Following the 2024 election, Democrats were in disarray. The party had just lost the White House to their chief political antagonist, President Trump, and was, by any measure, rudderless.
Two years later, Democrats are on the cusp of taking the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate.
Indeed, almost entirely due to Trump – rather than anything they’ve done themselves – Democrats have climbed relatively far in the last 18 months.
Buoyed by Trump’s extremely low approval rating at just 35% in a recent CNN poll, Democrats have been able to build a 5-point lead in the generic congressional ballot, a solid albeit not decisive advantage, especially as the party increasingly veers to the radical socialist left.
As such, the stakes of two races – Maine’s Senate election and Michigan’s Senate primary – have been raised considerably.
If Democrats are able to win both, they have a realistic shot of taking the Senate, though the path still runs through redder states such as Ohio.
Alternatively, if Republicans win both, it would be virtually impossible for Democrats to take the upper chamber, and in fact, Republicans may expand their majority.
The impact will also extend far past November.
These two races will go a long way in determining whether Democrats start the path to the 2028 presidential election on strong footing or revert to a party adrift, shut out of the Oval Office.
To that end, as the stakes rise, the importance of avoiding self-inflicted wounds rises in tandem.
Nowhere has this been clearer than in Maine following the implosion of Graham Platner’s campaign and the unprecedented rush to replace him with Troy Jackson.
Due to how recently Jackson officially secured the nomination, polling is scarce though University of New Hampshire recently released a survey showing Jackson with a slight lead over Sen. Susan Collins (49% to 46%), though it is within the margin of error.
This is a marked improvement for Democrats from the final survey before Platner’s withdrawal which showed Collins leading by 5-points.
Still, there are a number of reasons for Democrats to worry.
Collins is a nearly 30-year veteran of the Senate, repeatedly proving her ability to win in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1998.
Maine voters also recognize her ability to deliver for the state – 53% described her as “very good” or “good” at doing so in the aforementioned UNH poll.
Finally, as of the latest filings, her war chest is orders of magnitude larger than Jackson’s, $11 million versus $2 million. With less than 100 days until election day, that is a difficult advantage to overcome.
And while Maine still represents a top candidate for Democrats to flip a seat, Michigan could well be a seat they lose.
In the Wolverine State, which holds its primary on August 4th, centrist Rep. Haley Stevens is fighting an uphill battle of her own against progressive-populist Abdul El-Sayed.
To be sure after months of polls showing Stevens and El-Sayed switching positions at the top, the latter appears to be pulling away.
The four most recent surveys collected by RealClearPolitics show El-Sayed leading, all by double-digits, and prediction markets now give him a 94% chance to win.
At issue is whether Democrats are running the risk of nominating someone who is significantly weaker in a general election.
A nonpartisan Glengariff Group poll showed presumptive Republican nominee Mike Rogers (45%) neck and neck with Stevens (46%), but Rogers led El-Sayed by 10-points.
Moreover, among Independents, Rogers led El-Sayed by 28-points, though Stevens and Rogers were virtually tied with this key voting bloc, 40% and 39%, respectively.
Clearly, for Democrats to nominate a candidate in a statewide race – in Michigan nonetheless – who does poorly with Black and Independent voters may prove fatal to their Senate hopes.
In that same vein, the stakes in this primary go further than control of the Senate, as important as that is. Republicans have made no secret of their strategy to paint all Democrats as socialists.
Nominating El-Sayed, who is supported by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be doing Republicans work for them, negatively impacting Democrats across the country and into 2028.
Taken together, these two races underscore the predicament facing Democrats in 2026 and beyond.
Democrats have climbed back into contention not because voters suddenly embraced them, but because they have soured on Trump, who at this point is a historically weak president.
However, as I previously noted in these pages, just 69% of voters who disapprove of Trump are now willing to vote Democrat, down from 90% in 2018.
That suggests that if Democrats want any chance to win the presidency in two years, they cannot afford to radically underperform in November, lest the party spend another two years conducting botched autopsies and pointing fingers.
Put another way, if Democrats spend a historically favorable election environment nominating candidates who cannot hold the middle, they risk squandering more than just the Senate, but their footing heading into the 2028 race, the first in a decade without Donald Trump on the ballot.
Ultimately, in a cycle where it initially appeared that Democrats would have few opportunities to flip Senate seats, the party now has a realistic chance to retake the majority.
To their credit, Maine’s relatively smooth nominating process showed that Democrats can walk up to the brink of disaster without going over the edge, though the stakes are higher now.
How they handle these two critical contests will go a long way in determining whether or not they are able to seize that chance.
Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.