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This story is republished from NOTUS as part of our partnership with the D.C.-based outlet.

Democrats are desperate to recruit North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Maine’s Janet Mills, and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown to run for Senate seats next year, believing the trio would help their party in a way no other candidates could. 

They’re just not sure any of them will actually run. 

As the 2026 Senate map begins to take shape, Democrats are bracing for a long, potentially agonizing wait to find out if former North Carolina Gov. Cooper, Maine Gov. Mills, or former Ohio Sen. Brown will launch campaigns in their respective home states. None of the three candidates is expected to announce a decision until the summer at the earliest; one could wait until the end of the year. 

Cooper, Mills, and Brown are considered key to taking on Republican incumbent Sens. Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins in Maine, and Jon Husted in Ohio. But Democrats don’t think any of their three potential candidates has better than a 50-50 chance of running, leaving Democrats with little clarity in some of the most important elections next year. 

“I can assure you that [Brown] would want to be in a position to do more than he is,” said former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who in 2022 was the party’s nominee for Senate in Ohio. “But are you willing to do what it takes to run again? That’s a whole different ball game.”

The trio’s looming decisions underscore how next year’s Senate battleground map remains in flux to an unusual degree even this early. In Georgia, for instance, both parties are waiting to see whether Republican Gov. Brian Kemp runs against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, a possible map-changing development for 2026. 

Republican Sen. John Cornyn, meanwhile, faces a serious primary challenge in Texas from state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race Democrats are watching closely in case Cornyn loses. And in Michigan, Democrats have their own combustible primary in a swing state President Donald Trump won last year. 

Republicans hold a three-seat edge in the Senate, but Democrats would need to gain a net of four seats in next year’s midterm election to overcome Vice President JD Vance tie-breaking vote and win a legislative majority. 

Democrats have already had some potential top-tier recruits, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, pass on running for Senate next year.  

But they’re hopeful that Cooper might enter the race. In interviews with NOTUS, many Democrats expressed more optimism that he would run than either Mills or Brown. One Democrat close to the governor put the odds that he runs at 50 percent, emphasizing that no decision has been made. 

Cooper is teaching at Harvard University for the spring semester until May. But Republicans, anticipating his possible entrance into the Senate race, are already looking deeply at his record as governor, and Democratic sources said they believe many potential candidates are holding off on a campaign out of deference to the state’s former chief executive. 

Former North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, who has launched a bid for the Senate, recently told NOTUS he thought Cooper was a “great governor,” though he emphasized that Democrats needed a candidate in the race pushing back on Tillis and Trump now. 

Cooper, who is 67, would have to decide whether another potentially bruising campaign was worth it after already serving eight years as governor and 16 years before that as North Carolina’s  attorney general. 

Roy Cooper arrives onstage at a campaign rally in October 2024. (AP Photo/Allison Joyce)

Likewise, Mills, who is 77, would have to decide she was ready for another statewide bid for office after serving nearly two terms as governor.

One source familiar with Mills’ thinking told NOTUS last week that the governor might still decide to run for Senate, despite making headlines when she said she was not currently planning to challenge Collins. Because of Mills’ stature in the state, including her widespread name recognition and ability to raise money, the source added that she could potentially wait until the end of the year before declaring a campaign. 

Another senior Democratic official in the state, granted anonymity to speak candidly about Mills’ future, said he thought she was thinking much more seriously about a Senate run now than she was last year and has pointedly not ruled out doing so in private conversations. 

“While she personally likes Susan Collins, how, if you’re Janet Mills, could you not want to help Democrats take back the Senate given the severity of the situation in this country?” said the source, who added that they didn’t expect the governor to start seriously thinking about a run until the state’s legislative session ends in June. 

“My impression is she’s not ready to be done,” the source said. 

If Mills passes on a run, Democratic attention will turn to recruiting Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who represents the Trump-supporting 2nd Congressional District in Maine. But whether Golden, who once worked for Collins, would challenge the incumbent Republican was even less clear to some Democrats in the state than it was for Mills. 

Even as Democrats agree that Cooper, Mills, and Brown would boost the party’s hopes in these three battleground states, there is also debate over how essential any of them ultimately would be for victory. 

If Trump’s approval ratings continue to fall and the traditionally difficult political environment for the party that controls the White House takes shape, some Democratic operatives argue they won’t need the very best recruits to win races in states like North Carolina and Maine. 

“As strong as Roy Cooper and Janet Mills might be, other Democrats and their allies have won statewide in both North Carolina and Maine in recent years.”

David Nir, The Downballot

Republicans, meanwhile, say that even if Democrats land their top recruits in these three states, their incumbents would still be on the track to win reelection: Tillis has survived two tough statewide elections before, Collins has long had a hold on Maine’s independent voters and Ohio has become a Republican stronghold since Trump took over the GOP. 

Of the three candidates, Brown’s decision might have the most influence on whether Democrats can win the Senate majority. The former senator lost by fewer than 4 percentage points during last year’s race, which was about 7 percentage points better than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ performance. 

“Among the most prized potential recruits, Sherrod Brown likely tops the list because he has an unusual distinction: Excluding judicial elections, he’s the only Democrat to win a statewide race in Ohio since 2008,” said David Nir, publisher of the elections website The Downballot. “As strong as Roy Cooper and Janet Mills might be, other Democrats and their allies have won statewide in both North Carolina and Maine in recent years.”

Brown’s thought process regarding  a potential run, however, might be the most opaque to party leaders in Washington and Ohio, most of whom think he needs time to recover and reassess his options after a difficult campaign in 2024. 

A senior Democratic official in Ohio said she thinks of Brown’s future as she does flipping a three-sided coin, with one side showing him running for Senate, one showing him running for governor and another showing him running for no elected office next year. 

“All of the dynamics in this race depend on his decision,” the official said. “He’s maybe the only candidate in the state with the luxury of taking his time.”

Brown’s own public signals have confounded some observers. The former senator, who is 72, in March converted his old Senate account with the Federal Election Commission into a so-called hybrid PAC, making it more difficult for him to raise money for a future Senate campaign should he go that route. He also founded a nonpartisan organization called the Dignity of Work Institute and has urged Democrats in a recent New York Times op-ed not to oppose all tariffs even if they disagree with the full scope and implementation of Trump’s tariff plan. 

Some Democrats say they wonder whether all the upheaval during Trump’s time in office thus far persuades Brown to run again in Ohio’s special Senate election next year, even if he’d face reelection just two years later in 2028.

“To have this much chaos going on, and this much of an assault on working people, I think he probably misses not being in the fight,” Ryan said.

The former Democratic congressman ruled out a Senate campaign of his own, saying he had a young son at home and had already spent too much time away in Washington. 

Alex Roarty is a reporter at NOTUS. He was previously a reporter for McClatchy newspapers, Roll Call, and National Journal.

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