Collins, Jackson Debate

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson met in their first debate last night:

The good news is that it only lasted an hour. The bad news is that it's the first of four debates planned for this month. Pity the Maine voter who wishes to be well-informed.

We're not so sure we'll watch all four, but we did watch this one. Collins is polished, but boring. Also, and we're going to be blunt so as to convey an accurate sense of things, she has what you might call "old lady voice." We have no knowledge that she has Parkinson's Disease, but if she were to announce a diagnosis tomorrow, we would not be shocked. Please be clear, this is not to denigrate the Senator. However, one of the themes of this cycle is "new blood." Collins' speaking style screams "old blood," in bold, underlined letters. Jackson, for his part, is much less polished, though he's gotten better. That said, he's very fidgety, and that's distracting.

The main theme of the debate was finger-pointing. So much so that the headline in the Maine Morning Star is, "In first debate, Collins and Jackson blame each other for Mainers' struggles." You really don't need to watch the debate to know that Jackson has the better side of that argument. He was only in the state legislature, and he's not even in office anymore. She's a sitting U.S. Senator, and the thing that's really irking Maine voters is the tariffs, particularly those on Canada. Fuel prices are another source of ire. Collins is clearly much closer to the source of both issues than Jackson is.

Jackson wielded three things as a cudgel: ICE, Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. Collins ducked and weaved, and tried to establish that she's definitely a Republican, but she's not fanatical about it. For example, she said ICE's behavior has been concerning, but that doesn't mean the agency needs to be shut down. And she said that she's not happy with Brett Kavanaugh's vote in Dobbs, but she still thinks he's a good and qualified justice. Particularly odd was when she conceded that she has voted with Trump 95% of the time, but that's based on only 30% of the votes the Senate takes. She also said that she voted with Joe Biden more than 90% of the time. We listened to that part of the debate several times, and we still don't entirely understand the needle she was trying to thread. But we are certainly skeptical that Collins is roughly as likely to support a Democratic president as she is a Republican president on key votes.

There was also some attention paid to Collins' alleged corruption, namely that she took campaign contributions in exchange for steering government contracts to donors. This is clearly a problem for her, such that she made a point of releasing new, ostensibly exculpatory, evidence right before the debate. Our sense is that neither the new evidence, nor Collins' remarks during the debate, are going to change any minds.

Collins' main argument, meanwhile, was that she has brought lots of pork to Maine, whereas Jackson was an incompetent legislator who couldn't get things done. The first part of this argument is pretty good. The second part, less so. Should Jackson be elected, surely nobody expects a junior senator to suddenly take the lead in setting the Senate's agenda.

The upshot is that Collins had the harder job last night, given the baggage she's got, and the fine line she has to walk, and we don't think she did a great job of responding to the challenge. Jackson was somewhere between "competent" and "good," and that was enough to make him the winner, if a winner must be declared. That said, it's going to be very hard to know if these debates moved the needle or not. About 800,000 people are going to vote in this particular election, and the majority of them are already set in their choice. Spread the impact of the debates over four different meetings, and then consider that early voting has begun, and there will be fewer available voters each time Collins and Jackson debate. Barring a major screw-up by one candidate or the other, the effect of these tilts is only going to be felt around the margins. (Z)

Two Republican Ex-Governors Endorse Democrat in Kansas Senate Race

Adam Hamilton, the very moderate, and unabashedly Christian, Democrat trying to unseat Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) has picked up a couple of interesting endorsements in the last week or so. The first is from Bill Graves and the second is from Mike Hayden. Both are lifelong Republicans and both served as governor of Kansas; from 1995-2003 and 1987-91, respectively. Hamilton also has the backing of Gov. Laura Kelly (D-KS) and three former Democratic governors, John W. Carlin, Mark Parkinson and Kathleen Sebelius. Marshall has zero former governors on his side, and at this point the pickings are slim, because the only living governors left are a Republican who was so unpopular he decided to resign (Sam Brownback) and a Republican who was never elected and was rejected by voters when he tried to win a term in his own right (Jeff Colyer).

We are not exactly writing this item, however, because a Republican or two crossed the aisle in a red state. That happens in every election, in both directions. Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), for example, has made some endorsements this cycle that have his colleagues tearing their hair out. The reason we are writing this item is because we think that Hayden's op-ed, in which he endorsed Hamilton, is illuminating. Here's the key portion:

Governing should always center around the best interests of the people.

Right now, our sitting senator, Roger Marshall, is failing to live up to that standard.

I grew up in western Kansas, around the farmers and fields that feed the world.

Kansans work hard. In return, they deserve champions in Congress who fight for them every day.

But the policies currently coming out of Washington are leaving them behind.

Chaotic tariffs are making it harder for Kansas farmers to sell what they grow.

The war with Iran is causing record-high diesel prices, driving up the cost of planting, harvesting, and hauling, and more family farms are at risk of going bankrupt.

Sen. Marshall time and again has chosen to back the tariffs and the war, despite what is happening back in Kansas. Kansans need a senator willing to stand up and say this isn't working, and to press for relief and real solutions.

This is not especially profound, or even especially well written. However, our deeply ingrained sense of American politics has made it very hard for us to fully accept some of the wild polls coming out of places like Kansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, etc. Reading Hayden's words made it seem truly plausible to us, perhaps for the first time, that folks in the heartland are really, really mad about the impacts of Trump's policies, and are angry at the Republicans who have chosen not to rein him in, and are going to make their feelings known at the polls.

Incidentally, in a bit of very related news, Cook Political Report just moved three more Senate races in the Democrats' direction. North Carolina went from "Lean Democrat" to "Likely Democrat." New Hampshire went from "Toss Up" to "Lean Democrat." And Kansas went from "Lean Republican" to "Toss Up." Kansas, a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the year it gave its Electoral Votes to then-New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, is now a Toss Up. These are very interesting times, indeed. (Z)

Let's Take a Quick Look at Early Voting

A few times between now and Election Day, we'll take a peek at trends in early voting, which may—or may not—be instructive.

Starting with the topline number, 1,680,703 votes had already been cast as of yesterday. About 80% of those (1,376,492) had been returned via mail, while about 20% of those (304,211) were cast in-person. At this point in 2022, around 264,000 ballots had been cast. This certainly suggests greater voter enthusiasm this year, as opposed to the previous midterms. It also reflects the fact that more states have made it easier to vote early.

As to the partisan breakdown of the early votes, Democrats are outpacing Republicans a little more than 2-to-1 among ballots for which the partisan ID is known. 471,946 registered Democrats have cast votes so far, as compared to 216,093 registered Republicans and 137,337 folks who are either registered with a third party or who are not registered with any party at all. This adds up to 825,376 votes in total; that is considerably fewer than 1,680,703 because many states either do not register voters by party, or else do not report early votes by party.

Thus far, in the states that report ages for early voters, only 1.9% of ballots were cast by people under 25. And in states that report ethnicity for early voters, only 2.2% were cast by Latinos. Democrats would surely like those numbers to be much higher, because they are counting on a surge in voting among those two populations. That said, the Latino figure in particular comes with a bit of an asterisk. Only two states are currently reporting early voters' ethnicity, and those are Georgia and North Carolina, neither of which is the Latino capital of North America. Among the three states that are currently reporting early voters' gender identities (those two plus Colorado), 49.1% of the voters are female, 44.7% are male and 6.2% chose not to state. That breakdown will be more pleasing to blue-team muckety mucks, since they are also relying on heavy turnout among women voters.

Taking a look at more localized data, the number of early-ballot requests by Democrats make up 67% of the total in Iowa, 66% in Pennsylvania, 57% in Maine and 42% in North Carolina. That's up 13 points, 4 points, 4 points and 6 points, respectively, as compared to this point in 2024. The list of states here is somewhat limited because some states don't allow early voting, others allow it but don't report numbers, and still others send ballots to everyone, such that there are no "requests" to count.

Among states that don't register voters by party, or don't report early voting totals by party, it's possible to make an educated guess as to who is casting votes based on what localities the votes are coming from, and how those localities voted in 2024. In Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia, Democrats look to be responsible for about 70% of the ballots cast so far. In Maine and North Carolina, the blue team's share isn't quite as large, but the Democrats are still outpacing the Republicans by 3-to-1 or so (57% to 17% in the former, 45% to 16% in the latter). In Florida, the Democrats are also in the lead, but by a more modest margin of 43% to 36%.

It is extremely difficult to take early-voting numbers and to turn them into firm conclusions. That is particularly true at this point in the cycle, when many large states have not yet commenced early voting, or have just barely begun. But it's also generally true, because Democrats are demonstrably more enthusiastic early voters than Republicans are. Also add in that widespread early voting is a fairly new thing, and that much of our data from the "Early Voting Era" is skewed by the pandemic, while the data this year is probably going to be skewed by voters (mostly Democrats) who are worried their mail-in ballots will get tossed in the trash. Whether that fear translates into more Democrats voting early in-person instead of via mail, or it translates into more Democrats voting on Election Day instead of via mail, we don't know.

In other words, we have a lot of numbers already, but relatively little to say about what they all mean. Perhaps the only real assertion we can make at this point is that the early voting numbers do nothing to argue against the notion that the election is going to be a blue wave/tsunami. Oh, and they do also mildly suggest that you probably shouldn't bet too much on Florida's governorship or U.S. Senate seat flipping. By and large, Democrats really need to run up the score in early voting to have a chance there, and it doesn't look like they are doing so. (Z)

When It's Not the SAVE Act, It's the SAVE Database

This one's been on the backburner for a week or so, but it's time to finally address it.

The Social Security Administration houses Americans' most private information, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, employment earnings, marital status, bank information, places of residence, medical records and more. For this reason, it is walled off from the rest of the federal government and is closely guarded against unauthorized access. Or, at least, it was. In 1974, Congress enacted the Privacy Act to protect this sensitive information from disclosure unless certain criteria are met. The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) also adds an additional layer of protection by requiring adherence to strict procedures before any data is shared outside the agency.

Readers may recall that in June 2025, the Supreme Court, in a ruling on its infamous shadow docket, cavalierly granted access to some of Elon Musk's DOGE bros, who then promptly uploaded some of the data to an insecure cloud server.

Did SCOTUS learn anything from that debacle? Oh, dear reader, much like the subjects of the mythical gods on Mt. Olympus, we mere mortals are just pawns for their amusement, when they bother to consider us at all. And so it is that the right-wing majority on the Court has granted yet another agency unfettered access to all of our private information without having to comply with something as trifling as federal law.

Once again using the magic phrase "voter fraud," the Trump administration has taken giant steps toward creating a national database comprising every American citizen. You have to hand it to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025—they know how the federal government works and what systems can be leveraged for their ultimate goal of a surveillance state.

In this case, the Department of Homeland Security has a database called SAVE—Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. This database was created for a very limited purpose: to, as the title suggests, verify a non-citizen's entitlement to benefits or employment. But Donald Trump (or, more likely, Stephen Miller) wants to expand that database and incorporate U.S. citizen SSA data into it. Not only that, the plan is for states to be able to access that information, ostensibly to check their voter lists against it to see if any non-citizens are registered to vote. What could possibly go wrong?

Various groups sued, arguing that these actions are a violation of the Privacy Act and other laws since DHS has not met any of the criteria for accessing this information. And verifying voter status can be accomplished much more accurately at the state level. As has been widely reported, an expanded SAVE database used for this purpose will be riddled with errors. That is because the SSA often won't have the most up-to-date and accurate voter eligibility information, such as name changes, that states have.

A lower court had barred the administration from using SSA information this way, ruling that it violated the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the APA. This ruling was upheld on appeal. But, once again on the shadow docket, SCOTUS has opened up Americans' private information for Trump and his cronies to rummage around in for no legitimate purpose. For now, it's only temporary, until the litigation has been fully resolved. And it won't be operational for the midterm elections because of a 90-day rule that prohibits wide-scale removal of voters from the rolls within 90 days of an election. Associate Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented from the ruling.

Former SSA officials, who resigned last year after unsuccessfully trying to protect Americans' data from the DOGE bros, have been sounding the alarm about the consequences of these data breaches. Once rung, that bell cannot be unrung. Nancy Altman of Social Security Works, a Social Security advocacy group, warned, "If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned."

To the extent there is a silver lining here, the Court majority based its decision on a novel interpretation of a section of the federal immigration law of 1996. In her dissent, Jackson pointed out that the courts require a clear statement from Congress before one law can take precedence over other federal laws that, for instance, restrict the disclosure of citizenship information. That "clear statement" is not present in the immigration law that the majority claims overrides the Privacy Act and other federal laws protecting SSA data. That means that Congress can fix this and make it absolutely clear that DHS does not have the regulatory authority to expand SAVE in this way. Just add it to the ever-growing list of necessary governmental reforms post-Trump. (L)

Following Up, Part I: The $90 "Checks"

Yesterday, we had an item about the $90 payments that Donald Trump said he was going to make to 20 million senior citizens. We were skeptical, to say the least, about the political utility of this project.

Within an hour of the blog going live yesterday, we had many e-mails from readers who had received their $90. We wanted to share some of those messages, because we think they are instructive:

M.M. in Monroe, MI: I'm just reading today's posting. I can confirm to you that the $90 Medicare "bribes" are indeed being sent. For some reason, I get my government deposits early and just after midnight I received an e-mail from my bank that I had an early deposit posted for the $90. I checked my banking app and the deposit was there from SSA TREAS. A short time ago I made a $90 contribution to Dr. Amy Acton's campaign for Ohio governor. I actually live in Michigan, but Jocelyn Benson seems to be doing fine here and the contribution would be better utilized by Dr. Acton. I hope many recipients also donate this sad, desperate attempt at a bribe to Democratic candidates and that news that this is happening makes its way to Trump to add to his narcissistic injury.

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K.K. in San Diego, CA: Just before reading "Donald Trump Is Getting Desperate, Part I: Policy," I had noticed that my mom had received a mysterious $90 direct deposit from Social Security. Was this what Trump was referring to? I guess that's why Trump would put "Checks" in quote marks.

I'll make sure there's always enough to cover the [inevitable?] later retraction from the bank account.

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K.J.O. in Brookdale, NJ: Thank the Lord for Electoral-Vote.com. This morning my spouse and I each received an electronic deposit of $90 from the U.S. Treasury. We both wondered what is this. Since we get our news from banned news sources such as CNN and MS NOW, we somehow missed this story. Imagine our delight, as we read Electoral-Vote.com, to learn this is an unsolicited illegal bribe for our vote from Donald Trump. The Donald needs to know it will take much more that $90 or $5,000 or even $1,000,000 to buy our votes. Although in The Convicted Felon's favor I do approve of taking government funds and redistributing them to poorer citizens.

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K.R. in Louisville, CO: Donald's $90 bribe showed up in both my and my husband's accounts yesterday. I'm surprised he didn't check voter registrations as a condition of the payments.

The deposits caused me to have to create a new "income" category in my banking app. I'm calling it "Stupid Trump Ideas."

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D.S. in Palo Alto, CA: "Checks" have already appeared in our bank account. One $90 credit was electronically deposited in my checking account for each of my wife and me yesterday. I had to do a network search to determine why this had happened. I'll take it, I guess. Sigh. Illegal or not, I have it and Uncle Sam doesn't, at least for now.

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T.B. in Nowata, OK: Surprisingly, $90 showed up in my bank account yesterday. This was another misfire by Trump, obviously rushed through by his team. This is all the information available on the direct deposit:

Nothing promoting Trump, no signature, no smiling or growling, just an entry through SSA, the same as my monthly payment except much smaller. This is proof that the monies are being issued and, in my case, to someone who didn't need it and sure as hell won't vote for any Republican this cycle. I would have much rather seen this money go to rural hospitals, since our local one was just closed.

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R.C. in Newport News, VA: Yesterday (!), my local credit union showed two ACH transfer deposits for $90 each, presumably one each for my wife and me. They read:

Deposit ACH SSA TREAS 310 TYPE: XXSOC SEC ID: XXXX CO: SSA TREAS 310 Entry Class Code: PPD ACH Trace Number: XXXX

The XXXXs are long identifying numbers I removed. How anyone will associate this entry with voting for a Republican is beyond me. Unless they are political junkies. Note no mention of Medicare premiums, just the Social Security Administration.

Nobody is going to confuse our readership with the attendees at a Trump rally. Nonetheless, we think these reports support our contention that this hasty, paltry payment isn't going to change many hearts or minds. Also, the readers add two things we did not think of in our initial, unimpressed writeup. First, the administration did such a poor job of communicating that many people won't even know what the $90 is for. Second, some people are going to turn around and donate the $90 to Democratic candidates as an act of protest, further muting whatever slight benefit the initiative conveys to the red team.

Oh, and as a bonus, we had a number of readers who wrote in to address our confusion as to why Trump is such a fan of year-round Daylight Savings. Here are a couple of those:

D.G. in Sandwich, NH: In "Donald Trump Is Getting Desperate, Part II: Petulance," you wrote: "We are not sure why Trump has become personally invested in permanent Daylight Savings Time."

Apparently, Trump received a letter dated October 1 from PGA CEO Brian Rolapp urging the president to support the Sunshine Protection Act that prohibits states from deciding whether or not to move clocks once a year. The reason is that moving clocks back would deprive golfers (and golf-course owners) of an hour's worth of tee-time. From Rolapp's letter to Trump:

The National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) estimates that permanent DST would generate 23 million additional rounds per year and $1 billion annually in new direct revenue for the golf industry - an average of $250,000 per facility.

Kids going to school in the dark? No problem. Just follow the money.

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E.F. in Baltimore, MD: Before he got into the politics business, Trump's main hustle was the golf resort business, primarily because he's always loved the affluent demographic it attracts.

Real golf fanatics love to squeeze in an extra round before heading to the office, but saying you've got a 6:00 a.m. tee-off time makes you sound less important than all those 7:00 a.m. bigshots. Doesn't affect most of the country, but in Florida in the wintertime, it will translate into more rounds of golf being played just after dawn, which puts more money directly into trump's pocket.

Beyond the crass economics, I've always believed that when politicians need to make it look like they're doing something about whatever crisis-du-jour they're incapable of solving, they start monkeying with Daylight Savings Time. Doesn't solve the problem, but it's better than doing nothing. Permanent DST won't bring back $3 gas, but it'll distract us while we revel in not having to change all the clocks.

Ah yes, we forgot the First Rule of Trump, which is, "It's the grift, stupid." And also the Second Rule of Trump, which is, "Hey! Look over there!" The two of you clearly have the right of it on this question; thanks to you and to the others who wrote in to clarify things. (Z)

Following Up, Part II: The Threat Against California

Yesterday, we also had an item about Donald Trump's invitation to Iran, extended during a rally in Nebraska, to "take out" Los Angeles and San Diego. That piece can also use a little follow up.

To start with, California politicians are, not surprisingly, furious with the President. You would be hard-pressed to find a high-profile officeholder in the Golden State who has not lambasted Trump. Most obviously, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has made several statements, including calling for the Cabinet to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and to remove Trump from office. Similarly, Kamala Harris got onto eX-Twitter and tore Trump a new one, decreeing that "Californians' lives are not expendable in Donald Trump's unhinged, reckless war in Iran."

That said, Trump also has some surprising defenders, at least in a manner of speaking. Two of the highest-profile folks working for CNN are taking the lead here. First, fact-checker Daniel Dale, who will never be confused for a Trump apologist, got onto eX-Twitter himself to opine that while the President expressed himself poorly, it is incorrect to claim he called for an attack on San Diego and Los Angeles. Similarly, Aaron Blake, who is hands-down the best political analyst CNN has, published a piece headlined "Trump's comment about Iran nuking Los Angeles and San Diego was incoherent, not malicious."

Now, maybe readers don't know this, but both Newsom and Harris are thinking about running for president in 2028. It's a closely guarded secret. This being the case, it is at least possible that they took this as an opportunity to do some grandstanding, and misrepresented Trump's words, either deliberately or due to a lack of due diligence.

We actually don't think that's true, however, and just as Dale/Blake semi-defended Trump, we'd like to defend Newsom/Harris (and, incidentally, ourselves, since the piece we wrote yesterday echoed what the Governor and the former VP said). And we'll start by talking a little bit about the process that produced the piece we published yesterday. (Z) first heard about the news from (A), and (Z)'s initial response was, "Eh, Trump probably just expressed himself badly, and what he really meant was something like, 'War with Iran is better than letting them get into a position where they could take out a city like San Diego or Los Angeles.'" But then, (Z) read what Trump actually said. Here it is:

And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's gonna be over with very soon. It's essentially almost over with.

And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say, "They have a big threshold for pain." They need it, let me tell you. But it's gonna end very soon. And it'll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all the other things.

That is not within a country mile of (Z)'s initial guess. And the fact is that Trump is the President of the United States, and it's on him to express himself clearly. If he's going to issue forth with a rambling monologue that certainly appears to include a call for an attack on Los Angeles and San Diego, then it's not our responsibility, nor the responsibility of anyone else in the media or the commentariat, to clean that up for him.

That brings us to a second observation. If it were any other politician who said something like this, and who did not intend the meaning that many people took from their words, then that politician would offer some version of an apology for what they said. They would probably concede that they understand why people took the wrong message from what was said, and would offer up some sort of clarification.

The Trump administration response, by contrast, is always to behave as if the President expressed himself absolutely perfectly, and that anyone who thinks or says otherwise is either stupid or is acting in bad faith. Here, for example, is Trump enabler and apologist Steven Cheung on eX-Twitter yesterday:

The media freakout over President Trump's comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.

Again, this is the response 100% of the time. Trump believes you can never show "weakness," and his underlings have fully absorbed that lesson. But it's fundamentally dishonest. If you review the word salad above, there is plenty of room for misunderstanding, no matter how "clear" Cheung claims the President was.

Finally, let us add that Trump is a person who, for many decades, has said outrageous/provocative/offensive/racist things, and then hidden behind either "you misunderstood me" and/or "I was just joking." If he really was speaking hypothetically, then he could theoretically have picked any cities in America as his examples. And, frankly, cities on the eastern seaboard would at least have made more sense, since they are more reachable from Iran than San Diego and Los Angeles are. Can we really believe that his choice of those two cities, in a much-hated blue state, home to a much-hated blue governor and blue former VP, was purely random? Certainly the crowd at the rally, which roared its approval, didn't think so.

In sum, is it possible that Trump did not actually intend to invite Iran to attack California? Sure, but his words are such a mess, that we really weren't sure when we wrote the original item, nor are we sure as we write this one. Further, for all of the reasons outlined here, he simply is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Get back to us when he admits he could have spoken more clearly, and when he offers a compelling alternative version of whatever it was he intended to say. (Z)

Today's Senate Polls

In case you are wondering, neither (V) nor (Z) is the person who finds and inputs the polls into the database. So, we write the day's posting not knowing what will appear in this section. Today's polls align pretty well with what we wrote today, however. That would be even more true if we had not held an item on the Texas Senate race, and how Republicans are getting desperate. Look for that one on Friday.

Our particular setup is not well-situated to accommodate serious third-party bids. However, the independent Dan Osborn is actually at 48% in that YouGov poll of Nebraska, which is why we have the state as slightly purple in our map today. That also makes Nebraska one of three ties we have, because neither a Democrat nor a Republican is leading. If you mouse over Montana, Nebraska, or South Dakota, the pop-up does correctly give the score for all the candidates. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	Angie Nixon	40%	Ashley Moody*	50%	Sep 28	Oct 01	Mason Dixon
Florida	Angie Nixon	44%	Ashley Moody*	49%	Sep 24	Oct 03	YouGov
Kansas	Adam Hamilton	48%	Roger Marshall*	45%	Sep 24	Oct 04	YouGov
Maine	Troy Jackson	51%	Susan Collins*	47%	Oct 01	Oct 04	Marist Coll.
Michigan	Abdul El-Sayed	49%	Mike Rogers	48%	Sep 28	Oct 05	YouGov
Nebraska	No Democrat	0%	Pete Ricketts*	47%	Sep 24	Oct 03	YouGov
New Hampshire	Chris Pappas	51%	John Sununu	43%	Sep 28	Oct 05	YouGov
New Hampshire	Chris Pappas	51%	John Sununu	44%	Sep 28	Sep 29	Saint Anselm Coll.
Ohio	Sherrod Brown	49%	Jon Husted*	45%	Sep 18	Sep 30	YouGov
Texas	James Talarico	50%	Ken Paxton	44%	Sep 28	Oct 05	YouGov

* Denotes incumbent

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