By virtually every metric, Democrats appear poised to retake the House of Representatives in just under three weeks.
The battle for the Senate, however, is much less clear.
Democrats need to flip four seats without losing any of their own in order to retake the upper chamber. They are increasingly confident they’ll succeed, and for some legitimate reasons.
Polling shows Democratic candidates performing strongly in battleground states North Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine.
Further, Democrats are also polling considerably well in traditionally red states like Texas, Alaska, Iowa, even Kansas and South Carolina.
However, outside of North Carolina, all of those races are well within the margin of error.
That underscores a puzzling aspect of the 2026 midterms.
With President Trump’s approval rating at just 39%, historical trends benefitting the party out of power in midterms, and an 8% lead in the generic congressional ballot, something is still holding Democrats back.
Put another way, Democrats have an Achilles Heel, and its one Republicans are yet to fully exploit: the party’s open embrace of socialism and socialist-leaning candidates pushing policies so extreme that voters would likely reject them, if they knew what they were.
This vulnerability is already capping Democratic support in these states below where the national environment says it should be. And if Republicans press it effectively in the campaign’s closing weeks, they may have a chance to preserve GOP control of the Senate.
It is not for lack of trying. Trump and Republicans have attempted to make this their closing argument. At the GOP midterm convention, speaker after speaker slammed Democrats as out of touch, radical, and too extreme to be trusted with power.
And on the campaign trail, Vice President Vance has continued to describe midterms as a battle against socialism, and Democrats’ plans to “tear down this country.”
Still, that Democrats are winning even in states like Kansas – which hasn’t had a Democratic Senator in nine decades – and Texas, shows that Republicans are not exploiting their opponents’ Achilles Heel successfully.
To be sure, part of the reason is that the “socialist” label has lost much of its meaning. Many Americans, especially younger voters, have no memory of socialism as a political reality, so calling a candidate or party socialist does not have the impact it once did.
Indeed, while 43% of all Americans have a favorable view of socialism, that jumps to 57% among those aged 18-34, yet falls to just one-third (34%) among Americans older than 55 per Gallup.
Among Independents, the voters who ultimately decide the election, a similar 45% view socialism favorably, thus Republicans need to do more than smear Democrats as socialists.
For Republicans, the more promising target should be not the word, but concrete policies – what these candidates have either supported, or what they refuse to disavow.
To that end, the four most exposed Democrats are James Talarico in Texas, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Troy Jackson in Maine, and Penny Flanagan in Minnesota.
Besides being in extremely close races, all four have, at various points, advocated for far-left policies.
Talarico previously supported defunding the police – though has backed away from it; Flanagan, in her primary victory speech, called for ICE to be abolished, vowing to “rip it apart; Jackson has also made getting rid of ICE a pillar of his campaign.
And El-Sayed, who has worked to distance himself from the most extreme positions, campaigned with Hasan Piker – famous for saying America deserved 9/11 – is nevertheless endorsed by every member of the progressive “Squad.”
That record is how Republicans narrow the gap, because the far-left wing now steering the Democratic Party has been explicit about its goals.
It has called for, among other things: abolishing the President and Supreme Court with bodies chosen by Congress, eliminating the three equal branches of government enshrined in the constitution.
Also, ending the capitalist system that, while imperfect, has given Americans a greater quality of life than any other comparable nation on earth.
The list continues: defunding the Pentagon; abolishing ICE and opening all borders to whoever wants to come into this country; defunding the police; ending or limiting private home ownership; reparations for slavery that would bankrupt the country; and mandating the Green New Deal.
Critically, the data indicates that voters would be receptive to Republican attacks on these specifics, rather than general attacks.
It also underscores just how much Republicans have yet to exploit Democrats’ Achilles Heel.
According to recent NBC News polling, majorities of Americans would be less likely to vote for candidates who support abolishing ICE (53%) and support the Democratic Socialists of America’s policies (50%).
In that same vein, a survey from the Manhattan Institute showed that just one-in-10 (10%) of Americans supported defunding police, versus 82% who opposed it. In the same survey only 12% of Americans supported abolishing prisons while 79% opposed – both core DSA policies.
Finally, while current polling on replacing the President and Supreme Court is unavailable, it is extremely unlikely the majority of Americans would support such a radical transformation of our government and our constitution.
Taken together, simply yelling that Democrats are “radical socialists” may fire up the base, but it falls short of explaining to voters how these extreme policies will hurt. Republicans could exploit this vulnerability by clearly telling voters the impact on their healthcare costs to support millions of illegal immigrants, higher taxes to fund climate change programs, how defunding the military will leave the country less safe, and much more.
Ultimately, whether or not Republicans are able to effectively take advantage of Democrats’ Achilles Heel remains to be seen, but the national mood is overwhelmingly favorable to Democrats, and almost all of these Senate races are still neck-and-neck.
That is the clearest evidence that this vulnerability is real, and voters could be receptive.
The stakes run past November. If Democrats also take the Senate, with this slate, the party’s far-left wing will take credit and carry that into the 2028 presidential election, with a credible argument that socialism is not the liability moderates insist it is.
If Republicans hope to hold at least the Senate, they would be wise to narrow their attacks to these specific, radical policies, and the damage they could potentially do to our country.
Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant