Republican turnout slump in 2026 midterms opened door to Democrat Senate wins

As the dust settles after the 2026 midterm elections, Republicans will start to parse the data to figure out what went wrong. Early returns indicate that Democratic turnout was significantly up in many key states, while it appears that Republicans failed to convince their own to head to the polls in similar numbers.

At the end of the night, the discrepancy in party enthusiasm resulted in a Democratic sweep in states once seen as Republican bastions, including Texas, Georgia and South Carolina.

“Todays [sic] story is that Democrats showed up as if this were a presidential election [...] and Republicans didn't,” said Lenny Bronner, a data scientist at Broome Street Labs, in a post to X.

Georgia's historical pattern is emblematic nationwide

When Georgia's Democratic Senator John Ossoff first won his seat in the 2020 presidential year runoff election, he secured 2,269,923 raw votes (50.61%) in the state to his Republican opponent’s 2,214,979 (49.39%).

In 2026, the Ossoff campaign succeeded in producing even more raw votes, while the Republican candidate failed to turn out close to the same. Analysts called the election for Ossoff with 2,463,132 votes (59%) while his Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Collins, only received 1,711,322 votes (41%).

The same story repeated across the country in key races Republicans needed to win in order to maintain control of the Senate. Democrats took seats in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and North Carolina. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since 1932.

In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, giving Democrats their first Senate win in the state since 1988.

With about 97% of precincts reporting, Talarico had 5,445,121 votes (55%) to Paxton's 4,249,752 (43%). Paxton underperformed Republican turnout in the presidential election year two years earlier. 

In 2024, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz won reelection with 5,990,741 votes to Democrat Colin Allred's 5,031,249. That means Talarico has already topped Allred's total by more than 400,000 votes in a midterm, while Paxton is running roughly 1.74 million votes behind Cruz.

Paxton challenged Republican Sen. John Cornyn in the primary, forcing the incumbent into a runoff election, which he won after Trump endorsed him. Cornyn had warned that Paxton’s legal baggage, which included an impeachment by the Texas House, could put the seat at risk.

The pattern also held in South Carolina, where Democrat Annie Andrews unseated Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat after the death of her brother, longtime Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Andrews secured 1.04 million votes (51.1%) to Graham’s roughly 952,000 (46.7%). This result came just two years after Trump carried the state by almost 18 points in 2024.

When Lindsey Graham last ran in 2020, a presidential year, he won with 1,369,137 votes to Democrat Jaime Harrison's 1,110,828. Andrews came within about 70,000 votes of Harrison's presidential-year total. The Republican nominee fell more than 400,000 votes short of Graham's. Graham's total also trailed the last midterm benchmark. In 2022, Republican Sen. Tim Scott won 1,066,274 votes against Democrat Krystle Matthews' 627,616.

A shrinking share of the electorate

National exit polling points in the same direction. Republicans made up 33% of Tuesday's voters, compared with 34% for Democrats, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. By contrast, in 2022, Republicans held a 36% to 33% edge in exit polls. In 2024, preliminary exit polls put the GOP at 35% of the electorate to Democrats' 31%.

Even in Florida, where Republicans held the governorship, about 68.4% of registered Democrats voted compared with 62.6% of registered Republicans, according to a University of Florida analysis reported by WTSP. 

Some Republicans saw the problem coming. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cautioned on Fox & Friends that many voters drawn in by President Trump are “unique to him” and may stay home when he isn't on the ballot. Days before the election, DeSantis also called turnout in his state underwhelming and said “Republicans have some work to do.”