15 Crucial Down-Ballot Races That Could Swing Congress

Office up for grabs: A U.S. Senate seat representing Ohio.

Who’s running: Sen. Sherrod Brown is a three-term Democratic incumbent and and one of the party’s leading advocates for labor issues and progressive economic policies. As Ohio has drifted further toward the red side of the political spectrum — and is now solidly pro-Trump — Brown is the most prominent Democratic lawmaker still representing the state in Congress.

His Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, is a Colombian immigrant who made a name for himself as a car dealership magnate. Moreno has never held elected office (and it shows), but landed Trump’s endorsement and the Republican nomination. He has styled himself as an immigration hawk, a “no exceptions” anti-abortion advocate, and a pro-business conservative.

Brown explained to Rolling Stone this summer that Trumpism is not the answer for pro-labor Ohioans. “I’ve never heard Donald Trump talk about ‘dignity of work,’ ” he said. “It’s not Trump, it’s that corporate America has had its way far too often on trade agreements that have cost us a lot of jobs.” 

How competitive is it? It’s no easy task for Democrats to win a Senate seat in a state Trump won easily twice, but Brown is popular and polls have generally shown him to have a slight edge over Moreno, as of early October. The race is still very much up in the air, though.

Why it’s important: It’s hard to imagine Democrats will have any chance of retaining control of the Senate if they lose Brown’s seat in Ohio.

Office up for grabs: A U.S. Senate seat representing Nebraska.

Who’s running: Two-term, buttoned-up Republican incumbent Deb Fischer is being challenged by an independent candidate, Dan Osborn, a union leader with stubbly beard and a sleeve of tattoos. Fischer has served Nebraska like many senators from deep-red states, with an air of detachment and invincibility. She won her last race in 2018 by double digits. 

Osborn presents himself as a populist, not a partisan. He has a military background, serving in both the Navy and the Nebraska Army National Guard. He has worked as a machinist at a Kellogg’s plant in Omaha, where he became union president and led a successful strike in 2021. His agenda includes legalizing marijuana, securing the border, lowering taxes on overtime, as well as a pledge to “Keep the Government Out of Our Private Lives.” Osborn is against a national abortion ban and seeks instead to “focus on the root cause” of abortion by “reducing unwanted pregnancies.” 

Osborn has attacked Fischer as a corporate tool who is “more Washington than Nebraska” — running an ad suggesting she should wear NASCAR-style logos on her blazer in honor of her big-money patrons. Osborn has highlighted Fischer’s broken promise to seek no more than two terms as part of a pattern of dishonesty. “Deb lies. We just get stuck with the bill.”

Fischer, who had been ignoring Osborn as a gadfly, is now attempting to cast him as a Bernie Sanders-style liberal. The New York Post has called out the plainspoken Osborn on a gaffe(?) of describing Fischer staffers as “a bunch of Hitler Youth frat boys.”

How competitive is it? Polls show Osborn competitive with Fischer and even ahead. But top forecasters have yet to be convinced. Fischer’s seat has only slipped from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican” in the Cook Political Report rankings.

Why it’s important: Without Fischer, GOP plans to hold the Senate become very shaky. However, it’s not clear that Osborn would empower a Democratic majority. He’s vowed not to caucus with either Democrats or Republicans in the Senate, saying instead he’d form ad hoc partnerships to advance Nebraska’s interests and to end the “two-party doom loop.”

“I think what they’re looking for when they ask that is ‘Oh, is he a Democrat? Or is he a Republican?’,” Osborn told Rolling Stone in July. “I feel like I truly am an Independent. I’m for working people.”  

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Washington’s 3rd District, which is in the southern part of the state and comprises suburbs and exurbs of Portland, Oregon. 

Who’s running: Joe Kent is a former Green Beret who has been endorsed by Trump, has a popular account on Gab — the Christian-nationalist social media platform that even Republicans have called a “cesspool of bigotry and antisemitism” — and has likened abortion to slavery. He also supports mass deportation and ending birthright citizenship. In 2022, the extremist Kent defeated the mainstream GOP incumbent in a primary battle, targeting her because she voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6. He lost to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the general election by less than a point. This is the rematch.

Gluesenkamp Perez, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, can come off a bit like a Portlandia character. She is graduate from liberal Reed College in Portland and ran an auto repair and machine shop with her husband, a former bike mechanic. But in Congress, Gluesenkamp Perez has become the chair of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition and often angered liberals with her votes. For example, she voted to block Joe Biden’s student-debt relief package, insisting it needed to be matched “dollar for dollar” with spending on “career and technical education.”

How competitive is it? The race is listed as a “toss-up” by major forecasters.

Why it’s important: Washington’s 3rd District is a bellwether. It is one of only a handful of districts that voted for Trump in 2020 and also elected a Democrat in 2022, when Republicans flipped control of the House. Holding it is key to Democratic hopes of a return to power.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Delaware’s at-large district.

Who’s running: Sarah McBride is a Delaware state senator who made history in 2020 as the first openly transgender lawmaker to serve as a state senator in American history. Before coming out as transgender in 2012, she worked as a staffer on the campaigns of former Gov. Jack Markell and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. That same year, McBride became the first transgender staffer in White House history. McBride has made advocacy for the LGBTQ community a centerpiece of her politics, and in Delaware has championed a slew of anti-discrimination laws. 

Her opponent, John Whalen III, is a retired police officer attempting to become the first Republican in more than a decade to win a statewide election in Delaware. Whalen’s website only features two issues in his policy section: illegal immigration and the economy.

How competitive is it? Not very. McBride is expected to easily win the contest and is polling well ahead of Whalen. 

Why it’s important: Given her clear lead in the race, McBride is expected to become the first-ever transgender person to serve in the U.S. Congress. 

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Wisconsin’s 3rd District.

Who’s running: Incumbent Republican Derrick Van Orden is an election-denying, Trump-endorsed Republican looking to score a second term in a Wisconsin district that had been blue for over 25 years before going MAGA in 2022. He’s up against 36-year-old Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who has been hammering Van Orden for attending a rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, supporting a national abortion ban, and more. Cooke has also called out Van Orden for his anger issues, which have led him to hurl obscenities at everyone from fellow members of Congress to teenagers.

How competitive is it? Polling indicates the race is practically a toss-up, as of early October, although Republicans are confident Van Orden has the edge. The Cook Political Report currently rates the district as “lean Republican.”

Why it’s important: Cooke booting Van Orden after a single term would be huge for Democrats’ chances to take back control of the House, and could portend doom for Donald Trump’s chances to win back Wisconsin after losing it to Joe Biden in 2020.

Office up for grabs: A U.S. Senate representing Texas.

Who’s running: Canada-born incumbent Republican Ted Cruz needs to fend off former NFL star Colin Allred to win another term in Washington. Cruz is a former hard-right fiscal conservative who has become an eager MAGA bandwagoneer. One of the smarmiest men in politics, Cruz challenged Trump for the 2016 nomination, only for Trump to insult his wife and insinuate that his dad helped kill JFK. At the time, Cruz called Trump “utterly amoral” and a “pathological liar.” In 2024, Cruz says he’s supporting Trump “enthusiastically.”

Cruz, a Princeton and Harvard Law alum, has lawyerly polish but little common touch. He infamously dashed off to Cancun for a tropical vacation during a winter weather emergency that saw millions of Texans suffer without heat or power. Once, while recreating a scene from Hoosiers for a political stunt, he used the words “basketball ring” to describe the hoop.

Allred is a homegrown Texas football star who was raised by a single mother in Dallas and played college football for Baylor. He competed for four years as a pro with the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, and later graduated from law school at UC Berkeley. Allred is an underdog with a history of upsetting well-known incumbents. He currently serves in the House for a seat serving the Dallas metroplex, having defeated 11-term GOP incumbent Pete Sessions in 2018. Allred is an understated moderate, who says Democrats have not understood the “urgency” of the problems at the border, while criticizing Joe Biden’s move to block the development of liquefied natural gas terminals. He has been endorsed by Liz Cheney, the former GOP representative and daughter of the former vice president. “We need to elect serious people,” she has said, contrasting Allred to Cruz as an “honorable public servant” who would represent Texas “in good faith.”

How competitive is it? Texas is a red state subject to purple mirages. The Democratic Senate candidacy of Beto O’Rourke in 2018 against Cruz became a cause célèbre among resistance liberals in the Trump era, but despite raising a preposterous $80 million and generating Obama-level hype, O’Rourke couldn’t tip Texas blue. Polling shows Allred in striking distance, but expectations are far more tempered, especially given the current hard-right turn of Texas politics.

Why it’s important: Beyond removing one of the GOP Senate’s signature irritants, a victory by Allred could help secure a Senate majority for Democrats, which will be crucial whether Harris or Trump wins in November.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing New York’s 17th District. The Hudson Valley district includes suburban Rockland county, as well as swathes of the monied and manicured Putnam, Westchester, and Dutchess Counties. 

Who’s running: Rep. Mike Lawler, a former Republican political strategist from Rockland County who has sought to cultivate a reputation as moderate during his first term in Congress. In 2022, Lawler pulled off a coup, defeating Sean Patrick Maloney, then-chairman of the committee in charge of electing House Democrats. This year, he is being challenged by Mondaire Jones, a Stanford- and Harvard-educated lawyer who was seen as a rising Democratic star when he represented NY-17 from 2021 to 2023, prior to a redistricting that changed the composition of the district.

How competitive is it? Polls through the beginning of October have shown the Republican first-term incumbent leading the race by more than three points on average. But there is reason for Democrats to be optimistic: For the last 40 years, the district has voted for Democratic candidates for president by wide margins, and Lawler has serious vulnerabilities. The Republican congressman is a Michael Jackson superfan so devoted to the musician that he flew across the country to attend Jackson’s child molestation trial as a spectator back in 2005. According to a book written at the time, Lawler was ejected from the courtroom for an outburst directed at the accuser’s mother. In October, The New York Times published a photo of Lawler wearing blackface, dressed as Jackson.

There is one complicating factor that could work against Jones: the leftist Working Families Party will have the Democrat on its ballot line, as a Republican construction executive managed to win the party’s primary by a slim 90-vote margin.

What could help Jones? Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s continue to vilify Haitian immigrants, and the district is home to one of the largest Haitian-American communities in the U.S.

Why it’s important: Democrats are hoping to win back five seats in districts surrounding New York City, all of which Biden won in 2020. With the Republican majority in the House on a razor’s edge, Democrats believe their path to regaining control of the chamber begins with regaining these seats.

Office up for grabs: Governor of New Hampshire

Who’s running: This is a contest to fill the vacancy created by the departing nepo-baby GOP governor Chris Sununu, who served four two-year terms in office. His father, John, served three consecutive terms in Concord in the ’80s.

Former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is running against Democrat Joyce Craig to replace Sununu. Ayotte previously held two different statewide offices, first as attorney general and then serving in the U.S. Senate for a single term. She was ousted in a squeaker in 2016, with Trump on the ballot, losing to Democrat Maggie Hassan by 1,017 votes.

Craig is the former mayor of Manchester, the state’s biggest city. She enjoys widespread union support against Ayotte, who has spent much of her out-of-office life serving on corporate boards including NewsCorp and the Blackstone group.

How competitive is it? Polling suggests this may be the most competitive gubernatorial race in the country.

Why it’s important: Polls show Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by at least 7 points in the state, as of early October, challenging New Hampshire’s quadrennial designation as a swing state. Still, liberal New England has a soft spot for GOP governors — see: New Hampshire’s neighbor Vermont — and Ayotte’s candidacy will test whether “ticket-splitting” remains a tradition in the Granite State.

Ayotte pulled her support for Trump in 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape dropped. In 2024, however, she’s endorsed Trump, even as she’s attempted to distance herself from him on abortion. She recently insisted she wouldn’t touch the state’s ban on abortions after 24 weeks — instituted on Sununu’s watch. However, during her term in the Senate, Ayotte voted for a 20-week national ban, which the GOP dubbed the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”

Office up for grabs: Governor of North Carolina.

Who’s running: Current North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) has hit his term limit, and the race to replace him is an intense clash between his Republican Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson, and North Carolina’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein. The race has been defined by the bigotry and generally abhorrent behavior of Robinson, a former businessman who went viral for defending gun rights at a city council meeting, before becoming lieutenant governor in 2021.

Trump endorsed and has lauded Robinson despite his extreme rhetoric, but the former president has largely abandoned him following a report last month uncovering a series of comments Robinson made on a porn site’s message board. Robinson referred to himself as a “Black Nazi,” praised slavery, and described Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” Trump, ironically, has praised Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Stein, by contrast, is viewed as a moderate Democrat whose focus on consumer protection and corporate accountability has been a hallmark of his tenure as attorney general. As a candidate, Stein is running on a platform of economic growth, housing affordability, school improvement, and reproductive freedom. 

How competitive is it? Stein is leading Robinson by a significant margin, especially as Robinson attempts to battle off criticism from within his own party after his past online commentary became public knowledge. 

Why it’s important: North Carolina is a key battleground state, and Robinson was virtually hand-picked by Trump as the Republican candidate to replace the Democrat Cooper. Should Republican voters be put off by Robinson — and by extension his relationship with Trump — it could damage the former president’s prospects in the state.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Texas’ 15th District, a 400-mile-long strip of South Texas that runs from the border town of McAllen, to the sprawling eastern suburbs of San Antonio. 

Who’s running: Democrat Michelle Vallejo is in a rematch against Republican Monica de la Cruz, who beat her by 12,881 votes in 2022. When she clinched the race two years ago, De La Cruz, a former insurance agent, became the first Latina — and the first Republican — to ever represent the district. Both women grew up in South Texas: De la Cruz calls herself the proud granddaughter of immigrant farm workers, while Vallejo is a first generation American who studied at Columbia University before returning to the Rio Grande Valley to help run a flea market operated by her family.

How competitive is it? The last time Vallejo and De la Cruz went up against each other, Texas’ 15th was a Biden +1 district, but after a recent redistricting, it’s Trump +3. (In a sign of how redistricting changed the district, the progressive Vallejo’s first big TV buy focused on the need “to get serious” about fixing “chaos at the border.”)

Still, the Vallejo campaign sees an opportunity. There’s a tightening Senate race in Texas, and even as Harris remains still underwater among voters in the district, Democrat Colin Allred is polling at +12 in his race against Ted Cruz there. And unlike last time around, national Democratic groups have invested in the race, putting her on a more even footing with De La Cruz, to whom outside GOP groups have committed sizable sums.

Why it’s important: For Democrats, this district, even with its unfavorable new boundaries, represents the party’s lone pick-up opportunity in Texas this year. Republicans are also determined to protect both the seat and one of their few Latina members in the House.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Michigan’s 10th District.

Who’s running: John James, the Republican incumbent, is a veteran and businessman who lost bids for U.S. Senate in Michigan in 2018 and 2020. He initially refused to concede in the latter race, alleging Democrat Gary Peters’ win was fraudulent. He ultimately threw in the towel and congratulated Peters a few weeks after Election Day. James pivoted to the House in 2022, and narrowly won his race against Democrat Carl Marlinga, who is challenging him again in 2024.

Donald Trump has been endorsing James since in 2018 and, like Trump, James has been appealing to Michigan’s working class by railing against electric vehicle initiatives, claiming they would destroy the state’s auto industry. Marlinga, a former judge, is running on creating clean-energy jobs, in part by embracing electric vehicles, and protecting Michigan’s lakes and other natural resources.

How competitive is it? Very. The Cook Political Report rates the race as “lean Republican,” but Marlinga lost by less than a point in 2022 in what was the state’s closest House race.

Why it’s important: Marlinga flipping the district blue would help Democrats regain control of the House. It would also bode well for Kamala Harris’ chances in the state.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Nebraska’s 2nd District.

Who’s running: Republican Rep. Don Bacon, a former brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force, who has represented this district in Congress for the last eight years, and Democrat Tony Vargas, a former public school teacher who served on Omaha Public Schools Board before he was elected to the Nebraska legislature in 2016.

How competitive is it? Very! Known as the “Blue Dot,” Joe Biden won this district — and its one electoral vote — by six points in 2020. That single electoral vote is also the reason why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently swung through the state as part of a desperate, last-minute effort to convince lawmakers to change the system by which they award electoral votes to benefit Trump. This race is a rematch for the pair, who faced off in this district two years ago, with Vargas losing by fewer than 6,000 votes. There are indications it might be harder for the anti-abortion Bacon to pull out a win here after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. All but one poll of the race has shown Vargas in the lead this time around.

Why it’s important: It’s a good pick-up opportunity for Democrats in a district that is likely to see high levels of voter turnout because of its importance in the presidential race. Republicans, meanwhile, are desperate to protect Bacon — one of a vanishing group of moderate GOPers left in the House.

Office up for grabs: A U.S. Senate seat representing Florida.

Who’s running: The odious Medicare fraudster, previous governor of Florida, and sitting Sen. Rick Scott is being challenged by former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuadorian immigrant who represented the Miami area for two terms in the House. 

How competitive is it: Florida has drifted decidedly out of Democrats’ grasp in recent years. Polls of the presidential race have shown Kamala Harris consistently trailing Donald Trump in polls of the state. But even as Harris has struggled to gain traction, Mucarsel-Powell has seen surveys of her race against Scott tightening considerably. The race is made more competitive by the fact that two ballot measures — one to enshrine the right to abortion, the other to legalize weed — both of which are broadly popular, opposed by Rick Scott, and likely to juice voter turnout.

Another factor that’s not helping Scott? The fact that both the Senate Leadership Fund, Mitch McConnell’s elections piggy bank, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the fund overseen by Sen. Steve Daines (a member of McConnell’s leadership team), have stayed on the sidelines even as their Democratic counterparts have been pouring money into the race. In fact, Republicans have spent the least amount on Florida of any Senate race this cycle — just $10 million, compared to say $148 in Ohio — even as, on paper, it represents one of the most competitive matchups.

Democrats are also hoping that Scott’s awful record on climate could hurt him, especially as extreme weather events threaten the state. As governor, Scott was first to ban the use of the term “climate change” in official correspondence. He also voted to defund FEMA in 2021 and, more recently, skipped a vote about whether to include supplemental FEMA funding for disaster relief efforts in the budget stop-gap. 

Why it’s important: It’s one of three Hail Mary efforts (along with Texas and Montana) that Democrats are putting money behind, while praying that at least one of them breaks their way if they so they can maintain their grasp on the Senate.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing Texas’ 34th District.

Who’s running: Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) is defending his seat in the House from a young Republican challenger. Gonzalez, who previously represented Texas’ 15th District, battled Flores for the 34th District in 2022 after Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela announced he was stepping down at the end of this term. When Vela left office sooner than expected, Flores stepped in to win a special election — become the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress — only to lose the general election to Gonzalez a few months later.

Gonzalez, a former lawyer, has advocated for protecting reproductive freedom in a state hell-bent on restricting it, and supported the bipartisan border security bill that Donald Trump worked to kill earlier this year. Flores has advocated for DNA testing on migrants crossing the southern border, stringent restrictions to abortion access, and cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election. 

Gonzalez drew backlash in his 2022 campaign against Flores after it was revealed that a blog that referred to her as “Miss Frijoles” and “Miss Enchiladas” in reference to her Mexican descent had been paid by the Gonzalez campaign.

How competitive is it? It’s close in the polls, as of early October. Texas’ 34th is seen as a vulnerable Democratic district that Republicans hope to flip this election cycle in their bid to keep control of the House. 

Why it’s important: The district sits on an area of the Texas Gulf Coast encompassing the region between Brownsville and Corpus Christi. The area is predominantly Hispanic and has for more than a decade been reliably Democratic. If Republicans manage to take the seat, it will be a feat demonstrative of the inroads the party has made eating away at Democrats’ relationship with Hispanic voters.

Office up for grabs: The U.S. House seat representing New York’s 4th District, the second-wealthiest congressional district in the state. It encompasses the seaside, southern Long Island hamlets of Hempstead, Mineola, Oceanside, Woodmere, and Long Beach. 

Who’s running: Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a former NYPD officer and first-term congressman from a local political family, and Democrat Laura Gillen, a litigator who once served alongside D’Esposito on Hempstead’s town council. 

How competitive is it? Highly competitive. According to the Cook Political Report, it is the most Democratic-leaning district currently represented by a Republican. The only polls of the race collected by 538 are partisan polls, which have shown both candidates leading the other by margins of 7 points. It’s also taking place in one of the most expensive media markets in the country, making it an especially challenging district in which to get a message out.

But at least one story hasn’t had trouble breaking through, thanks to coverage in The New York Times and on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: D’Esposito’s decision to give both his affair partner and the daughter of his longtime fiancee government salaries. (It’s unclear if his lover ever even appeared at her job, where she held the title “office liaison.”) Payments to both women abruptly ended after his fiancée — with whom he has reportedly reconciled — learned of the affair. 

Why it’s important: New York’s 4th is one of five Empire State seats that congressional Democrats believe could help them regain control of the U.S. House.