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January 7th , 2025 Len’s Political Note #697 10 US Senate Seats in which the Republican incumbent has not announced a run in 2026
2026 General Election
Some Republicans are still deciding whether or not to run. Or not telling the public whether or not they are running is part of some strategy. My guess is that all but two of the Republican Senators who have not indicated they are candidates for 2026 are actually running. The two are 83 year old Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 81 year old Jim Risch of Idaho. I have not included those two in this piece. I will wait. See what they say. And probably include those states in a piece that also includes the special elections for the Senate in Ohio (to replace Vice President elect JD Vance) and Florida (to replace Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio).
At this stage, we have no idea which Democrats will oppose the Senators who are probably running for reelection. Even where Democrats have announced, we have no idea who else will emerge candidates. This early, we can speculate about improbable Democratic challengers for these seats. We can also provide some financial support to the DSCC which will probably be chaired by New York Senator Kristen Gillebrand, who would focus on electing Democratic Senators around the country,
Begin thinking about that.
Alaska
Former Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola
One Democrat has announced for this race – Ann Diener. She is a staffer for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. The strongest Democratic candidate would probably be former Congresswoman Mary Peltola. At this point, you could donate to the Alaska Democratic party.
The Republican incumbent has not announced that he is running. Nor have any potential primary opponents become visible. Incumbent Dan Sullivan is 60 years old, a Harvard graduate with an MS and JD from Georgetown. An active-duty Marine for four years before he joined the reserves and attended law school. He joined an Anchorage law firm after he completed his JD and two clerkships, Then he returned to Washington to serve as a White House Fellow under GW Bush who subsequently appointed him as an Assistant Secretary of State. In 2009, the Alaska Attorney General resigned amid a controversy about Governor Palin’s dismissal of the public service commissioner. Dan Sullivan was nominated and confirmed for the position after Governor Sara Palin’s first nominee was rejected. In 2010, Governor Sean Parnell appointed Sullivan Commissioner of Natural Resources.
Dan Sullivan was elected US Senator in 2014, defeating Democrat Mark Begich 48-46. Sullivan describes himself as a Pro-Life Roman Catholic. He believes there is no consensus on the existence of climate change. He has not made Donald Trump’s enemies list, though he could have. During the 2016 election, he withdrew his support for Donald Trump over Trump’s sex behavior. More important to Trump, apparently, Sullivan voted to acquit Trump in both impeachment trials and supported Trump in the 2020 election. In 2020, Sullivan was reelected, defeating independent/Democrat Al Gross 54-42.
2026 would be a great year for Alaskans to replace Sullivan with a Senator who is not a Trump follower. Donate to the Alaska Democratic Party
Arkansas
Democratic Mayor Frank Scott
One Democrat has announced for this race – Dan Whitfield. He has run for the US Senate unsuccessfully before. We can hope that Arkansas Democrats can find a strong candidate to, at least, make the incumbent work at winning. Perhaps the Little Rock mayor Frank Scott would take on this difficult mission. He has been a successful mayor from the moment of his election in 2018. Would he leave that role for a Senate run that has, as its goal, making the incumbent work to win?
The Republican incumbent is Tom Cotton, At age 47, he appears to be contemplating running for his third term at US Senator. With a BA and a JD from Harvard, he enlisted in the US Army after completing a law clerkship. He was trained as an Army Ranger and deployed to Iraq and then to Afghanistan. Two controversies are worth mentioning, He wrote a letter to the New York Times, copied the letter to a conservative blog. The Times did not publish the letter. The letter claimed that NY Times journalists, in reporting about a classified program, violated the espionage law and should be prosecuted. Salon magazine criticized Cotton’s claim that he served as a Ranger, noting that he served in the 101st Airborne. My take? We should be grateful for every honest and dangerous to get story the NY Times and other media can produce. We should be happy to call any soldier trained as a Ranger and is brave enough to take on Ranger-like work, a Ranger.
Cotton, contacted by political figures, ran for an open Congressional seat in Arkansas and was elected handily. He was elected to the Senate in 2014 and reelected in 2020, defeating a Libertarian 66.5 to 33.5, He was facing a Libertarian in 2020 after damning evidence about the Democratic candidate was withheld until it was too late for him to withdraw and be replaced and after outlawyering Dan Whitfield who was seeking to learn the number of signatures required to run as an independent while Arkansas was under Covid restrictions that limited opportunities to collect signatures.
Help Democrats find a candidate who will can make Tom Cotton work to win the electorate. Arkansans don’t need shadowy figures making Cotton win the election before the voters get a chance to vote. Donate to the Arkansas Democratic Party.
Kansas
Democratic Governor Laura Kelly
No Democrats have expressed interest yet. Nor have there been any Republican challengers who have expressed interest. The controversial and extreme right wing Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach is more likely to run for Governor. The current governor, 74 year old Laura Kelly, is a Democrat who will complete her second term, the maximum she can serve in a row. In November, she announced she would not run for the Senate in 2026. A Democratic Congresswoman, Democratic mayors are potential candidates. Donate to the Kansas Democratic Party.
Sixty-four year old Roger Marshall is completing his first term as Senator from Kansas. He has an Associate’s Degree from a community college, a BS from Kansas State, and an MD from Kansas. Before running for Congress, he touched a lot of bases. He was on a hospital board, vice president of a bank, and was a district governor of Rotary International. In a primary, he defeated a sitting Congressman who had earned the anger of many in his district because he had lost his seat on the Agriculture Committee. Marshall won the primary despite accusations that he had attempted to run over a neighbor with a vehicle. He pled guilty to reckless driving.
After two terms, Marshall ran for the Senate, first defeating Kobach in a primary, then defeating a state senator 53-42. In addition to being an OB-GYN opposed to abortion in all cases, Marshall has been pretty extreme in the Senate. He persists in disputing the results of the 2020 election. He claimed the CDC was inflating the number of Covid-19 cases in the country and promoted hydroxychloroquine as a covid preventative. He suggests there is no such thing as climate change, no need for the Affordable Care Act, and certainly no need to expand Medicaid to allow more people to access the Affordable Care Act.
Could Marshall be vulnerable to a less extreme Democratic candidate? Donate to the Kansas Democratic Party. Consider writing Laura Kelly to suggest she reconsider. You might use the Share Your Opinion section of the Governor’s website.
Montana
Democratic Activist Reilly Neil
One Democrat has announced for this race so far – Reilly Neil. She is a reproductive rights activist who has served a term in the state legislature and wrote a book about it. She published The Montana Press and, before that, the Livingston Current – newspapers that covered arts and entertainment in Montana. She was a leading figure in the fight for a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion which passed in 2024. Can she translate that effort into electoral success for herself? There are other Democrats in Montana. In addition to state legislators, there are elected Democrats in Montana’s cities. Among them is Wilmot Collins, Mayor of Helena and an immigrant from Liberia who became a US citizen in 2002. He worked in child protection for the state human services agency and, in 2017, defeated a four term mayor. While Montana Democrats work to recover from Jon Tester’s seven-point loss in the 2024 Senate race, donate to Reilly Neil and/or to the Montana Democratic Party.
It is not long ago that Montana had a Democratic governor and two Democratic US Senators. In fact, Steve Daines, the sixty-two year old Incumbent Republican who has not yet announced whether he will run in 2026, was the first Republican to be elected to the US Senate in Montana in the 21st century when he was elected in 2014. Daines had worked in private industry before entering politics –initially for Proctor and Gamble, then for a locally based software firm. In 2008, he was the pick for Lt. Governor, but the Republican team lost the election.
Daines was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2012 and supported conservation proposals that would protect Montana’s landscape. He was elected to the Senate in 2014. His conservativism in this mostly conservative state has been extreme enough to draw opposition. He opposes abortion in all cases except when a mother’s life is in danger. He proposed abolishing the US Department of Education. He argues that there is no climate change and if there were, it would not have been caused by human behavior. He opposed allowing DACA recipients to apply to remain temporarily in the US. He supported Trump’s plan in his first term to ban immigrants from Muslim majority countries and has mostly tied himself to Trump’s politics ranging from support for Trump dispersing crowds in Washington for a photo-op to overturning the results of the 2020 election.
Reilly Neil may not prove to be the only Democratic candidate, but help her campaign. Donate. She may prove to be the Democratic challenger who can defeat Daines’s extremism.
Oklahoma
Actor, Writer, and Director Ron Howard
No Democrats have surfaced to run for this seat. Are there any likely to surface? The mayors of the largest city and the third largest city in the state are Republicans. Monroe Nichols, the mayor of Tulsa is a Democrat, but he was just elected this past November. He is as probable a candidate as some celebrity from Oklahoma like Ron Howard, the famous director. The probable DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand might give a celebrity candidate a little thought. Gillibrand is a Senator from New York. She may know a famous and vetable Oklahoman on Broadway who would like to return to his or her roots and run for the US Senate. Maybe actor, writer, and director Ron Howard would be interested in returning to Oklahoma. Born there, his ties to the state are, unfortunately, tenuous. By the time he was of school age, he was living in California.
Incumbent Republican Markwayne Mullin is forty-seven. He may be the only member of the Senate without a Bachelor’s degree. When he obtained an Associate’s Degree in construction technology, he was in his thirties and learning what he needed for his work. He began running Mullin Plumbing when his father was ill and expanded it over the years to include Mullin Services, Mullin Properties, and Mullin Farms. By 2021, the value of his holdings had increased to as much as 75 million.
Markwayne Mullin, a member of the Cherokee nation, ran for Congress in 2012 emphasizing that he was a businessman, not a politician. He led in the primary, won the runoff, and then won the general election to replace retiring Democrat Dan Boren. He continued to be reelected to Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District until 2022, when ran successfully to finish the term of retiring Senator Jim Inhofe.
Markwayne Mullin never mellowed. In a “town meeting” in 2017, Mullin responded belligerently when a member of the audience said the taxpayers pay his salary. Mullin insisted that, considering the taxes he pays, he pays his own salary. After the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal, he sought to organize extraction efforts personally, but was blocked. In a Senate hearing, he quarreled with Teamster President Sean O’Brien so vehemently that Mullin wanted to settle their differences outside. Months later when O’Brien testified again, Mullin renewed the quarrel. Bernie Sanders, presiding over the hearing, had to remind Mullin that they were in the United States Senate. He might have added that they were not in a cowboy movie or a Star Wars bar. Mullins seemed to think his behavior was acceptable, recalling (could it have been with admiration?) the pre-Civil War beating with a cane of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Andrew Jackson’s duels (of which only one was actually settled with a gun shot and that was controversial long before he held elected office and well before he held elective office.)
Mullin opposes abortion in all cases, transgendered women participating in women’s sports, and would regulate mixed martial arts as boxing is regulated. He did acknowledge, which many Republicans do not, that the Capitol Police shooting of Ashli Babbitt breaking through into the House Chamber was justified, that she was leading a crowd that would endanger the lives of members of congress and their staff.
Oklahoma can do better. While they look for a candidate, donate to the Oklahoma Democratic Party.
South Carolina
Democratic Activist Catherine Fleming Bruce
Who would have thought it? Two Democrats have already announced for the US Senate seat. One of them, Catherine Fleming Bruce, ran in 2022, winning the primary’s first round of three Black women 34.7 to 33.2, to 32.1, then losing in the run off to a State Rep. The state Rep, a Black woman, lost to Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, 63-37.
Catherine Fleming Bruce, an activist and author is running again. Sixty-three, a graduate of Agnes Scott College with a Master’s from the University of South Carolina, her book and her documentary film traced the impact of activists. Her television miniseries was based on a novel about four police chiefs. Her book won the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation Book Prize, their first award to an African American author. The other announced Democrat is Kyle Freeman, who tells us about his parents’ military careers and that he chose a career in logistics. It is not so easy to find out more about Freeman.
Sixty-nine year old Lindsay Graham has not announced whether he will run for reelection to the US Senate in 2026. With a BA and JD from the University of South Carolina, he has served four terms in the US Senate. Notwithstanding his success as the chief Air Force prosecutor in Europe and as a judge and a colonel until the civilian courts ruled that he could not be both a military judge and a Senator, he is best known for the politicians he has followed.
He was John McCain’s closest ally and friend until his death. Graham next became a devoted supporter of Donald Trump, the man Graham had called a “jackass” for saying that John McCain was not a war hero, the man Graham had described as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot…”
No Senator with multiple terms can escape taking contradictory positions. Graham simply has a lot more contradictions than most – whether it has to do with immigration (he had cooperated with Ted Kennedy on the issue; later, during the Trump administration he insisted detained immigrants were not in “concentration camps”) or with abortion (he supported a prohibition of abortion after 20 weeks, argued that Roe v Wade was a precedent that should not be overturned, supported the view that abortion should be decided by states, and argued on behalf of a 15 week national standards for when states could choose to allow abortions).
If you think it is premature to donate to Catherine Fleming Bruce, donate to the South Carolina Democratic Party. Or donate to both.
South Dakota
No Democrats have announced an interest in running for the Senate from South Dakota. No Democrats hold statewide office. The mayor of South Dakota’s largest city, by far, is a popular Republican. The State Senate has four Democrats out of 35 members. The state House of Representatives has seven Democrats out of 70 members. It was not always that way. From 1997 to 2005, both Senators were Democrats. George McCovern was a Senator from South Dakota when he ran for President. South Dakota Democrats, US Democrats have to figure out a way to change this disproportion. Can that happen?
Seventy year old Mike Rounds, twice elected governor, twice elected US Senator has not announced his intentions regarding the 2026 election. He has his BA from South Dakota State in Brookings. He was a partner in a real estate and insurance firm when he was elected state Rep. In the state senate, he was elected minority whip in 1993; majority leader in 1995.
Mike Rounds has had a relatively bi-partisan record in the Senate. He earned Donald Trump’s anger by saying the 2000 election was not stolen from Trump. He co-chaired a four-person working group including Chuck Schumer on Artificial Intelligence. He supported a mechanism by which employers can reduce the student loan burden of their employees. And he supported a bi-partisan criminal justice bill. On the other hand, a recipient of substantial support from fossil fuel interests, he urged Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Support the South Dakota Democratic Party and the DSCC. Mike Rounds should have a Democratic opponent.
Tennessee
Democratic Mayor Jim Strickland
No Democrats have expressed an interest in running for the Senate from Tennessee. One independent has announced. Jason Smith. He is in jail now, arrested and convicted and given a 10 year sentence plus supervised release. His crime? Claiming he was running for President. There was nothing fraudulent about that. It was 2018 and he was running in the 2020 election. But he passed a bad check. That did him in.
Tennessee has Democratic members of its legislature and Democratic mayors. Its two biggest cities are Nashville and Memphis. Nashville’s mayor Freddie O’Connell took office a little over a year ago. Memphis’s former mayor Jim Strickland completed two terms and was term limited. A local attorney who spent six years on the City Council, after defeating an incumbent mayor, he had a largely successful two terms himself – avoiding removal of suburban communities from the jurisdiction, completing and passing budgets at difficult times, restoring library services, strengthening the police department, preserving jobs by keeping employers in the city, and more. Currently a Dean and a professor at the University of Memphis, if he is not thinking about running for the Senate, he should be.
Bill Hagerty is running for his second term as US Senator. Sixty-five years old, he has a BA and JD from Vanderbilt. Initially, he worked for Boston Consulting, his last three years in Japan. Subsequently, he was a White House Fellow under GHW Bush and then co-founded a private equity firm. Having been director of the firm, he became Tennessee’s Commissioner of Economic and Community Development. He coordinated appointments for Trump after he was elected in 2016 and was then appointed ambassador to Japan.
He returned to Tennessee to run for the Senate, winning by a 62 to 35 margin. After some deliberation, he voted to accept the electoral college votes in the 2000 election. Otherwise, there is not a lot to like in his political positions. He resisted Joe Biden’s infrastructure act, would add human traffickers to those subject to the death penalty, wants a balanced budget constitutional amendment, opposes the affordable care act and federal medical spending in general (though he also opposes closing rural hospitals). He would reduce taxes and opposes a federal minimum wage. He supports expanding the use of fossil fuels and repealing support for renewable energy and energy efficiency standards.
Encourage Jim Strickland to run for the Senate. He is reachable at the University of Memphis.
West Virginia
Democratic Activist Zach Shrewsbury
No Democrats have expressed interest so far in 2026. That is not shocking since former Governor Jim Justice was elected, in 2024 by a margin of more than 40%. Would Glenn Elliot, the former mayor of Wheeling run again despite losing by such a margin? Zach Shrewsbury, who lost to Elliot in the primary in 2024, is more likely to run. A rare candidate with no college experience at all, Shrewsbury explained that after high school, he could not afford to go to college. The choices were: Work in the mines, take a minimum wage job, or join the military. He joined the Marines, served in Guantanamo, South Korea, and Malaysia. When he left the military, he became a political activist. Currently, he is Executive Director of a political organization located in Athens, West Virginia — BlueJay Rising. Encourage him to run. Contact him there.
Seventy-one year old Shelly Moore Capito is the daughter of three term governor of the state Arch Moore. She went to a prep school in Bethesda, Maryland, got her BA from Duke and an MEd from Virginia. She worked as a career counselor at West Virginia State and then for the West Virginia Board of Regents before being elected to the state House of Delegates. After two terms, she ran for an open Democratic Congressional seat and won. She kept winning, serving 7 terms in Congress before leaving for the Senate. In 2014, she planned to challenge Jay Rockefeller, who decided against running. Instead, she defeated activist Paula Jean Swearengin obtaining more than 70% of the vote.
Shelly Moore Capito never quite joined Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to create a trinity of moderate Republican women. Rather than call for Trump to withdraw his candidacy after the Hollywood Access tapes became public, she called for him to reexamine his candidacy. In contrast, a month after the 2000 election, she became the 27th Republican in Congress to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory. Her record on LGBTQ issues has been mixed as has her record on abortion. She has obtained support from anti-abortion PACs and pro-choice PACs.
Democratic activist Zach Shrewsbury could tap into what makes Donald Trump so popular in West Virginia. Encourage him to run,
Wyoming
Democratic Mayor Patrick Collins
Wyoming is our smallest state. Not in area, but in population.
In 2020, Wyoming’s total population was just over 580,000. Yet, it has two Senators. California’s population according to the 2020 census was more than 39 million. Yet it has two Senators.
In 1790, after the United States had adopted a constitution that provided for two Senators from each state, the ratio of free white men over the age of 16 of Virginia (the largest state) to Delaware (the smallest state) was 9:1. In 2020, the ratio of the total population of California (the largest state) to Wyoming (the smallest state) is 67:1. Something has gotten out of whack. Even if the standard was the discrepancy in 1790 (rather than something to do with democracy), California ought to have 13 Senators, not 2.
But that’s the way it is. California has 2 senators. Wyoming has 2 Senators. No Democrat has expressed interest in running for the US Senate in 2026. In 2024, incumbent John Barrasso defeated union official Scott Morrow 75 to 25 percent.
When I look at potential Democratic candidates, I look to the state’s big cities. Alex Padilla of California is from Los Angeles. Chuck Schumer is from Brooklyn. Wyoming’s largest city is Cheyenne. Its mayor is Patrick Collins. Is he a Democrat? The role he fills is formally non-partisan. He originally decided to get involved in politics because the existing leadership was too cheap to fix the roads; he owned a bicycle shop after all. The organization he opposed: Citizens Opposing Spendthrift Taxation (COST). Would he run for the Senate? Could he win an election?
In his most recent election, one of the opponents Patrick Collins defeated was a ChatBot. More precisely, Victor Miller promised to use Artificial Intelligence for all of his decisions. One decision he probably should not have taken was to run for mayor. He got about 300 votes.
It is not clear that Patrick Collins would run for the US Senate. Democrats do not often win in Wyoming. For instance, the mayor of Laramie decided to run for the county council – and lost.
Whichever Democrat is persuaded to run for the US Senate, he or she or it will face Cynthia Lummis. As a 24 year old, she was elected to the Wyoming House. She served two terms, did not run, then returned and served two more terms, In 1996, she was elected State Treasurer. Limited to two terms, she was elected to a second. Among her accomplishments was an accounting change that reduced Wyoming’s budget deficit on the books. She quarreled with Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal over responsibility for increased investment in Wyoming.
In 2008, Lummis was elected to an open Republican seat in the House of Representatives. She was elected to three more terms, but chose not to run in 2016. In 2020, she was elected to the US Senate. Enamored of cryptocurrencies, she proposed the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Among other extreme positions, she favored privatizing social security. She opposes federal funds for National Public Radio and was one of the Senators to oppose federal relief for northeastern states as a result of Hurricane Sandy. She has generally opposed rights for members of the LGBTQ community, but was a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, working with New York Rep Carolyn Maloney on the effort.
Wyoming deserves better. Donate to the Wyoming Democratic Party and encourage Patrick Collins to run. He would have a shot if there is a backlash against Trump in 2026.
Summary of Republican Senators who have some vulnerability
Remember: We need to flip a net of four Senate seats in 2026 to gain control of the Senate
From Len’s Political Note #696
North Carolina: Former Congressman Wiley Nickel has announced and could/should defeat Incumbent Republican Thom Tillis. Donate
Iowa: Iowa State auditor Rob Sand has not announced a run. He, as well as others could defeat perpetually vulnerable incumbent Republican Joni Ernst
Maine: Term limited Governor Janet Mills has said she was open to a run. She or others could defeat incumbent Republican Susan Collins, generally considered to be a moderate.
Louisiana: Former Democratic conservative Governor John Bel Edwards would be a formidable challenger to incumbent Republican Bill Cassidy who may be more vulnerable to a primary challenge.
Nebraska: After the mayoral elections are over in the spring, we should encourage Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert to consider a run for the Senate against Incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts.
From today’s Political Note #697
Kansas: While term limited governor Laura Kelly, has announced that someone younger should run and she would not, you and others could change her mind. She could defeat Incumbent Republican Roger Marshall.
Alaska: After ranked voting, Mary Peltola won the At Large race for Congress by 3% in 2022, lost by 2.4% in 2024. The constituency is the same if she runs for the Senate. She would have a decent chance in 2026 against Incumbent Republican who flip-flopped over Donald Trump.
Montana: This state ousted a Democratic incumbent Senator in 2024. Perhaps it can oust a Republican incumbent Senator in 2024. Montana added reproductive rights to its constitution by a 15% margin. Can Reilly Neil, active supportive of that amendment, parlay those votes into defeating extremist Republican incumbent Steve Daines?
Tennessee: Memphis mayor Jim Strickland was term limited and stepped down in 2023. If there is anyone who can defeat Incumbent Republican Bill Haggerty in Tennessee, Srickland is the one.
There are other states where Democrats could make a strong run and even flip a Republican Senate seat. Support all of the Democratic candidates if you can. But let’s focus on the seats where there is the best chance for a flip
