\n<\/p>\n
When President Trump met in the Oval Office with Ken Paxton on Tuesday, the newly minted Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, he brought handouts.<\/p>\n
Democrats may feel bullish about their prospects in the state, but Mr. Trump has been dismissive of James Talarico, the 37-year-old Democratic nominee. Scattered across the Resolute Desk were printed photos of Mr. Talarico, along with an image of the 20th-century cartoon character that the president has compared him to: Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump had personally colored in one of Mr. Talarico\u2019s teeth to create a similar gap-toothed smile, according to a person with knowledge of the president\u2019s rendering who spoke anonymously to describe a private meeting.<\/p>\n
If, in Talarico versus Paxton, the Democrats believe they\u2019ve found a rare matchup to give the party a shot in November, Republicans believe they have an opponent they can cast as a wacky liberal from Austin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
With five months to go until Election Day, that same dynamic is playing out across the Senate landscape. Democrats are confident that they\u2019ve recruited the right candidates and that political conditions give them a shot to flip at least four G.O.P.-held seats, which they need to take the Senate majority. Republicans are confident that Democrats will lose anyway, with plans to cast them as unelectable in red states.<\/p>\n
Hours after Mr. Trump showed off his drawing, the contours of the Senate battleground map came into sharper focus on Tuesday night with the victory of Josh Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist, in Iowa\u2019s Democratic Senate primary.<\/p>\n
Mr. Turek\u2019s ascent \u2014 with the assist of $10 million from a national Democratic veterans\u2019 group<\/a> aligned with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader \u2014 injected national Democrats with fresh optimism about expanding their map of potential victories in November.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At the same time, Democratic leaders were grappling with fallout<\/a> from revelations of sexual text messages<\/a> sent to up to six women by Graham Platner, the presumptive Senate nominee in the critical state of Maine and the only Democratic candidate in a key state who was not the choice of the party establishment. Mr. Platner is married.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The math for Democrats to win the Senate majority is both straightforward and daunting.<\/p>\n Republicans currently hold 53 seats, so Democrats must flip at least four Republican seats to claim a majority while also defending their own seats in the battlegrounds of Michigan, New Hampshire and Georgia.<\/p>\n For months, Mr. Schumer has outlined his likeliest four-state path<\/a> to power through North Carolina, Alaska, Ohio and Maine. In three of those states, Mr. Schumer\u2019s top recruit secured the Democratic nomination.<\/p>\n Still, the terrain is tough. Mr. Trump won both Alaska and Ohio by double digits in 2024. He won Iowa and Texas \u2014 two other states widely seen as reaches where Democrats hope to compete \u2014 by even more. One sign of the coming challenge in Iowa: About 14,000 more voters participated in Tuesday\u2019s Republican primary than the Democratic one.<\/p>\n Mr. Turek will now face Representative Ashley Hinson, a three-term Republican, who began running advertisements before the Democratic primary was settled with that opened with her own support of veterans, a seeming rebuttal to the millions spent on pro-Turek ads. \u201cOur veterans deserve a hell of a lot better,\u201d she says<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe seriously unpopular war in Iran and ongoing price hikes from gas to groceries, health care to housing, continue to create broader opportunities for us in states I didn\u2019t think would be in play,\u201d said Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.<\/p>\n Republicans appear acutely aware of how closely contested the fight for the Senate is. They have cried foul in recent days over the candidacy of a second Dan Sullivan candidate in Alaska<\/a>, where Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, is seeking re-election and facing Mary Peltola, a Democratic former congresswoman. The state\u2019s unusual top-four primary system could allow both Mr. Sullivans to advance, likely creating confusion for voters in November. The logos of both candidates even feature similar blue color schemes and yellow stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n One Nation, a Republican-aligned nonprofit group, announced on Wednesday a $6 million ad campaign for Senator Sullivan.<\/p>\n Maine, however, is the source of growing Democratic anxiety.<\/p>\n There, Mr. Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer running as a progressive outsider, catapulted past the party establishment\u2019s preferred pick, Gov. Janet Mills. Ms. Mills, out of money and struggling in polls, suspended her campaign more than a month ago, though she remains on the ballot for the June 9 primary. Then, over the weekend, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reported that Mr. Platner\u2019s wife had warned campaign officials that he had sent sexually explicit text messages to other women as recently as last summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Platner spent Tuesday in Washington, meeting with Democratic senators amid rising concern that more may come from a candidate whose postings on Reddit dismissing rape victims and demeaning women, as well as a tattoo with Nazi imagery that he has since covered up, have already caused a stir.<\/p>\n Mr. Platner also had a 30-minute private meeting with Mr. Schumer.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate,\u201d Mr. Schumer said at the Capitol on Tuesday, batting away different questions with the same answer. \u201cAny other subject you got? Any other subject?\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats have long seen defeating Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the five-term Republican, as essential to taking control of the chamber. Even Mr. Platner\u2019s team, in its invitation to Democratic senators to meet on Tuesday, wrote: \u201cAs you know, the path to a Democratic Senate majority runs through Maine.\u201d<\/p>\n Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who has worked on past Senate campaigns, said the Platner situation was an unfortunate development at a moment when the party is in \u201ca much better position than many of us expected to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s so frustrating about this is the degree of difficulty for Democrats to win the Senate this year is very high,\u201d said Ms. Legacki, who is advising Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan, a moderate Democrat running for Senate. \u201cAnd in just about every other state \u2014 whether it\u2019s North Carolina or Texas or Alaska or Iowa \u2014 things are moving in the right direction. While it is possible to regain the majority without Maine, it seems needlessly difficult to do it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After Iowa\u2019s primary on Tuesday, the fields remain unsettled in only two Senate battlegrounds.<\/p>\n In Michigan, Democrats are facing a three-way brawl between Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Mallory McMorrow, a state senator and regular contributor to cable news, and Ms. Stevens, whose support from the pro-Israel lobby has become an issue<\/a>. The winner will face former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who narrowly lost a Senate race in 2024.<\/p>\n Georgia\u2019s Republican Senate primary is headed to a runoff in two weeks between Derek Dooley, a former college football coach, and Representative Mike Collins, who finished first in the May primary. Senator Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, has banked more than $32 million for the general election.<\/p>\n In Texas, where Democratic hopes have been repeatedly dashed over the last 30 years, Mr. Talarico has once again brought a promise that this year will be different. The campaign said it is not sweating the caricatures coming from Mr. Trump and Mr. Paxton.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat, us worry?\u201d said JT Ennis, a spokesman for Mr. Talarico.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n