Do Democrats really have a shot at the Senate this year? Listen to Lakshya Jain, The Argument’s director of political data, chat with Armin Thomas, a political analyst at Split Ticket, about the party’s Senate strategy.
While there’s been a lot of back and forth over whether moderate candidates do better in elections, in 2026, it’s basically a moot point. Lakshya and Armin argued that in all of the biggest Democratic primary races, from Maine to Texas to Michigan, we see elections pitting liberal candidates against other liberal (or leftist) candidates.
In the Texas Senate race, Lakshya pointed out that both James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett are so far left of the median Texan voter that even the unpopular Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton falls closer to their views.
“Neither Talarico nor Crockett are especially moderate,” said Lakshya. “Voters rate themselves, in Texas, on a scale of 1 to 10 — one being the most liberal, 10 being the most conservative — voters rate themselves as about a 6.5 … they say Talarico is like a 3.5 and Crockett is a two. Neither of those two are closer to the median voter because Paxton is at eight. So they’re like, Paxton is closer to them than Talarico is.”
The same story holds in Maine, with Gov. Janet Mills being a reliable liberal and Graham Platner running an outsider, leftist campaign, and in Michigan, which sees the liberal Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow facing off against leftist physician Abdul El-Sayed.
Of course, any of these candidates could still win if the national environment is favorable enough for Democrats. But we shouldn’t expect any of them to persuade Republicans to cross the aisle, Armin explained.
“Unless you have a really, really good reason to generate a permission structure for Republicans to switch over and cross over to a Democrat, you’re probably not going to get much of a different result from the baseline expectation,” said Armin.
The Argument will be running Substack live videos with Split Ticket on a semi-weekly basis this election season. Tune in this Wednesday when we’ll discuss the outcome of tomorrow’s Texas primary and how the results could impact the general election.
