Which 2026 Senate Candidates Outperform Their Polls?

Which 2026 Senate Candidates Outperform Their Polls? For a number of candidates running in key Senate races this year, 2026 isn’t their first rodeo. Republican Sen. Susan Collins is seeking her sixth term in Maine, having won three times on the same ballots as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Sherrod Brown is looking to return to the Senate and represent Ohio, where he still holds the title of the most recently elected statewide Democrat. And Dan Osborn is running as an independent against a GOP senator in deep-red Nebraska, two years after doing the same against the state’s other senator and finishing within striking distance. In these states and more — including Alaska, Michigan, and Texas — Democratic and Republican Senate nominees have long, storied electoral histories. The dynamics of a nominee’s past races are not necessarily predictive of the future: polling error is not correlated between election cycles. But some rare candidates really can “break” the polls. Looking back on their wins (and near-losses) provides important context for Senate nominees’ polling positions in 2026 — revealing some surprising names who consistently outperform their polls. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a serial poll defier, having outrun October surveys by around 8 points in both of her most recent elections. Comparing Collins’ vote share in polls this year to this same point in previous elections, the senator is running far behind her 2014 showing, when she won an uncompetitive race against Shenna Bellows, now Maine’s secretary of state. That year, the average of all polls conducted in October showed Collins at around 60 percent, although she finished with 68.5 percent. Like in 2020, Collins has trailed her Democratic opponent in virtually every single public poll. Collins is currently doing about 5 points better in polls than at this point in 2020. No pollsters came close to seeing her support in 2020, but some did in 2014: a Pan Atlantic SMS survey released two weeks before the election missed Collins’ final vote share by 2 points, while the University of New Hampshire and Bangor Daily News were off by 4 and 5 points, respectively. Texas Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and 2026 Republican Senate nominee, also has a history of outperforming his polls. Less than one week before Election Day, Paxton’s support hovers around 45 percent. This is nearly identical to where he was polling at this point in both the 2022 attorney general’s race and 2026 Senate GOP primary runoff. In both of those elections, the final polls undershot Paxton’s support by nearly 10 points: he earned 53.4 percent statewide in 2022 and 64 percent in May. However, final polls nailed Paxton’s vote share in round one of this year’s primary. The March GOP field featured two other viable candidates — incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Wesley Hunt — making this the one race where Paxton didn’t poll in the mid 40s. Paxton will need another overperformance this November: polls currently show him trailing Democratic state Rep. James Talarico by around 3 points. Michigan The Wolverine State features two candidates who are polling slightly ahead of where surveys have placed them in previous races. In the 2024 Michigan Senate race, Republican Mike Rogers outperformed the final average of polls by around 2 points, but half a dozen surveys released in the final few days nailed his support at 48 percent. Rogers lost to Democrat Elissa Slotkin by 19,000 votes statewide, or one-third of a percent. Recent polls of this year’s Senate race put Rogers at around 45 percent — three points better than his polling average at this point in 2024. Rogers will face Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in November. In the lead-up to the August primary, polls showed El-Sayed with a slight yet consistent lead over his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. But the result ended up being surprisingly close, with four of six final election polls overestimating El-Sayed’s 48.5-percent support. So far, El-Sayed’s polling in the general election has tracked higher than his support in the primary (in part because a third Democrat, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, dropped out a month before the primary yet still appeared on the ballot, drawing 4 percent.) It’s not always a good idea to compare primary elections to general elections — the electorates and candidates dynamics are very different. But any point of comparison helps, because unlike Rogers, this is the former Wayne County health official’s first statewide general election. Ohio In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Husted was appointed to replace Vice President J.D. Vance, and last won statewide in the 2014 secretary of state election, which had minimal public polling. Brown most recently ran for re-election in 2024, losing to Republican Bernie Moreno. Brown trailed in polls throughout the campaign, and most final polls overshot his actual support of 47 percent. Polls released in the final months of 2018 — when Brown won with 53 percent — generally underestimated his support, but the very last polls did show movement in his direction. This year, Brown is polling almost exactly on pace with his 2024 numbers, and is running a point or two behind his 2018 polls. Recent high-quality surveys from YouGov, the New York Times/Siena University and CNN/SSRS all put Brown at 49 percent. Alaska Another former member of Congress, Mary Peltola, is also mounting a comeback in Alaska. And like Brown, Peltola is currently right between the goalposts of her previous wins and loss. Peltola was elected to serve Alaska’s At-Large District in a 2022 special election, and she won a full term in that year’s general election before losing in 2024. Polls were scarce in Peltola’s three previous races — the Last Frontier is notoriously difficult to poll — but the final surveys in each election were fairly spot-on. Peltola is challenging GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is seeking a third term. Sullivan outperformed his polls in 2020 — a cycle when surveys underestimate Republicans in Senate races nationwide by about 6 points. That year, Sullivan’s main opponent was Independent Al Gross, whose campaign was backed by Democrats. Compared to his support in polls at this point in 2020, Sullivan is currently running a point or two better. One reason is almost certainly Alaska’s adoption of ranked-choice voting, which was first used in 2022. Polls conducted during Sullivan’s last election only asked about head-to-head matchups. But now, many pollsters report a ranked-choice breakdown that re-assigns support from eliminated low-earners. Some questionnaire writers also choose to preliminarily omit less viable candidates from the list of response options for the typical horserace question. That is especially relevant in this year’s Alaska Senate race due to the presence of another candidate on the ballot named “Dan Sullivan.” (The GOP senator is Dan S. Sullivan; the other one is Dan J. Sullivan.) Nebraska Another Dan — Dan Osborn — is running as an independent in Nebraska. With no Democrat on the November ballot, Osborn is challenging GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts, a former two-term governor who was appointed to the seat in 2023. While neither of Ricketts’ gubernatorial races were competitive enough to garner consistent public polling, Osborn does have a breadcrumb trail. In his 2024 bid against the state’s other senator, Republican Deb Fischer, the independent candidate performed about as well as polls expected: 8 points better than Kamala Harris. Final surveys from the New York Times/Siena and Change Research, a Democratic firm, both nailed Osborn’s support. This year, polls show Osborn performing on pace with 2024. Surveys in both cycles have regularly shown the independent candidate topping out around 48 percent. (He earned 46.5 percent last time.)