The Message Box

The Message Box

Can Dems Win the Senate in 2026?

Plus a discussion of Schumer's future and the 2028 primary calendar

Dan Pfeiffer's avatar
Dan Pfeiffer
Nov 15, 2025
∙ Paid

Happy mail bag day! It’s been another bizarre week in politics. We went from feeling great about the elections to feeling angry/depressed about Democrats caving on the shutdown to shock/schadenfreude over the latest batch of Epstein emails.

Apologies again for randomly sending out the mailbag post on Thursday instead of Saturday. I was working too fast while too tired on a flight with too-spotty Wi-Fi.

Anyway, it’s Saturday, so I did something right this week.

As a reminder, these will come every Saturday as a special feature for paid subscribers. Subscribe today to read these posts and ask anything you want.

Don’t forget to post your questions for next week’s mailbag in the comments section of this post.

Leave a comment


Austin L.

Hey Dan!

I enjoy reading The Bulwark’s newsletter, The Opposition, written by Lauren. Her recent newsletter argued that Democrats have started to believe that taking back the Senate is feasible. What seats/states do you think Dems could flip to get to 51?

Answer

The election results show that Democrats have a path to a Senate majority, albeit a difficult and narrow one.

Democrats need to win four seats to have the majority. They need 51 seats because J.D. Vance can break a 50–50 tie in the GOP’s favor.

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