Outgoing National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines is throwing down the gauntlet, predicting that the GOP's newly won 53-seat majority in the 2024 election could give the party control of the chamber for several cycles to come. “We’re grateful that we have those additional seats beyond the 51 majority. I think it bodes well for us to keep the majority through the rest of the decade,” Daines, of Montana, told NBC News. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to receive it weekdays. Republicans picked off four Democratic-held seats in the red states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, and the purple state of Pennsylvania. The GOP held serve in red-leaning Florida and Texas, where Democrats were hoping for a miracle. For their part, Democrats held their ground in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, despite Donald Trump carrying all of those states. But what about Daines’ prediction? It’s bold, yet plausible. Democrats just had a nightmare of a map, so the landscape will only get better from here. But not that much better in 2026 or 2028, barring a dramatic political realignment. The 2026 map follows the 2020 cycle, in which Democrats won 50 seats and flipped the Senate with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. The party’s best hope of a pickup in two years is in Maine, where the long-serving centrist Republican Sen. Susan Collins has proven to be a challenging target. Another is North Carolina, a battleground state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat since 2008 and fell short of unseating GOP Sen. Thom Tillis four years ago. From there it gets tougher: Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas. All states Trump won comfortably in all three of his elections. In 2026, Democrats will also have to defend seats in the swing states of Michigan (Sen. Gary Peters) and Georgia (Sen. Jon Ossoff). Both will be top Republican targets. Then looking further down the road to 2028, Democrats’ best pickup opportunities are in North Carolina (Sen. Ted Budd) and Wisconsin (Sen. Ron Johnson). But they’ll have to defend seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Bottom line: Unless Democrats find a way to expand their appeal among white voters without a college degree, their prospects of proving Daines wrong look daunting. Those voters carry disproportionate influence in the two-seats-per-state Senate, given the large number of rural states with small populations. The silver lining for Democrats is that their new coalition — which relies heavily on high-propensity college-educated voters and enduring support from Black voters — is well suited to turnout patterns in off-year or midterm elections, like 2026. And down-ballot Republicans have struggled to replicate Trump’s coalition for their own races, especially without him running alongside them. | 