Fox News Power Rankings moved South Carolina’s Senate race from Lean Republican to toss-up on Thursday, as President Trump flew to Rock Hill to campaign for the Republican nominee in a state he carried by nearly 18 points. In the same update, Fox moved Ohio to Lean Democrat, according to Fox News.
Thursday’s Self Reliance Central report argued that Democrats were counting Senate seats too early. With four days left, the latest averages show the same thing: no Senate race that decides control is out of reach for either side.
The battle for control of the Senate is coming down to a handful of states, and even traditionally Republican strongholds are now in play. Fox News Power Rankings identify South Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Michigan and Maine as toss-ups heading into Tuesday’s midterm elections. South Carolina is the latest addition to the competitive category, while polling in Iowa shows a margin of less than one percentage point. Download the FOX News app to follow this developing story: https://t.co/ISpW9Fc0R3 https://t.co/ISpW9Fc0R3
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 29, 2026
The margins
RealClearPolling now rates 10 Senate races as toss-ups, with 46 seats leaning or safe for Democrats and 44 for Republicans, according to its Senate map. It moved South Carolina and Nebraska into the toss-up column on Oct. 25.
Eight of those toss-ups are separated by less than 4 points in the RealClearPolling averages:
| State | Leader in RCP average | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| Kansas | Sen. Roger Marshall (R) | 0.3 |
| Iowa | Ashley Hinson (R) | 0.6 |
| Maine | Troy Jackson (D) over Sen. Susan Collins | 1.2 |
| Texas | James Talarico (D) over Ken Paxton | 1.8 |
| Alaska | Mary Peltola (D) over Sen. Dan Sullivan | 1.8 |
| Michigan | Abdul El-Sayed (D) over Mike Rogers | 1.9 |
| South Carolina | Republican nominee over Annie Andrews (D) | 2.7 |
| Ohio | Sherrod Brown (D) over Sen. Jon Husted | 3.3 |
Nebraska, where Sen. Pete Ricketts faces independent Dan Osborn, is rated a toss-up but has no current average.
The newest polls are tight. Rasmussen Reports had Texas tied at 45 in a survey taken Oct. 20-21. Trafalgar had Maine tied at 47 in its Oct. 21-23 poll. InsiderAdvantage had Hinson up 2 in Iowa on Oct. 21-22. In Michigan, a Rosetta Stone poll taken Oct. 23-25 showed Rogers ahead 45% to 31%, though RealClearPolling has not added it to its average.
Nationally, Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 8.2 points in the RCP average, compared with 8.3 in Thursday’s report. Rasmussen has the gap at 5.
More than 46,000 Alaskans had voted by Monday, according to AP figures, and California had more than 3 million ballots returned as of Tuesday’s federal court hearing there.
The record
Republicans have outrun their polls before. Collins trailed in the 2020 polls and won by 8.6 points. Trump beat his polling in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
“Polls tend to understate Republicans in red states and Democrats in blue states,” analyst Sean Trende wrote in his Poll Vault newsletter on Oct. 22. Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Alaska, South Carolina, Ohio and Nebraska are all states Trump carried.
The pattern is not a guarantee. Midterm polls since 2016 have, on average, slightly overstated Republicans, and the 2022 polls were among the most accurate in years.
The bottom line
The House may lean Democratic, but the Senate is a different contest, and right now it is close in eight states. A move from Lean Republican to toss-up in South Carolina is a warning to Republicans who assumed the red states were safe, and a 2-point lead for Talarico or Peltola is a warning to Democrats who think they’ve already won.
If the red-state pattern Trende describes shows up again, several Democratic leads disappear. If it doesn’t, Republicans who stay home will have handed the Senate away by a fraction of a point.
Nothing is settled. Kansas is separated by three-tenths of a point and Iowa by six-tenths. Turnout will decide these races, and Republicans who want to keep the Senate need to vote by Tuesday and bring a neighbor with them.