Within the Margin

Our September Senate check-ins continue with the Southeastern states – hence the SEC, college sports fans – and to divide it into manageable pieces, we’ll rely on the SEC’s old east and west divisions.

I’ll summarize each race in a sentence first, then link to the longer write-up further down the page.

Florida (special election)
Incumbent: Ashley Moody (R – appointed 2025)
2026 matchup: Angie Nixon (D) vs. Ashley Moody (R)
In a sentence: Once the country’s most notorious razor’s-edge state, the main question in Florida now is whether the Democratic slide can be arrested. Continue reading.

Georgia
Incumbent: Jon Ossoff (D – elected 2020)
2026 matchup: Jon Ossoff (D) vs. Mike Collins (R)
In a sentence: With a gradual but consistent bluing trend in the state and a rising star in incumbent Jon Ossoff, Georgia’s Senate race is looking less suspenseful by the day. Continue reading.

Kentucky
Incumbent: Mitch McConnell (R – elected 1984. Retiring.)
2026 matchup: Charles Booker (D) vs. Andy Barr (R)
In a sentence: Democrats have established that they can win the governorship in Kentucky, but statewide federal races remain a very different matter. Continue reading.

South Carolina
Incumbent: Darline Graham (R – appointed 2026)
2026 matchup: Annie Andrews (D) vs. Darline Graham (R)
In a sentence: Senate appointees often find tougher sledding in winning election in their own right, and Graham’s lack of preparation for the job into which she has been thrust might – conceivably – provide Andrews an opening. Continue reading.

Tennessee
Incumbent: Bill Hagerty (R – elected 2020)
2026 matchup: Marquita Bradshaw (D) vs. Bill Hagerty (R)
In a sentence: The corn won’t grow at all on Rocky Top – the dirt’s too rocky by far. Continue reading.

Previous posts in this series:
Senate Week Overview
The Big 10 (Great Lakes/Midwest)

Florida: Marco Rubio’s appointment as Secretary of State created a special election to serve the remainder of his term in this seat, which was last contested in 2022. Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Ashley Moody, previously the state’s attorney general, to fill the vacancy and she easily prevailed in last month’s primary. The anticipated Democratic nominee was Alex Vindman, a former retired Army lieutenant colonel, Purple Heart recipient and whistleblower in Trump’s first impeachment. His credentials were solid, but his campaign skills were not (other than raising gobs of money) were not – whereas Jacksonville state representative and businesswoman Angie Nixon lacked dollars but actually bothered to organize a primary campaign. She defeated Vindman 56%-44%. So now we’ll see if a member of the Democratic Socialists of America can win statewide in Florida, where one of the electorate’s defining characteristics is a sizable population of immigrants who fled authoritarian socialist regimes in Latin America. My guess would be no, obviously; Nixon supporters would point to her organizational capacity and work ethic as evidence that she can win people to her cause.

Democrats have been in freefall in Florida, with Trump carrying the state three times – each time by a larger margin – and Republicans now holding every statewide office. And while Dems can point to encouraging public polling in most states, that’s not the case in the Sunshine State this year. I don’t have a strong sense of why Trump and his party seem to be holding up so much better in Florida than other red states. It may have to do with loyalty borne out of the administration’s Latin America policy (specifically with respect to Venezuela and Cuba). Another factor may be that the significant influx of people moving into Florida is presumably self-selecting to some degree, and includes quite a few people attracted to the DeSantis vison for the state. We would expect those folks to retreat from Trumpism slower than others. One caveat is that internal Democratic polling shows Trump notably underwater in the state’s battleground Congressional districts. So most signs point to a reasonably comfortable Moody victory, but there is enough going on at the national level to keep this formerly hotly-contested state out of the Safe column.
Rating: Likely Republican (hold)
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Georgia: In the early 2020s, Georgia was the talk of the electoral world: Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since 1992 – after Brad Raffensberger declined to “find” Trump the votes he demanded. Two months later – the day before the January 6 attack at the nation’s Capitol – Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won a pair of Senate runoffs to flip the chamber to Democratic control. These were the party’s first Senate wins in Georgia since 1998. In 2022, Warnock fended off a much-hyped challenge from Herschel Walker to secure a full term. The pendulum swung back a bit in 2024, as Trump narrowly carried the state. But this year, Democratic momentum is back once again as Ossoff seeks a second term. Presidential talk is gaining steam as he earns plaudits for his speechmaking and his committee room interrogations. And he’s dominating in polls against his Republican opponent, two-term Congressman Mike Collins. Fresh off a bruising primary and runoff against Derek Dooley, Collins has the look of a man whose statewide bid is coming two years too late. There’s no daylight between him and Trump and he maintains an extremely-online posture that emphasizes trolling over substance. It might have worked in 2024, but he needs something to shift in a hurry if he’s going to close the gap on Ossoff in the next three months. Some of the race ratings publications have been slow to move Georgia into the Likely column – many expected a much more competitive race. I do not see one coming.
Rating: Likely Dem (hold)
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Kentucky: After seven terms in the Senate, former majority leader Mitch McConnell is retiring this year. When he first won the seat in 1984, he defeated a Democratic incumbent and would serve alongside a Democratic senator until 1998. These days, while Kentucky frequently elects Democratic governors, the state resolutely sends Republicans to the U.S. Senate. Various challengers have seemed like they had a shot against McConnell and others, only for races to end up blowouts. Bruce Lunsford kept it somewhat close against McConnell in 2008, but the last truly close Senate race here was Dan Mongiardo’s challenge against that damn Phillie Jim Bunning in 2004. McConnell’s exit does not appear to be changing the calculus much.

It was always understood that McConnell saw Daniel Cameron as his successor; Cameron served as McConnell’s legal counsel for a couple years before becoming Kentucky’s attorney general. But it hasn’t worked out that way: Cameron lost a bid for the governorship in 2023 and then lost this year’s Republican primary for the Senate seat by a decisive margin. The winner was Congressman Andy Barr, who flipped a Dem-held seat back in 2012 and survived his only real scare in 2018 against Amy McGrath. Barring a surprising change of circumstances, he’ll comfortably defeat Democratic nominee Charles Booker this fall. Booker was elected to the Kentucky House in 2018, serving one term before becoming a guy who runs for Senate a lot. He narrowly lost the 2020 primary to McGrath, then won the nomination in 2022 before losing the general election to Rand Paul by twenty-three and a half points. While the national environment is favorable for Dems, Booker is far to the left of Kentucky’s electorate and appears to be incapable of raising money.

It is worth noting that Kentucky has effectively been without its senior senator this summer, as McConnell spent nearly two months in a hospital and rehab center following a mid-June fall and refused to provide information about his condition or a timetable for his return to work. His fellow Republicans wave it away as nothing to see – and perhaps that’s true enough in Congress, one of the few workplaces where many of the bosses are octogenarians. To the extent that it angers Kentucky voters, I see no indication that Booker is capable of taking advantage.
Rating: Safe Republican (hold)
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South Carolina: Lindsey Graham’s passing in July, shortly after being renominated for a fifth term, created a scramble to fill his seat via appointment and to replace him on the ballot. His sister, Darline Graham, was chosen in both cases – with Trump pushing hard on her behalf. The special GOP primary featured Graham; two sitting congressmembers in Ralph Norman and Russell Fry; former governor, congressman and Appalachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford; self-funding auto repair executive Mark Lynch; and various minor/perennial candidates. Most of the primary vote went to Graham and Norman, who advanced to the special runoff. That race pitted a candidate who is by definition establishment-oriented against a Freedom Caucus troublemaker in Norman…and served as a reminder that Trump is the establishment in 2026 no matter how much a certain kind of voter or pundit tries to convince themselves otherwise. Armed with his endorsement but perhaps impacted by an embarrassing debate performance, Graham narrowly prevailed by just under five points. Her campaign is revealing that she is quite different from her brother: while foreign policy and national security seemed to be his only real policy concerns, she is unable to speak on them.

While Americans are unlikely to make many decisions this year on foreign policy questions in a vacuum, this election is turning on affordability questions – and the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is impacting that. So Graham may not be able to separate the two the way that she likes. The question is whether a Democrat can take advantage of this environment and Graham’s weaknesses to win a South Carolina senate race for the first time since Fritz Hollings’ final election in 1998. The short answer is probably not; this is a state that Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024 and where Democrats hold only one statewide elected office (and that via appointment under unique circumstances). The 2020 election here flattered to deceive: Jaime Harrison raised a lot of money and a lot of attention via social media, and polled competitively – but ultimately lost by ten points. Pediatrician Annie Andrews lost a 2022 Congressional race to Nancy Mace by 14 points; she has some fundraising ability and meaningful experience for an electorate concerned about health care costs. But her profile is not particularly moderate and she would seem likely to lose this Senate race by double-digits, if not for questions over whether Graham can get through the campaign without further mistakes. We have exactly zero polls from high-quality outfits since Lindsey Graham’s death, so we’re mainly looking at candidate factors and political environment. Those create enough uncertainty to keep this from a Safe rating, but Andrews needs to show us more to move this any closer.
Rating: Likely Rep (hold)
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Tennessee: Republicans flipped both of Tennessee’s Senate seats in 1994 and have rarely looked in danger of losing them since. 2006 brought a competitive race, when Memphis congressman and onetime Democratic rising star Harold Ford Jr. held Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker to a three-point margin of victory. Twelve years later, that seat opened up with Corker’s retirement. Marsha Blackburn, a deeply conservative Congresswoman from the Nashville suburbs faced off with former Phil Bredesen, the last Democrat to win Tennessee’s governorship and a widely popular moderate during his time in office. Polling showed a somewhat competitive race, and Bredesen’s campaign gained national attention from Taylor Swift’s first political endorsement. But Blackburn still won by a comfortable 11-point margin. Two years later, Bill Hagerty easily won the state’s other seat when Lamar Alexander retired, defeating environmental activist Marquita Bradshaw 62%-35%. In 2024, Blackburn was re-elected with ease and this year, Hagerty will do the same in his rematch with Bradshaw. Tennessee has become one of the reddest states in the nation, and Democrats have been all but wiped out in the Congressional and state legislative levels here. The lack of statewide elected offices besides governor and U.S. Senate means that Democrats don’t have many places where they can pull off an upset and build upon it. This state does have quite a few decent-sized cities, and those mayoralties will be important for Dems to win in order to identify what works and adapt it statewide.
Rating: Safe Rep (hold)
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