November 6, 2026, by Eric Ness
Six of Democrats' seven Senate flips came in states Trump won two years ago
Democrats flipped seven Senate seats on Tuesday. Six were in states Donald Trump carried in 2024, by margins from 3.2 points in North Carolina to 17.9 in South Carolina. Nationwide he won by 1.5. The chart sets each state’s 2024 presidential margin, from this site’s data, beside its Senate margin this week, from NBC News’s results.
- 2024 presidential margin
- 2026 Senate margin
- Not called yet
- Moved toward Democrats
- Nationwide for president, 2024, R+1.5
Show the numbers (9 rows)
| 2024 presidential margin | 2026 Senate margin | Change, points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Carolina | R+17.9 | D+4.4 | 22.3 toward D |
| Kansas | R+16.1 | D+5.0 | 21.1 toward D |
| Texas | R+13.7 | D+12.1 | 25.8 toward D |
| Iowa | R+13.1 | D+4.1 | 17.2 toward D |
| Ohio (Special election) | R+11.2 | D+4.8 | 16.0 toward D |
| North Carolina | R+3.2 | D+19.6 | 22.8 toward D |
| Maine | D+6.5 | D+6.4 | 0.1 toward R |
| Mississippi | R+22.9 | D+0.3 (not called) | 23.2 toward D |
| Alaska (74% counted) | R+13.1 | D+0.3 (not called) | 13.4 toward D |
In those six states the Democratic Senate candidate ran 16 to 26 points ahead of Kamala Harris’s margin. The biggest gap was in Texas, where Trump won by 13.7 and James Talarico won by 12.1. The smallest was Ohio’s special election, where Trump won by 11.2 and Sherrod Brown won by 4.8.
Maine is the exception. Troy Jackson won by 6.4 points, almost exactly Harris’s 6.5 there in 2024. What changed was Susan Collins. In 2020 she won by 8.5 points while Joe Biden carried Maine by 8.6, so her seat used to run about 17 points more Republican than the state’s presidential vote. This year it voted like the state does for president.
Two Republican seats are still being counted. Mississippi went for Trump by 22.9 points and Alaska by 13.1. Scott Colom and Mary Peltola each lead by about three tenths of a point. Alaska has about three quarters of its vote counted, and its ranked-choice count is November 18.
A Senate race and a presidential race aren’t the same contest. Fewer people vote in a midterm, the candidates are different, and a state can split its ticket on purpose. So these gaps say how differently the states voted this time, not how many people changed their minds. The 2026 shares are unofficial and will move a little as counting finishes.
References
- MIT Election Data and Science Lab. County Presidential Election Returns 2000–2024, the presidential margins in the chart, via electiondata.dev county-president, version 2026-10-26.a942e8daa5.
- MIT Election Data and Science Lab. U.S. Senate statewide returns since 1976, for Maine in 2020, via electiondata.dev senate-results, version 2026-10-25.247421eda6.
- NBC News. U.S. Senate election 2026 live results. Read November 6, 2026.