Hey there, it's the MPR Politics Podcast for Monday, February 9th, 2026.
I'm Miles Parks.
I cover voting.
I'm Stephen Fowler.
I cover politics.
And I'm Domenico Montanero, senior political editor and correspondent.
And today on the show, a midterms temperature check.
We are just somehow only a month away from the first primary elections of this midterm season.
And already a record number of house lawmakers have decided that they are not running again.
So Domenico, I want to start big picture here.
Lay out the landscape.
for the Senate and the House right now as we see it?
Well, you know, there are, you know, about a third of the Senate is up every two years.
They have six-year terms, but only about 10 seats this year that are truly competitive.
And, you know, because of some Democratic recruiting targets,
they feel a little bit better about their potential capability of being able to take over the Senate.
But it's really a long shot at this point
because Republicans have a three seat majority and Democrats would need to pick up a gain of four seats to be able to take control of the Senate
because Trump is president and JD Vance as vice president comes into break ties.
OK, so they would need to.