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Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) believes his party can retake the Senate in next year's midterm elections - but Democrats face daunting odds.
Democrats would need to pick up four seats to regain control of the chamber, including at least two in states that President Donald Trump carried last year by double-digit margins.
The party is betting that Trump might be unpopular enough next year to make races in otherwise unwinnable states competitive if it recruits formidable candidates. Former senator Sherrod Brown, for instance, is considering challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, and former congressman Colin Allred is mulling another Senate run in Texas.
Republicans, meanwhile, are working to expand their majority and make it harder for Democrats to flip the Senate in the future. They're hoping to take advantage of Democratic retirements to flip states in which Republicans have not won Senate races in more than a decade.
But strategists in both parties see four races as especially competitive: Maine, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan. Together, those states are expected to draw hundreds of millions of dollars - if not more - in spending.
Here's the state of play in each race:
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2024 presidential result: Harris won by 6.9 points
Sen. Susan Collins, who is seeking a sixth term, is the only Senate Republican who represents a state that former vice president Kamala Harris won last year. Defeating her won't be easy.
Collins won reelection by almost nine points in 2020, even though Joe Biden carried her state by a similar margin. Jordan Wood, a former chief of staff to former congresswoman Katie Porter of California, is running for the seat, but Democrats are still seeking a recruit whom they believe can defeat Collins.
One top Democratic prospect, Rep. Jared Golden, said last month that he would run for reelection to the House. Another, Gov. Janet Mills, said in April that she was not planning to run - but she also didn't rule it out. Mills is focused on Maine's legislative session, according to a person familiar with her thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss her deliberations. The session is set to finish later this month.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), who had dinner with Mills last week, said Mills was thinking about running but had not made a decision. Pingree predicted that a strong Democratic year could help topple Collins.
“Sen. Collins has a very strong hold on the [state],” Pingree said. “But I just think it'll be a good year for Democrats.”
• Georgia
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is running for reelection
2024 presidential result: Trump won by 2.2 points
Republicans are determined to defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who won his seat in a 2021 runoff by a little more than a point. Two Republicans - Rep. Buddy Carter and John King, the state insurance commissioner - are running against him already, and several others are thinking about it.
But Republicans suffered a setback when a top potential recruit, Gov. Brian Kemp, said he would not run. Kemp and Trump met last month to discuss the possibility of uniting behind a candidate and avoiding an expensive primary.
“I think having a consensus pick that both of them are comfortable with is probably where the discussion is right now,” said Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Georgia), who said he was considering running against Ossoff but might decide to challenge Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock in 2028 instead. “It could very well be somebody that you haven't even heard of yet.”
Rep. Mike Collins and state Sen. Greg Dolezal are also considering challenging Ossoff. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, told a Georgia TV station that he might run, too.
“There's challenges no matter who runs, because you're going against an incumbent who's going to raise a record amount of money - and already has,” McCormick said. (Ossoff raised $11.2 million in the first quarter of the year.)
Republicans are not waiting for Trump and Kemp to settle on a candidate to go after Ossoff. Carter has started running ads attacking him, and Republicans have bashed Ossoff for telling a voter at a town hall in April that Trump deserved to be impeached again. Ossoff said in an interview that he stood by his remarks.
“The president's sale of access to investors in his and his family's businesses is egregious misconduct,” he said.
• Michigan
Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is not running for reelection
2024 presidential result: Trump won by 1.4 points
Democratic Sen. Gary Peters's decision not to run for reelection opened up a seat in a state that Trump narrowly won last year. Four Democrats are running to succeed Peters: Rep. Haley Stevens, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, state Rep. Joe Tate and Abdul El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director who has the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
Peters, who led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during the past two cycles, said he expects a robust primary but is not worried about holding the seat.
“They're all good-quality candidates that all have the ability to win,” he said.
On the Republican side, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) have endorsed Mike Rogers, a former congressman who narrowly lost a race last year for Michigan's other Senate seat. But Trump has not backed Rogers yet, and Rep. Bill Huizenga is considering a run, too. Huizenga said he had talked with voters and donors who were not convinced that nominating the candidate who lost last year was the right move.
“To me, running the same play - I don't see the path to success,” Huizenga said.
But Joanna Rodriguez, an NRSC spokeswoman, warned that Huizenga could put House Republicans' narrow majority at risk if he runs for Senate and Democrats win his seat. Democrats need to flip only three seats to retake the House.
“Mike Rogers outperforms Huizenga in every hypothetical general election matchup, and he has the NRSC and Senate Leadership's support,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
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Robin Epley is an opinion writer for The Sacramento Bee.