Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza said Friday that even if President Donald Trump’s tariffs end up causing serious economic fallout, Democrats still face steep odds in their bid to retake the Senate in 2026.
Markets tumbled on Thursday and Friday following Trump’s announcement of sweeping global tariffs on Wednesday. During a livestream, a viewer asked Cillizza whether the potential economic backlash—“the tariffs backfir[ing] as badly as some economists are saying they could”—could boost Democrats’ chances in the Senate.
Cillizza, however, laid out why such a turnaround remains unlikely.
“They need to net four seats, okay, because JD Vance is the vice president, president of the Senate breaks ties, so you got to have a clear majority if you’re Democrats. You can have 51 seats. There are 22 Republican seats up to 13 Democratic seats. Of those 22, 21 of them are in states that Donald Trump won last November so it’s not a great playing field,” Cillizza said.
“The only one that’s in a state [former Vice President] Kamala Harris won is in Maine, Susan Collins, and she’s going to be a huge target. So the problem becomes, it’s like you have to fish in waters that are not super friendly to your party,” he continued.
“So like, one example, North Carolina. Thom Tillis is running. I could see that being a real race because I think Roy Cooper, the popular former Democratic governor, is probably going to run. So I think that that’s a race. It is a state Trump won, but that’s a real race,” he continued.
“It starts to get dicier after that. Remember, they need four. So let’s assume they don’t lose any of their own, which, look, Georgia is going to be a big race for Democrats, so is Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire maybe, but Georgia and Michigan are going to be huge, huge races that they’d have to hold,” the former CNN political analyst said.
Cillizza stated that even if Democrats secure Maine and North Carolina, their chances of gaining a majority remain weak.
“I guess the next one would be in Ohio, where John Husted is the appointed senator. Ohio’s a tough state — maybe. Okay, that’s three. Now you have to find me another winner out of this group,” he said. “I’m going to go in alphabetical order: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”
“I mean, Iowa’s probably the best bet there, maybe Florida. It’s just the map is not great for them. It just isn’t for Democrats,” Cillizza concluded. “And so it’s like, could I think of a path? Sure, but man, you got to go through some pretty red states to get there.”
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Back in March, Cillizza also noted that Democrats face a steep climb to retake control of the Senate, especially after Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire announced she would not seek reelection. Her decision came on the heels of similar retirement announcements from Senators Gary Peters of Michigan and Tina Smith of Minnesota.
“Even if we don’t see another retirement in the Democratic side, these three retirements already, I think, have crushed the hopes of Democrats who wanted to try to win back the Senate in 2026,” Cillizza said at the time.
Another Senate Democrat who is in danger of losing is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. After he agreed last month to side with Republicans in passing a months-long continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, several members of his own party began calling for his ouster.
The most likely opponent is fellow New Yorker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose name has been floated often as someone younger and fresher — and farther to the left — to represent her party moving forward.