Roger Marshall, and was due to close at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington on Monday. In a New York Post interview aired Sunday, he conceded the shape of the risk directly: if Democrats take Congress, he said, he would become Mr. Veto, vetoing their bills until, after a month or two, the parties made a deal.
A record 54 million Americans had already voted early, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, which limits what the final day can change. Democrats are also positioned to take the House, where they need three seats, and even a single chamber would give them control of the budget process and of committees able to investigate the administration. Counting and certification litigation is the known post-election risk, with the Alaska ballot dispute, the California restraining order and the Texas certification suit already in the courts before a vote is counted on Tuesday.