With 2026 Midterms approaching fast, here are the races you need to watch

The midterm elections are just around the corner, with several highly contested races in the mix. Currently, the chances of winning the House are in the Democrats’ favor, with an 82% chance of victory over Republicans. Republicans hold a 55% chance of maintaining a majority in the Senate, but that probability has steadily declined since January.

Since the last check-in, the Democrats’ chance of winning the House has consistently come in around 85% (plus or minus a few points), but Republicans’ chance of winning the Senate has fallen from around 62%.

Many of the most contested races this cycle are unfolding in key battleground states that helped decide the 2024 presidential election, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of Congress nearly two years into Trump’s presidency.

At Quiver, we have been scraping and tracking all of the data on election fundraising and corporate political donations. This raw data is all available on the Quiver site and the Quiver API, but we wanted to take a deep dive to find the most interesting trends that have been unfolding leading up to the 2026 midterms.

So, for candidates in the toss-up elections, vying for their seat in Congress, who are their biggest financial backers?

Michigan’s Senate has an open seat this election cycle, after incumbent Gary Peters announced he would not run for reelection in 2025. The race is a toss-up between three major Democratic candidates and one GOP candidate.

On the Democratic side, the top contenders are Mallory McMorrow, Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. Michael J Rogers is the Republican nominee. Over the past two years, Democrats have spent a projected $31 million, outspending Republicans by over $18 million.

On the GOP side, Roger’s largest donor is aerospace and defense company Heico, followed by Kratos and L3Harris (both defense contractors). McMorrow and El-Sayed’s campaigns include large donations from Nvidia and Google, while Stevens’ include Brown and Brown, Johnson and Johnson and Dow Inc.

In Maine, incumbent Susan Collins (R-ME) is running again — but despite her reelection campaign, this race has been labeled a toss-up.

Challenger Graham Platner was thought to have a lead over the Republican incumbent, but Collins has gained momentum after a texting scandal emerged this week regarding the Democratic candidate.

For this election cycle, Democrats have spent over $26 million, while Republicans have spent just under $18 million. Spending support for Platner from the most recent quarter was $8.4 million, while Collins’ was about a quarter of that.

Meanwhile, Ohio’s race between incumbent Sen. John Husted, Republican Bernie Moreno and Democrat Sherrod Brown is another toss-up to watch this cycle.

Democrats once again outspent the Republicans; this time, Democratic spending is nearly $30 million, while the GOP clocks in at a little under $17 million. This most recent quarter, Brown raised over $10 million for his campaign. And his spending might be paying off after a Fox News poll released Thursday projects Brown has a lead over incumbent Husted.

Major donors for Brown’s candidacy include Johnson and Johnson, Brown and Brown Inc., Marsh and McLennan Companies Inc., Crawford and Co. and Google (Alphabet). Brown and Brown was also a top donor for Sen. Husted’s campaign, spending about $130k more on the GOP candidate. Husted’s other major donors include Marathon Petroleum, Centene Corp. and Cintas Corp.

In Texas, the Senate race currently leans Republican, but the party spending across line has soared to some of the highest in history.

Two Democrats — James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett — were vying for the seat against two members of the GOP, John Cornyn and Warren Paxton. Texas closed out its runoff elections at the end of May; Talarico won the Democratic primary, while his opponent, Paxton, defeated Cornyn in the GOP primary.

Talarico’s top corporate donors include individual employee contributions at major tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta. Democrat Talarico has been openly critical of PAC donations and has claimed the majority of spending comes from individual contributions. But despite his arguments, some of his largest donations have been from super PAC Lone Star Rising, which has poured millions into Talarico’s campaign.

On the GOP side, frontrunner Paxton has received individual donations from corporations such as Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, American Airlines, United Airlines and Elevance Health. Paxton’s largest donor is the Lone Star Liberty PAC.

Both the Lone Star Liberty and Lone Star Rising PACs are responsible for funding and generating TV ads for Texas political candidates’ campaigns.

Two of Arizona’s congressional districts are toss-ups for the November election: its first and sixth district.

The state’s first district currently has an open seat up for election, after Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) announced his bid for governor over a reelection campaign for his seat in the House. This open seat has brought several Democratic and Republican nominees to the battleground, but local news reports rank former NFL player Thomas Fames Feely as the frontrunner.

RNC-endorsed fundraising platform WinRed has already spent hundreds of thousands on Feely’s campaign, while only one corporate PAC — Verizon — has reported donating to Feely’s campaign. He also spent a reported $300k self-funding his campaign.

Amish Shah and Marlene Galan-Woods, who are favorites on the Democratic side, have received funding from Democratic-aligned PACs, like Emily’s List, League of Conservation Voters and Worker Power PAC.

Meanwhile, in District 6, the race is between incumbent Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) and Democrat Joanna Mendoza. Spending for this election cycle has been neck-and-neck between the two candidates, with Democrats spending slightly more total.

ActBlue, a hybrid PAC, has been a major source of funds for Mendoza’s election, spending millions for the campaign. ActBlue acts as a conduit, passing money from individuals to the campaign, rather than a traditional PAC that donates its own money.

Incumbent Ciscomani’s outside spending includes a nearly $2 million one-time donation from cryptocurrency-backed super PAC Fairshake, which has spent millions on crypto-supporting candidates’ campaigns since the 2024 election cycle. According to recent reporting, all of Fairshakes’ endorsees have won primaries thus far.

Ciscomani is seeking reelection for his third time; both of his last elections were won by a tiny margin. Arizona’s sixth district race is reportedly going to be one of the most-watched for the 2026 midterms.

Michigan’s 7th congressional district has been labeled a toss-up between the incumbent Tom Barrett and multiple Democratic nominees. Polls regarding the Democratic primaries set to take place this August have reported mixed results for favored candidates, but multiple polls show William Lawrence favored by a very small margin over opponents Matthew Maasdam and Bridget Brink.

For this race, GOP spending has maintained the lead over Democratic spending. Incumbent Barrett has received multiple large donations for this campaign from Americans for Prosperity Action Inc. and America PAC.

Some of his top donors also include Flexible Plan Investments Ltd, an asset management company based in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and a conservative-leaning mass media company, Liberty Media, alongside larger corporations like Home Depot, Delta and Microsoft.