After the important potential republican candidates for the key careers of the US Senate. In 2026 they pass running, some Republicans are divided over whether their party is struggling to recruit competitive candidates in the Senate.
There are 35 seats in the Senate for the election in 2026 – 33 in regular elections and two in special elections. Two of them, in Georgia and Michigan, could be a shake after two high -profile Republicans chose not to run in 2026, while the seats in Minnesota and New Hampshire were unoccupied Lean Democratic, and two seats of the headlines in Maine and North Carolina Lean Republican, according to Cook’s political report.
Republicans currently have 53 seats for Democrats 45. Two independent Caucus with the Democrats.
“My goal is to remain in the majority; my stretching goal is to add seats … I would like to be 55 years old,” Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., President of the National Committee of Republican Senatories ,, Recently told Axios.
The seat for the election in Georgia, in the possession of the Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, which is postulated for re -election, has received a lot of attention from the Republicans, who hope to turn what is widely seen as a vulnerable seat.
But Republican governor Brian Kemp, who had been seen as an important contender for the seat, was taken out of dispute, saying he would not run through the seat.
Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia, speaks during a meeting of the Association of Republican governors at the National Museum of the Building in Washington, on February 20, 2025.
Samuel Cororum / AFP through Getty Images
“I have decided that being on the ballot next year is not the right decision for me and my family,” Kemp wrote in a statement about X In early May.
The republican leaders of the Senate, including Scott and the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, RS.D., and even President Donald Trump had spent several months trying to convince Kemp to launch an offer against Ossoff. Kemp wrote that he informed Trump about his decision not to run the morning he published.
“Brian Kemp, being the most popular moderate republican in Georgia’s history, was the ideal candidate to take [Ossoff] In “, Ryan Mahoney, a Republican strategist and former communications director based in Georgia for the Georgia Republican Party, told ABC News on Monday.
In New Hampshire, the Republicans faced a similar situation when the popular former governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, a Republican who had been reflecting by the Senate for the seat by Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Dn.H., he said at the beginning of April that he had decided not to run.
“Keep the door open a little, and I thought, is it suitable for me and my family? It is not suitable for us,” Sununu told a radio station in April.
Sununu has said that he still believes that the seat will be at stake for Republicans.
The governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, presents the former UN ambassador and the republican presidential applicant 2024 Nikki Haley before speaking at a City Hall campaign event at Kennett High School in Conway, New Hampshire, December 28, 2023.
Joseph Prezios/AFP through Getty Images
Some Republicans have pointed out Kemp’s decision and, to a lesser extent, Sununu, as signs that Republicans have challenges that recruit centrist candidates that would appeal to voters throughout the state. Some have also felt that candidates who seem too linked to Trump or too right will fight in state races, even if the primary ones clear, if the White House and Trump continue to face a violent reaction towards the policies and cuts of the federal government.
“I think it’s a problem. I think Trump has stopped that for the party in general … Trump demands absolute loyalty and nothing more matters but his faith. And that makes people who want to talk about issues and things that their state or constituents care, [it] It makes it very difficult, “said ABC News collaborator, Barbara Comstock, a Republican who previously represented Virginia in the camera.
But other Republicans say they do not believe that Kemp and Sununu will not be executed indicate any sign of challenges with the recruitment of candidates.
A national republican who works in the main careers of the Senate told ABC News that Kemp’s decision was not a surprise, arguing that the governor made a decision based on wanting to be present with his family after a long term as governor.
As for concerns about Trump’s public opinion, the operation also pointed out Trump’s victory in Georgia in 2024 and the enthusiasm between Republicans in New Hampshire and pointed out that both the White House and the candidates will continue to involve voters in the middle of the period to motivate them to be without a candidate.
Mahoney, separately, pointed out how despite the fact that the party in power usually works worse in the middle of the period, the news around the economy and other problems constantly change and no one can predict whether the presidency and Trump’s agenda for 2026 will be popular or “an albatrous.”
“It’s too soon to know, and I think it would really be nonsense for Democrats to assume that just because history tells a story, that it will continue in 2026,” Mahoney said.
From Kemp’s decision, a member of the Delegation of the Georgia Congress has launched an offer, while a second has just announced that he does not postulate for the seat.
The representative Buddy Carter, who represents the first district of the Georgia Congress, announced last week that he is entering the 2026 Senate race. In your advertisement videoHe described himself as “Guerrero Maga”, showing multiple photos of him with Trump and a Trump clip praising him.
He later told ABC News that he had been in contact with the White House about his candidacy for the Senate and that Trump will make an approval decision in the primary in the future.
Georgia John King Security and Security Fire Commissioner announced separately For the seat on Monday.
But the questions swirled for weeks about whether Georgia’s representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fire conservative and one of Trump’s most loyal allies in the camera, would apply for the Senate. She told journalists on Wednesday that she was considering that or that she was running for the governor of Georgia. (Kemp is limited to term).
The president of the Doge Subcommittee, the United States representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s repulbican, speaks during a audience about trans people in women’s sports in Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 7, 2025.
Oliver Contreras/AFP through Getty Images
But Friday, in a Essay published in XGreene announced that he had decided not to run for the Senate.
“I love my birth state so much.
“Can I give Georgia’s people in the Senate? Can I meet my promises? Can I save this country from the inside? Here is the hard truth: the Senate does not work,” he wrote. “It is designed to obstruct the will of people and protect the control of the Uniparty on power.”
After criticizing the leadership of the Senate and the senators who, he said, “sabotea Trump’s agenda,” Greene was Franco: “Someone said once:” The Senate is where good ideas are going to die. “
There were some early mixed signs about how Greene would have performed if she ran against Ossoff. TO Recent Survey of the Constitution of Atlanta Journal They discovered that Ossoff and Kemp would be in a dead heat in a hypothetical confrontation of general elections, but that Ossoff would take other hypothetical candidates, including Greene, if the 2026 elections were held today. (Like any survey on an choice for more than a year, much can change).
And at least some Republicans can applaud their decision privately.
“I think for most Georgia’s Republicans, they were excited to see that [announcement]. They know that she has general electoral problems due to being a brand of fire and for her public personality, “Mahoney said, adding that Georgia’s Republicans probably look for a candidate who can nettar endorseos, raise money and consolidate the base.
“I think that for the list of candidates now, there is much more comfort that they can win a nomination, to win the general, which is the most important here: there is no real award for being the nominated. You have to win the general elections to become a senator.”
Greene had ruled out any concern that she could win in a primary state election but not throughout the state in Georgia.
“They said the same about Donald Trump when he ran in 2016, and said the same in 2024. People in Georgia know it’s a lie,” Greene told reporters on Wednesday.
He added in his publication on Friday: “Valuing Jon Ossoff? That would be easy.”
Senator Jon Ossoff leaves lunch of the Democratic Senate in the United States Capitol on January 21, 2025.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll called Getty Images
The NRSC has indicated that it will consider getting involved in the primary of the Senate case by case. Scott, who presides over the NRSC, He told Fox News In February, “whatever the best for voters in each state, I will make a state decision per state on how we play and where we play.”
“Republicans are working as a team with President Trump to deliver to the American people, protect our majority in 2026 and hold the Democrats and candidates in the Senate in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire for their radical and out of contact priorities,” said NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez, in a statement to ABC news.
On the other side of the hall, the Democrats have been celebrating Kemp’s decision, thinking that he puts them in a strong position to assume who challenges Ossoff. Democrats have also said that they think they can expand their map of the Senate, and that they intend to play in as many seats as they can.
But the Democratic Party, since it faces low approval ratings and continues to digest its great losses in 2024, faces a very challenging Senate map in 2026.
Many of the seats in the Senate are in the choice are found in states in a solid republican way, and the Democrats face the possibility of defending Ossoff’s seat in Georgia, as well as seats in Michigan and New Hampshire, where Democratic headlines retire.
“Senate Democrats are positioned to win seats in 2026, since the violent reaction in the middle of the period is driven by the increase in costs and threats to Social Security and Medicaid drags the republican candidates of the Senate and puts its majority at risk,” he told ABC News in a statement of most, “said Maeve Coyle, communications director of the Senatorial Campaign Committee Democratic
But some Democrats are less optimistic. The governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, who was the fellow of Vice President Kamala Harris formula in 2024, he recently said that he does not feel safe that Democrats can win the Senate in 2026.
“I think we will recover the house. I am very pessimistic about the Senate, just to be honest with you,” he said during a talk in April at the Harvard Policy Institute.
Brittany Shepherd, Lalee Ibssa and Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.
