The nonpartisan Cook Political Report quietly rewrote two more lines on its Senate scorecard this week, and Republicans will not like what it says. The influential handicapper shifted both races a notch toward Democrats: Kansas moved from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican," and South Carolina slid from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican" — two seats that were barely on the map a few months ago.

In Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall is now fending off Democrat Adam Hamilton in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century. Cook's analysts pointed to agriculture as the driving force, with high fuel and fertilizer costs and shaky beef trade souring farm-country voters. In South Carolina, Sen. Darline Graham — tapped over the summer to fill her late brother's seat — is running for a full term against Democrat Annie Andrews in a state Donald Trump carried by double digits in 2024.

Six seats and counting

The Kansas-South Carolina shift lands alongside a broader slide. NPR's political newsletter reported this week that six Senate seats have moved toward Democrats since June, and that the party is now favored to flip the House with a gain of five to 15 seats. Georgia remains the marquee example: incumbent Sen. Collins' ties to the Iran war and the broader Trump agenda have Cook and the University of Virginia's Center for Politics both rating that race as leaning or likely Democratic in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since 2016.

Money is chasing the shift. Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC aligned with GOP leadership, is pouring an additional $14 million into Kansas alone as the race tightens — a state Republicans assumed would barely need defending a year ago.

"IF IT DRAGS ON BEYOND THAT, IT'S A POLITICAL LIABILITY FOR US TOO, BECAUSE WE'VE LOST IOWA SOLDIERS. I'VE BEEN TO FOUR FUNERALS SINCE DECEMBER. IT'S AWFUL."

That admission, from Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson — now the GOP's Senate nominee in a race Republicans need to hold — came out of a private exchange with voters back in the spring, caught on tape and later confirmed by her campaign. Hinson has since tried to walk a line, publicly pressing for the war's end while continuing to vote against Democratic resolutions to limit Trump's military authority. Her remarks have become a talking point for Democrats trying to tie the war's economic fallout — gas and fertilizer prices chief among them — to vulnerable Republicans nationwide.

The White House is not conceding ground. President Trump has crammed his October calendar with rallies in Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas and Nebraska, and told supporters in Ohio over the weekend to expect a "big" Republican win next month. With four weeks left until Election Day, both parties agree on one thing: the battle for the Senate, once considered a Republican formality, is now very much live.