Poll shows Democrats lead in 7 Senate races

A New York Times/Siena poll released Sunday shows Democratic candidates leading in seven key Senate races, including Texas and Kansas, days before the midterm elections.

The poll found Democratic candidates ahead in Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, and Texas, with the race in Iowa considered virtually tied. In Michigan, the only Democratic-held Senate seat surveyed, the party's candidate holds a double-digit lead.

Don Levy, executive director of the Siena Research Institute, stated the results suggest Democrats could gain control of the Senate, though he noted several races remain within the poll's margin of error.

The findings are particularly notable in Texas, where no Democrat has won a Senate race since 1988, and Kansas, where Democrats have not won since 1932. In Texas, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 50% to 43%, while in Kansas, Adam Hamilton leads Roger Marshall 49% to 44%.

The poll also showed Democratic candidates leading among independent voters in all seven states surveyed. Additionally, Democrats hold a nine-point advantage over Republicans on which party voters trust more to address the cost of living.

Despite the Democratic leads, the poll noted that voters who made their decisions within the past month favored Republican candidates by nine points, and several races remain within the margin of error. The surveys were conducted from Oct. 23 through Nov. 1, with state-level margins of sampling error ranging from plus or minus 3.4 percentage points in Texas to 5 percentage points in Alaska.