Final Stretch: Dem Leads Narrow in TX, MI, Two States Join Toss-Ups

With just over a week until Election Day, the battle for the Senate is largely unchanged, but a handful of key races are getting closer. Democratic leads in Texas and Michigan have been cut roughly in half, and a few states have slid from “Leans GOP” into the toss-up column.

The races that moved the most over the last few weeks are Texas and Michigan. On Oct. 7, Texas Democrat James Talarico led Republican Ken Paxton by 3.1 points in the RCP Average, but now he leads by only 1.5 points. He still leads in most of the polls in the RCP Average, but three of the 10 polls have the two tied, and one had Paxton leading by 1 point.

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s lead in Michigan has shrunk by a similar margin. On Oct. 6, he led by 3.6 points in the RCP Average, but now he leads by only 1.9 points. All the polls in the Average still have him in the lead over Republican Mike Rogers, by between 1 and 5 points.

Despite the narrowing of polls in both races, betting markets haven’t shifted much. Since the beginning of October, Talarico has stayed between a 61% and a 68% chance to win, and he now sits at 65%, while El-Sayed has been between 66% and 73%, and he now sits at 68%.

Maine’s race has also seen significant changes over the last month. In mid-September, Troy Jackson led by 2.5 points before the race narrowed, with neither candidate holding a lead of more than a point from Sept. 26 to Oct. 8. Now, Jackson holds a narrow lead, though the two latest polls, from Trafalgar and Fox News, have the race tied. Jackson currently holds a narrow lead in betting markets, with a 58% chance to win.

Over the past week, RCP has also moved a couple of states that were previously rated “Leans GOP” into the toss-up category, as recent polling there has failed to show the kind of solid Republican advantage that rating would suggest.

One of the states is South Carolina, where, despite all polls included in the RCP Average having Republican Darline Graham Nordone ahead of Democrat Annie Andrews, the race was moved to a toss-up. The shift reflects how close the race has become in October polling, with Graham Nordone holding a lead of just 2.7 points in the RCP Average. Even though she has consistently led in the Average, such a narrow lead means Andrews still has a significant chance if the polls are off by less than the margin of error of any individual poll. Betting markets give Graham Nordone an 80% chance to win.

Nebraska is the other state moved into the toss-up category, following a month with almost no quality polling there, as not a single October survey has been included in the RCP Average. Betting markets still give Republican Pete Ricketts a 74% chance to beat Democrat Dan Osborn, though that’s far from a comfortable lead for Ricketts, considering President Donald Trump won the state by 20.4 points in 2024.

Though the odds and polls for these individual races have changed slightly in the last weeks of the election, the overall picture is generally unchanged. Democrats still lead by 8.4 points in the Generic Congressional Ballot, near where they’ve been since Sept. 16, between 7.9 and 8.7 points. Since the start of October, Democrats’ odds of controlling the Senate have remained between 63% and 69% in Polymarket’s betting markets, currently sitting at 65%.