Good evening. Tonight we’re joined by Shane Goldmacher, who tells us about the latest twists and turns in key Senate races.
Six Senate races to watch as Democrats grow more bullishMany of the most contested Senate races are heating up ahead of a gantlet of key primary contests in the coming months. Democrats feel more emboldened by the day about their chances of taking back the Senate this fall. The war in Iran rages on. Gas prices are rising. The stock market is gyrating. Republicans now hold 53 Senate seats, meaning that Democrats would need to flip four — and defend an incumbent in Georgia and capture open seats in Michigan and New Hampshire — to win a majority. It’s a tall task. Here are some of the new and notable developments across the map: TexasPresident Trump continues to play the waiting game on whether to endorse Senator John Cornyn or Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, in the Republican primary runoff election. All the while, James Talarico, the Democratic nominee and a state legislator, is hauling in cash. Here’s a crazy stat: In the first two months of the quarter alone, Talarico’s campaign had already raised more money online — $14.3 million, according to filings from the Democratic payment processor ActBlue — than any Senate candidate in the country raised in an entire quarter in 2025. He’s on pace, in other words, to lap the rest of field, and is almost certain to post the first $20 million-plus quarter of the cycle (it could be closer to $30 million). One hint of just how much he’s raising is how much he is spending on online ads. Records from Meta, the social media company, show that Talarico spent nearly $250,000 on ads in just the final two days of the quarter. MichiganMost rallies for Senate candidates don’t make news. But a decision by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for Senate in Michigan, to hold two next Tuesday with Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer, has drawn plenty of attention. Piker has a history of comments on Israel that have been denounced as offensive and antisemitic — including by El-Sayed’s rivals. The rallies will be held at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, and you can expect Democrats to pay close attention to what Piker and El-Sayed say. MaineThe Democratic race between Gov. Janet Mills, a moderate with the backing of Senate leaders, and Graham Platner, an oyster farmer running as a progressive, has become one of the signature races of the cycle. And more than anywhere else, it is playing out already on the airwaves with a series of blistering ads from Mills attacking Platner for his inflammatory old Reddit comments. Platner has enough money to respond with his own ads expressing regrets — including these two spots — as well as positive ads. Polls have recently shown Platner with a significant lead, but Mills is warning that he is too risky a choice, telling my colleagues Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck recently that Republicans “will tear him apart if he’s the nominee.” The winner will face Senator Susan Collins, the only Republican on the ballot in 2026 in a state that Trump lost in 2024. IowaZach Wahls, a state senator, and Josh Turek, a state representative, announced nearly identical fund-raising hauls of $1.1 million this week in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate (all these figures are self-reported until they file with the Federal Election Commission later this month). The Democratic race, however, is increasingly being shaped by outside money. A liberal veterans group called VoteVets has spent nearly $1.7 million promoting Turek ahead of a June primary. Turek is not a veteran. But he uses a wheelchair because he was born with spina bifida after his father was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Representative Ashley Hinson is heavily favored to be the Republican nominee after Senator Joni Ernst, a fellow Republican, announced her retirement. LouisianaRepresentative Julia Letlow won Trump’s endorsement, which has been the gilded path to winning most Republican primaries. But Senator Bill Cassidy is putting up a fierce fight, and he quickly capitalized this week on old comments — on video — from Letlow in 2020 hailing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion programs as she applied for a university job. “I believe we need a division on this campus, a division of diversity, equity and inclusion,” she said then. My colleague Kellen Browning wrote this week about how Letlow is a rare Republican to be forced to distance herself from Covid-era identity politics. FloridaDemocrats have lost ground in Florida in recent years, but they now have a nationally recognized name running for Senate in the state. Alex Vindman, a former national security official who was a whistle-blower in Trump’s first impeachment, entered the race in January and immediately emerged as a serious fund-raiser. Vindman — whose identical twin brother, Eugene, serves in the House — announced this week that he had raised $8.2 million through March. That is more than Senator Ashley Moody, the Republican who replaced Marco Rubio when he became secretary of state, raised in all of 2025. The race remains a stretch for Democrats, but some party strategists see at least a chance to expand the map.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “This presents a substantial risk for ActBlue.”That was the law firm Covington & Burling in one of two memos warning ActBlue, the Democratic fund-raising organization, that it might have misled Congress over its vetting of foreign donations. Read The New York Times’s investigation about the drama at ActBlue, one of the Democratic Party’s most vital financial organs. Got a tip?
A surge in shadowy political cashDark money is not new. But, our colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Steven Rich found, there has been a stunning increase in spending on elections by mysterious nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their donors. This is particularly true among Democrats, who have sharply escalated their reliance on such dark-money groups since 2020, far surpassing Republicans.
TAKE OUR QUIZ This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) Kaela Berg, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Minnesota, has a hectic day job that she is continuing to juggle as she runs for Congress. What is it? Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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