Democrats Are Gaining Ground in Republican States

Recent polling shows Democrats competing deep inside Republican territory while posting more modest advantages in several traditionally Democratic states, a pattern Nate Silver has described as coherent, consequential, and "slightly weird."

Silver argues that this uneven movement gives Democrats greater potential rewards than a conventional national swing, but also raises the risk that several apparent opportunities could unravel together.

Republican candidates in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas now face a broader battlefield. At the same time, Democrats must remain competitive in Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire, he wrote in his Silver Bulletin newsletter.

Yet the movement is far from uniform.

Susan Collins’ Maine Senate lead in a recent New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena survey offers a notable counterpoint to Democratic gains elsewhere.

The poll placed Collins three points ahead of Democratic rival Troy Jackson, although her advantage was within its margin of error.

"Since Labor Day, Democrats have been zooming ahead in pretty much every model or polling average or prediction market that you might want to look at," Silver wrote.

"At times, it’s literally been hard to find contrary data points to the hypothesis of a huge D sweep. So the poll serves as a reminder that picking up four Senate seats is never easy."

Silver believes the same white working-class and Hispanic voters who helped Trump reshape the electoral map may now be souring on the president.

Because recent polls have also tended to overstate Democratic support among those groups, the party’s most promising opportunities may also be its least secure.

Silver described the recent numbers in a post on social media platform X as "internally consistent but slightly weird."

His point was not simply that Democrats are doing well.

It was that their most eye-catching performances are emerging in places that have moved firmly toward Republicans during the Trump era.

Ohio illustrates the potential. A Trafalgar Group poll conducted September 14 to 16 among 1,085 likely voters put Brown ahead of Republican Senator Jon Husted, who was appointed when Vice President JD Vance stepped aside to work in the White House, by 45.4 percent to 41.5 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

InsiderAdvantage surveyed 1,200 likely Ohio voters from September 8 to 9 and found Brown leading Husted by five points, 47 percent to 42 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 percentage points.

That is striking because Ohio supported former Democratic President Barack Obama twice before backing Trump in three consecutive presidential elections.

A Democratic win there would suggest the political recoil is reaching beyond suburban swing voters and into parts of the working-class coalition that powered the state’s Republican turn.

Iowa offers a less settled picture.

A Coefficient survey of 831 likely voters, conducted September 14 to 16 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.39 percentage points, placed Republican Representative Ashley Hinson ahead of Democratic state Representative Josh Turek by 46 percent to 42 percent.

An earlier YouGov poll, fielded September 3 to 8 among 2,169 registered voters, had Turek ahead by one point among registered voters and four points among its strict likely-voter group. Its margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Those results do not establish a Democratic lead. They do show that a state Trump carried comfortably is requiring Republican attention.

Maine complicates Silver’s theory in the opposite direction.

A New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena survey conducted September 15 to 22 among 619 likely voters found Collins leading Jackson by 49 percent to 46 percent. Its margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, leaving the race statistically unresolved.

The same September 24 polling release placed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed five points ahead of Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan, 49 percent to 44 percent, while Democrat Chris Pappas led Republican John Sununu by the same margin in New Hampshire, 50 percent to 45 percent. Siena called both "slim" leads.

Maine may reflect Collins’ individual durability rather than a wider Republican recovery.

And she has long relied on crossover voters.

Silver’s bull case rests on political geography.

White working-class and Hispanic voters supplied some of the largest Republican gains during the Trump years.

If those groups are now moving back, Democrats could become competitive in districts built on the assumption that the GOP’s advances were permanent.

That could turn aggressive Republican maps into "dummymanders," where efforts to maximize seats leave several districts vulnerable during a strong opposition year.

Yet the same voters at the center of this theory have also been among those whom polling overestimated for Democrats in recent elections.

A geographically concentrated wave therefore carries more risk than a uniform national shift. One shared polling error could affect several red-state races simultaneously.

The decisive evidence will come from whether new surveys reproduce the same pattern across pollsters and methods.

Watch for Democratic strength in Republican territory to survive while Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire remain competitive.

Until then, the polling supports a widened battlefield, not a settled result.

Democrats have found possible routes into places that recently looked closed. Their problem is that several of those routes may rise or fall together.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.