Effective with this topic’s publishing date…we are two weeks out from the general election scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
Here are some of my thoughts…
The Exact Numbers
I will offer my predictions in the next Progressives Chat, which will publish Sunday, November 1, 2026. But, for now, what I have are estimates.
The United States Senate, which will switch to the Democrats, are positioned for 52 to 55 seats.
The United States House or Representatives, which will switch to the Democrats, are positioned for at least 230 seats with no more than 260 seats.
Explanation is necessary.
Since the 17th Amendment from the 1910s, which are direct elections of United States senators by states’s voters, there have been five previous U.S. midterm elections in which both house of Congress switched from the White House party to the White House opposition party. They occurred in the years 1918, 1946, 1954, 1994, and 2006. In each case, the opposition party won over a higher percentage of seats in the U.S. House. Typically it has been no greater than four percent above the percentage of seats in the U.S. Senate. (Please refer to the above chart.)
The average number of seats—for U.S. House, U.S. Senate and, sure, I will include U.S. Governors—have been 236, 51 or 52, and 27 or 28. That is from figuring percentages involved (we established 50 states not until Hawaii in 1960) over this considerable period of time.
The 2026 Democrats, by comparison to prior elections cycles 2024 and 2025, are the minority party with having last won with 215 (U.S. House), 47 (U.S. Senate), and 24 (U.S. Governors). Combine their totals, which are 286, and consider that each is allocated with 435 + 100 + 50 and a total 585. That 286, from 585, is the equivalent of 48.88 percent strength as the minority party.
To reach historic average, the 2026 Democrats can combine each of those levels to around 315, from a total 585, for an equivalent of 53.84 percent strength as a newly re-empowered majority party in January 2027.
Another consideration is this: What if the 2026 U.S. Senate Democrats go up to 54 or 55 seats? That would mean the U.S. House Democrats will end up in the 240s, most certainly, and the total from all three levels will end up well into the 320s. That would be the equivalent of 54 or more likely 55 percent strength as a newly re-empowered majority party in January 2027.
We will get the results—after my final predictions—eventually.
Michigan Voters Must Elect Abdul El–Sayed; Reject Mike Rogers
As a resident of Michigan, I find the distinctions between 2026 U.S. Senate nominees Abdul El–Sayed, above left, and Mike Rogers to be quite clear.
Rogers is a seal of approval by and for Trump.
El–Sayed is the in-touch candidate.
The winner will be El–Sayed.
This is not enough to mention.
Rogers has run a deceitful and cynical campaign. His deceit is to try to convince people he is winning over Democratic voters. Well, he is shifting some Democratic voters who are Israel First. Like Trump, Rogers’s cynicism is with counting on Islamophobia existing in sufficient numbers of citizens who will vote to deny El–Sayed in favor for Rogers.
Often times the first of the two candidates who blinks will lose.
Rogers has blinked on the issue of war in Iran.
El–Sayed is in touch on the issues—including wanting to end the war in Iran and to have Medicare for All—and he is a fighter. He battled Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow for the 2026 Democratic nomination and took regular majority leads in polls, beginning in May, and followed through to the primaries on August 4, 2026. And he is greatly skilled and effective—and, at times, he is underestimated—while he argues for and defends his positions. He did this during the primaries. He has been doing this during the period of the general election.
El–Sayed, not Rogers, is more the future when it comes to appropriate and meaningful representation in Congress. He is much more needed by the citizens from the bellwether state Michigan.
El–Sayed is also excellent as a candidate. A smart campaign. Easily understood. Strong message of being not for the corporations but for The People. His slogan: “Money Out of Politics, Money in Your Pocket, Medicare for All.”
My confidence that El–Sayed will win dates back several months. It is supported by historic voting pattern. There is the fact that Trump’s job approval nationwide and in Michigan is at a constant struggle for 40 percent. There is the fact that, since the 1990s, the White House opposition party wins for majority-control pickup for the U.S. Senate came with no party-held seats lost. Here in 2026, Michigan is already in the Democratic column for retiring Gary Peters. But there is one more compelling reason.
Since the 1950s, the first full decade of television in the United States, Michigan held 25 United States Senate elections from 1952 to 2024. The Republicans won only four times.
The four wins came in electorally strong and/or triumphant years for the Republicans nationwide.
In 1952, with a Republican pickup for U.S. President for Dwight Eisenhower, and with both houses of Congress having also switched to the GOP, Michigan delivered a Republican U.S. Senate win for then-congressman Charles E. Potter.
In 1966, on the watch of Democratic incumbent U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, the GOP gained +47 seats in the U.S. House and +3 seats in the U.S. Senate. The 1960 re-elected Democratic incumbent U.S. senator Patrick McNamara died April 30, 1966. Michigan’s governor was Republican George Romney—yes, Mitt’s father—who won his elections on the watches of Democratic-affiliated U.S. presidents John Kennedy and LBJ. Romney appointed Republican Robert P. Griffin to the seat. In the general election, Griffin prevailed.
In 1972, Republican incumbent U.S. president Richard Nixon won re-election. His job approval reached 60 percent in time for the general election. He carried 49 states. With 32 states in his column in 1968, a Republican pickup year, Michigan was a 1972 GOP pickup for Nixon. This also resulted in re-election for Griffin.
In 1994, on the watch of Democratic incumbent U.S. president Bill Clinton, the U.S. House switched to the Republicans for the first time since 1954. The U.S. Senate also switched to the GOP. One of the Republicans pickups occurred in Michigan for Spencer Abraham.
This is it.
The twenty-one wins by the Democrats were:
• Carl Levin, an ex-president for the Detroit City Council, was the longest serving member in the U.S. Senate in the history of Michigan. He won six times. He unseated Griffin, in a Democratic pickup, in 1978 and won re-elections in 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008.
• Debbie Stabenow, the first woman in the history of Michigan elected to the U.S. Senate, unseated Abraham in 2000. She won re-elections—for a total four terms—in 2006, 2012, and 2018.
• Philip Hart and Donald Riegle—with both having won three terms for a total six wins—began with the former having unseated Potter in 1958. Hart won re-elections in 1964 and 1970. Dying of cancer and succumbing to the disease in December 1976, and with not running for re-election, Hart was succeeded by Riegle who held the seat for the Democrats, in 1976, and won re-elections in 1982 and 1988.
• Patrick McNamara and Gary Peters—with both three having won two terms for a total four wins—as McNamara first won in 1954. The Democrats won majority-control pickups of both houses of Congress in the Year #02 presidency of Republican incumbent Eisenhower. McNamara was re-elected in 1960. Peters, as successor to Levin, first won in 2014 and was re-elected in 2020.
• Elissa Slotkin brought the U.S. Senate Democrats to twenty-one wins in 2024. This occurred despite Donald Trump’s re-election, in a Republican pickup nationwide and with Michigan,. The GOP senatorial nominee Mike Rogers underperformed Trump. The president carried Michigan by R+1.41. Rogers underperformed by –1.75. Slotkin prevailed by D+0.34.
The 2026 United States Senate election from Michigan will mark the 26th such election in Michigan—again, dating back to the 1950s—and I look for Abdul El–Sayed to become the Democrats’s No. 22 win. The state does have a scheduled U.S. Senate election in 2028. This is, if you let it really resonate, a powerful advantage for the Democrats…and Dr. El–Sayed.
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