The control of the United States Senate remains open in Fox News's latest election forecast. The network has withdrawn the slight advantage it gave Republicans in Kansas and now places that contest among the seven it considers to have no clear favorite ahead of Tuesday's midterms.
The change affects the duel between Republican senator Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton. Kansas moves from the "Lean Republican" category, which indicates a Republican advantage in a competitive election, to "Toss-up": a race in which neither of the two candidates starts with a sufficient advantage to be considered the favorite. The update appears in the Power Rankings published this November 1.
Fox's balance leaves 48 seats in the Democratic bloc, 45 in the Republican bloc, and seven pending to tilt to one side. It is a classification of the hundred Senate seats, including those not being renewed in these elections, and not an election result or a national poll.
The seven states that can decide the Senate
Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, South Carolina and Texas make up the group of contests that Fox considers open. In those seven states, the uncertainty of its map for the Upper Chamber is concentrated.
The list brings together different scenarios. Michigan is a Democratic defense, while the other six seats are in Republican hands. For that reason, a single night can combine Republican resistance in some territories with losses in others, without there necessarily being uniform behavior across the country.
The addition of Kansas expands the number of places where Republicans need to secure their vote. For Democrats, it opens another potential path toward the majority, in addition to the races that were already among the most contested.
What Democrats and Republicans need to control the Chamber
The arithmetic of the map makes it possible to understand why Fox still does not point to a winner.
If its forecasts are met in the 93 seats that have an assigned lean, Democrats would need to win three of the seven open contests to reach 51 senators. Republicans would need five to reach 50, a tie that would allow them to retain control with the tie-breaking vote of the vice president, JD Vance.
These are scenarios conditioned on there being no surprises outside those seven races. A seat classified as favorable to a party can change hands: the forecast categories do not amount to guaranteed victories.
Nor should the 48 Democratic seats and the 45 Republican seats be confused with percentages of voting intention. Each state elects its senators separately; adding national votes does not determine who controls this Chamber.
Why Kansas has become a warning sign
Fox bases the change in Kansas on the effort Republicans are making to defend Marshall's seat. According to the network, the amount of time and money devoted to this contest, compared with other states, prevents it from continuing to consider that the senator holds an advantage over Hamilton.
The data has a political reading: the resources a party needs to protect one territory limit those it can devote to competing in others. An unexpectedly close race can force a reshaping of the distribution of advertising, visits, and mobilization during the final days.
That does not make Hamilton the favorite. The new thing is that Fox stops granting that condition to Marshall. «Toss-up» describes uncertainty about the outcome, not necessarily an exact tie in the polls.
What it would mean for Trump to lose the Senate
For Donald Trump, retaining the Upper Chamber would make it easier to confirm appointments and advance his legislative agenda. A Democratic majority would introduce a major obstacle in both tasks and strengthen the opposition's ability to push investigations and keep the Executive in check.
The Tuesday elections do not decide the president's continuity in the White House. They will determine instead with which Congress he will have to govern during the second half of his term.
Fox's map leaves that balance pending in seven contests. Kansas is the latest to join the most uncertain group: a state where Republicans can still win, but to which they no longer arrive with the advantage the network attributed to them.