Within the Margin

I had to break out the asterisk for this one – the smallness of Delaware means there’s not a lot of colleges and therefore not many conferences to choose from. So I reached back to the 1990s edition of the America East Conference, which included the University of Delaware back then and features one from our other five states in his group (Maine, UMass-Lowell, New Hampshire, New Jersey Tech, and Bryant (Rhode Island). Listen, the narrative conceit amuses me.

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

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

Delaware
Incumbent: Chris Coons (D – elected 2010)
2026 matchup – presumptive: Chris Coons (D) vs. TBD
In a sentence: There was a time when no one expected Coons to win a Senate race; now he’s poised to win his fourth. Read more.

Maine
Incumbent: Susan Collins (R – elected 1996)
2026 matchup: Troy Jackson (D) vs. Susan Collins (R)
In a sentence: Maine is the bluest state with a Republican senator, and it may still be even after what appears likely to be a wave election. Read more.

Massachusetts
Incumbent: Ed Markey (D – elected 2013)
2026 matchup: Ed Markey (D) vs. John Deaton (R)
In a sentence: Markey has already won his toughest race of the year, dispatching Seth Moulton in the Democratic primary. Read more.

New Hampshire
Incumbent: Jeanne Shaheen (D) – elected 2008)
2026 matchup: Chris Pappas (D) vs. John Sununu (R)
In a sentence: The Sununu name is well-regarded in New Hampshire, but it’s not clear that his party is. Read more.

New Jersey
Incumbent: Cory Booker (D – elected 2013)
2026 matchup: Cory Booker (D) vs. Justin Murphy (R)
In a sentence: Booker hasn’t quite ended up the national figure he hoped to be, but he remains largely unassailable in New Jersey. Read more.

Rhode Island
Incumbent: Jack Reed (D – elected 1996)
2026 matchup: Jack Reed (D) vs. Raymond McKay (R)
In a sentence: Rhode Island Dems just defeated an incumbent governor in their primary, but Reed has avoided electoral difficultes for decades. Read more.

Delaware: In 2010, this seat was supposed to flip. Joe Biden had resigned upon being sworn in as vice president in 2008. Longtime Republican governor and congressman Mike Castle, a popular suburban moderate, was the GOP’s expected nominee and led New Castle County executive Chris Coons by double-digits in general election polling. It seemed like a slam-dunk flip for the Republicans. And then came the Tea Party: Christine O’Donnell, a socially-conservative activist who had previously mounted non-competitive Senate campaigns, caught fire as Republican primary votes rallied against “the establishment.” Castle and the state GOP made extensive efforts to question her personal and campaign finances, and to present her as completely unprepared for the job of a senator. None of it worked: O’Donnell won the primary, unfurled an unceasingly-strange general election campaign, and was demolished by Coons in November. He won by more than 16 points in one of the reddest years in living memory, and has held the seat with ease ever since. He’ll do this year, regardless of who Republicans nominate next week. The GOP last won a statewide race in Delaware in 2014, and last won a federal race here in 2008 – Castle’s final Congressional race.
Rating: Safe Democratic (hold)
Return to top

Maine: Susan Collins is pursuing a sixth term, having won the first five despite her party not carrying the state in a presidential race since 1988. She cruised to re-election with 61% of the vote in the bluest year (2008) in decades. In 2020, as Joe Biden was comfortably carrying the state, Collins won by 8.6% despite trailing almost every poll released from the start of July onward. And this year, the original Democratic nominee (Graham Platner) imploded and exited the race after a series of scandals ranging from a history of misogynist and anti-Semitic Reddit posts…to a Nazi tattoo that he didn’t bother to remove until he was running for office…to sexual assault allegations. Platner’s candidacy was always a bit odd; the premise was that he was a veteran-turned-oyster-farmer, eking out a scrappy working-class life on the land (well, water). But in reality he comes from a wealthy family that various conservative news outlets argue subsidize his aquatic enterprises and paid for his house. Regardless of whether his occupational pursuits hold up to scrutiny, there was always another shoe dropping with Platner. The energy generated by his progressive economics and everyman image (however genuine or contrived) gave him a resounding primary victory…but the accumulation of indicators that this is a violent and fundamentally underdeveloped individual meant his campaign simply needed to end. And so it did, at long last, in July. Democrats replaced him on the ballot with Troy Jackson, a unique candidate in his own right.

A logger by trade, Jackson first ran for the Maine House in 2000 as a Republican and lost. Two years later, running as an independent, he won a seat long held by Democrats. In 2004, he became a Democrat and won the seat two more times before running for, and winning, Maine’s 35th Senate District in 2008. He eventually became president of the Maine Senate before being term-limited in 2024. His run for governor this year ended in defeat (third place) but his background and his ideological positioning made him a logical replacement for Platner. Jackson’s initial messaging has taken on Collins’ supposed independence from Trump – he has a tendency to address her as “Susan,” which I presume is to take away her mystique as a statesmanlike figure. Her claims that she would still vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh even after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade seems like an odd choice for a pro-choice candidate in a solidly pro-choice state. And Jackson’s attacks on Elon Musk may reinforce the wider argument against Trump and Collins as out-of-touch with the cost pressures facing Americans right now, given his prime role in the early months of this administration.

Platner’s initial leads against Collins were collapsing before his withdrawal from the race, and the final high-quality poll of the Collins/Platner matchup showed Collins ahead 50%-47%. Since Jackson’s entrance, polling has been limited but shows him narrowly in front. We have to keep in mind that Collins has a tendency to overperform her polling – sometimes dramatically. This was most evident in 2020, of course, but that was not an isolated case. There may be something about the Maine electorate, or about her, or a combination of the two, that causes surveys to underestimate her strength and that of other Maine Republicans. It’s always risky to assume a polling error – and in fact it’s often an indication of motivated reasoning on the part of partisans. But the historical trend is worth noting. I also tend to think that the chaos around Platner’s campaign and replacement is unhelpful. Are there undecided Mainers who have previously voted for Collins, are open to a change, but are hesitant to support a party that delivered this chaos? It’s also the case that Collins always wins – and wins big – for a reason. Her constituent services are renowned, and voters now that Republicans need her – and that as a result she’s able to leverage local wins for Maine in each legislative and government funding showdown in the nation’s capital. Chairing the Appropriations Committee still means something, even in today’s Senate. Mainers probably understand Senate dynamics better than the average voter in part because of Collins’ political exigencies, and tend to apply that knowledge in their voting habits.

On the other hand, I could see Maine voters who stuck with Collins in 2020 – when expectations were that Trump was a one-off phenomenon whose economic stewardship was mostly well-regarded – deciding they’ve had more than enough the second time around. In 2020, Maine moderates may have thought they were voting for checks and balances: Biden for president, Collins for Senate. In 2026 they know Trump will be president the next two years, and may not view Collins as enough of a check/balance. Nothing impacts votes quite like inflation, and in this case some of the cost pressures lay directly at Trump’s feet. Has Collins created enough separation from that record to keep getting the benefit of the doubt? I begin the Jackson/Collins race saying yes, but absolutely expecting a much closer final result than Collins’ surprisingly robust 2020 victory. This is probably the most complex Senate race of this cycle and I expect the rating to change from to time.
Rating: Tilt Rep (hold)
Return to top

Massachusetts: In deep blue Massachusetts, the last competitive U.S. Senate race was in 2012, when Elizabeth Warren unseated Scott Brown, who had won the seat in a 2010 special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Brown ran a solid campaign in that special; Democratic nominee Martha Coakley ran one of the worst campaigns imaginable. That – and a very red national environment, like the one that existed throughout 2010 – is what it takes for a Republican to win a Senate race in the Bay State. None of those factors exist this year: presumptive GOP nominee John Deaton is a generic Trumper who lost to Warren by nearly 20 points two years ago in a much redder national milieu, and the Democratic incumbent is a normal, skilled candidate.

The winner was effectively determined in the primary in this deep blue state. The primary was in part about political positioning and in part about generational change. But unlike many of the Democratic primaries these year, the older incumbent was more progressive on the issues than his much-younger challenger. Ed Markey turned 80 this summer; he first won this seat in a 2013 special election after John Kerry left the Senate to become Secretary of State. Markey had already served 37 years in the House of Representatives at that point from a district in Boston’s northern suburbs, following stints as an attorney, Army reservist and state legislator. He is a longtime stalwart on environmental policy, with loyal support from the generation of young activists for whom energy and climate issues are top of mind. He has won his general elections with ease, and fended off a primary from Joe Kennedy III in 2020 when the ginger scion of Massachusetts’ most famous political family offered generational change but otherwise struggled to articulate the basis for his challenge. His challenger was Seth Moulton, who hails from Salem and has represented the 6th Congressional District in northeastern Massachusetts since 2014. He is 47 years old, which is to say he was born almost two years to the day after Markey was first elected to Congress. A Marine enlistee after graduating from Harvard, he won the Bronze Star for his actions in combat in Iraq; later, he collected a few more Harvard degrees and challenged a scandal-tarnished Democratic incumbent in 2014 and won by 10 points. A 2020 presidential campaign was not nearly as successful, as he never polled above 2% and ended his campaign months before the primaries began. During his time in Congress, Moulton has been an ornery sort: he’s more or less a standard Massachusetts Democrat but has chafed at the party’s leadership – see his abortive efforts to replace Nancy Pelosi after re-taking the House majority in 2018 – and its positioning on certain issues. He likes to be glib and to be seen as a little bit edgy, but even on the topic where he has probably generated the most intraparty controversy – transgender rights – he’s not out of step with the wider public or even Democratic opinion. His general vibe is catnip for press types and a certain kind of cable news viewer, but even in a Democratic primary, that voter is not dominant. Markey’s support from legions of doers continues to carry the day over talkers, and Markey will serve another Senate term as a result.
Rating: Safe Dem (hold)
Return to top

New Hampshire: Republicans held both of the Granite State’s Senate seats from 1980 through 2008, when former governor Jeanne Shaheen won her rematch with John Sununu as one of eight Democratic Senate pickups that year. She survived a tough challenge from former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown six years later. Democrats flipped the other seat in 2016 by the narrowest of margins when another governor – Maggie Hassan – defeated future governor Kelly Ayotte. Since then, the GOP has not put the strongest foot forward here: Corky Messner lost a blowout to Shaheen in 2020 and Don Bolduc’s far-right campaign lost to Hassan by nine points despite a friendlier environment for his party in 2022.

This year, Shaheen is retiring. The Democratic frontrunner for the nomination to replace her was four-term congressman Chris Pappas, who boasted plenty of resources and lots of establishment endorsements. In a year where progressive challengers have won some major primaries, there was some buzz that Karishma Manzur, a research scientist and activist with much less in the way of financial resources for her campaign, had some momentum. A University of New Hampshire poll showed her closing the gap against Pappas from 43 points in January to 13 points in August. That proved inaccurate: Pappas ended up winning 65%-33% and heads into the general election in a strong position with respect to consolidating party support.

The GOP nominee is John Sununu, back to reclaim the seat he held for one term (2002-2008). He easily turned back the aforementioned fellow ex-senator Scott Brown 68%-27% in this week’s primary. The Sununu name has long dominated GOP circles: John’s grandfather was governor in the 1980s and then served as George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff; John’s brother Chris was a very popular governor for eight years (2016-2024) and has been the subject of repeated Senate recruitment efforts by national Republicans. They didn’t persuade him to run, but they did get a Sununu. And whether it’s name confusion (his logo and advertising lean into “Sununu” without bothering to note his first name), nostalgia for the early 2000s, or – even less likely – New Hampshire shifting red as the rest of the country shifts blue, Sununu has polled competitively in this blueish-purple state this year. A UNH poll – with some methodological issues, granted – shows him up two points; the other August poll here put Pappas up seven points.

The thing is, I’m not sure Sununu has his heart in it. His campaign website talks about his past Senate service but does not include a platform page. Until primary night, the last item on the site’s news section was from July 23 and was simply about his latest campaign commercial. I get the impression that he’d be happy to fluke back into his old Senate seat but isn’t hustling to make it happen. Coupled with New Hampshire’s lean (Harris won it by three points in 2024) and the national mood, it seems like Pappas should win comfortably. If Sununu starts to show some real juice, the race will require a reassessment.
Rating: Likely Dem (hold)
Return to top

New Jersey: The Garden State swung hard to Donald Trump in 2024 – not nearly enough to win, but at 52%-46% the margin was still a striking shift from Biden’s 57%-41% victory. And a year later, it swung almost all the way back to Biden’s margin when Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherill won the race for governor by more than 14 points. The country has shifted quite a bit since Trump’s win two years ago, and one of the Senate’s more nationally-known figures, two-term incumbent Cory Booker, will cruise to another win accordingly. He won comfortably in 2014 – a bleak year for Democrats – and matched Biden’s margin in 2020. His opponent is Justin Murphy, a former deputy mayor in smallish Tabernacle Township. Murphy’s an attorney and Navy veteran whose first newsworthy act of the campaign may have been his declaration that Islam “doesn’t seem to be able to cohabitate with other religions” – a bigoted argument anywhere and particularly unhelpful in New Jersey, with its substantial Muslim population. He has no money and no chance.
Rating: Safe Dem (hold)
Return to top

Rhode Island: A deep blue state in a blue election cycle, with an incumbent facing negligible opposition in both the primary and general: there is not much suspense this year in the Ocean State’s Senate contest. Democrat Jack Reed is seeking a sixth term; he turns 77 in November but is not grouped among those members of the House and Senate upon whom age is clearing taking a toll. A West Point grad, Reed is the longtime ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also chaired the committee during the most recent four-year stretch of Democratic control. Reed’s opponent is Raymond McKay, a former president of the Rhode Island branch of a conservative Republican organization. That…is not the profile for a competitive Republican in this state, and in fact he didn’t even fare well in the GOP Senate primary two years ago when he lost 65%-35% to state representative Patricia Morgan.

The last competitive Senate race in Rhode Island was in 2006, when the chamber’s most liberal Republican, Lincoln Chafee, faced a near-impossible re-election in a Democratic wave year. Chafee lost that race 53% to 46%, bounced back to win the governorship as an independent in 2010 and later ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and as a Libertarian in 2020. Reed meanwhile has never received less than 63% in his own Senate elections. This won’t be the year he faces a tight one, either.
Rating: Safe Dem (hold)
Return to top