EXCLUSIVE – The incoming chair of the Senate Republican campaign committee says his game plan for the 2026 elections is simple: “increase the majority.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, after his fellow GOP lawmakers in the Senate chose him to chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee over the next two years, told reporters that his “passion” is to make sure that President-elect Trump “does not have two years with a Republican majority in the Senate, he has four years in control.”
In his first interview following his election as NRSC chair, Scott told Fox News Digital this week that “what we’re going to do is defend the seats that we have and expand the map so that we can increase the majority brought to us by the Trump victory.”
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GOP Sen. Tim Scott speaks at the Republican National Convention, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 16, 2024. (Getty Images)
Republicans won back control of the Senate in last week’s elections, ending four years of majority control by the Democrats.
And it’s expected that once a mandated state recount is completed in the Senate contest in Pennsylvania – where GOP challenger Dave McCormick leads Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by roughly 25,000 votes – the Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate come January.
While not as favorable as the 2024 Senate map, the 2026 electoral landscape does give the Republicans some opportunities to flip seats.
Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Gary Peters of Michigan are up for re-election in two years in key battleground states Trump flipped last week.
And Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire will be up for re-election in a perennial swing state that Trump lost but over-performed from his 2020 showing. In Virginia, where Trump lost by just five points last week, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner will be up for re-election.
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“How do you expand the map,” Scott said. “You look at Georgia, and Michigan, and New Hampshire, and Virginia. And if you’re stretching – take a look at New Mexico and Minnesota. President Trump was very competitive in those states.”
But Republicans will also have to play defense. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is up for re-election in a reliably blue state. And Sen. Thom Tills of North Carolina is also up in 2026, in a battleground state Trump narrowly won.
Scott emphasized that “the good news is as long as Susan Collins is running, I think we have a shot to win. Last time she won by several points. This time she’ll win by several points. Thom Tillis staying in North Carolina is good for our party.”
In the 2022 election cycle, when the Republicans blew a chance to win back the majority, NRSC chair Sen. Rick Scott of Florida was criticized for a hands-off approach in the GOP Senate primaries.
This past cycle, outgoing NRSC chair Sen. Steve Daines of Montana got involved in Senate Republican nomination battles.
GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana speaks at the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2024. (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
Asked if the NRSC will take sides in competitive Republican Senate primaries during his tenure the next two years, Scott told Fox News “I think the best thing for us to do is have a family conversation next year about what we’re looking at. How we’re going to defend that map and then make the best decisions we can as it relates to making sure that we end up with more seats than we currently have.”
“Thank God we’re at 53. I’d like to see 55,” Scott added.
Asked if 55 seats was his goal, Scott joked “if it were up to me, we’d have 100 seats.”
Scott last year unsuccessfully ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, before ending his bid and endorsing Trump. The senator was a high-profile surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail this year.
In last week’s election, unlike in 2016 and 2020, Trump outperformed many of the GOP’s Senate candidates.
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) waves as he sits with Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump during a Fox News town hall at the Greenville Convention Center on February 20, 2024 in Greenville, South Carolina (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Scott said he wants Trump to participate as much as he can in the 2026 Senate contests.
“Every day and every way, President Trump, I know you have a full-time job. I’m going to ask you to have two full-time jobs. Let’s expand this map,” Scott emphasized.
He said “that means that every single day we need President Trump on the campaign trail, doing fundraisers, talking to folks, because this is President Donald J. Trump’s party, and we need to make sure we expand it, from the man to the movement. We need him to do it.”
A big part of Scott’s duties as NRSC chair will be fundraising. The senator was a top Republican fundraiser during the 2022 cycle, when he easily cruised to re-election in red-state South Carolina.
“We have to have more resources than we’ve had in the past so we are competitive in the states where we can win. I think we can win in more states than ever. President Donald Trump has actually given us a lot of runway. It’s our responsibility to have the resources to win those seats,” Scott said.
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The rival Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was chaired during the 2022 and 2024 cycles by Peters, who won’t be signing up for a third tour of duty as he is up for re-election in Michigan.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who easily won re-election last week in blue-state New York, is making a pitch to chair the DSCC. Senate Democrats will hold their leadership elections later this year.
David Bergstein, the DSCC communications director for the past couple of election cycles, highlighted that “in a challenging political environment, Democrats made history. We won multiple races in states won by Trump. We dramatically over-performed the presidential results. And for the first time in over a decade, Senate Democrats have won multiple races in states won by the opposite party’s presidential nominee.”
“The outcome of this cycle puts Senate Democrats in the strongest possible position to reclaim the majority in 2026,” Bergstein touted.
