Democrat takes slight lead in Iowa Senate race

A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Democrat Theresa Greenfield with a 46%-43% lead over Republican U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

U.S. Senate races will have a direct impact on New Jersey’s senior U.S. Senator, Bob Menendez, who will become chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats capture control of the Senate in the November 2020 general election.

Menendez is the ranking Democrat on the panel, and chaired the full committee from 2013 to 2015 — the last time his party controlled the Senate.

Democrats need to pick up four seats to do that – or three, if a Democrat wins the vice presidency.

A Fox News poll in Arizona gives West Orange native Mark Kelly a 50%-37% lead in his bid to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Martha McSally (R-Arizona).   Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Arizona).  Kelly has led in twelve successive independent polls and McSally hasn’t been in the lead since May 2019.

Polling shows a too-close-to-call race in: Maine, were four-term Republican Susan Collins faces Sara Gideon, the Speaker of the State House of Representatives; North Carolina, where Republican incumbent Thom Tillis faces a challenge from former State Sen. Cal Cunningham.

In Colorado, a May 6 Keating-Onsight-Melanson poll Gov. John Hickenlooper 18 points ahead of Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

A Montana State University Bozeman/University of Denver poll released on May 5 for the Montana U.S. Senate race show GOP incumbent Steve Daines with a 48%-39% lead over Democrat Steve Bullock, the current governor.

Democrats are underdogs in Alabama, where incumbent Doug Jones is the underdog for re-election in one of America’s reddest states. A runoff originally scheduled for March 31 but delayed until July 14 as a result of the coronavirus features a matchup between former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and retired college football coach Tommy Tuberville.

Sessions’ resignation from the Senate to join Trump’s cabinet led to Jones winning a 2017 special election for the Senate seat.