Rhode Island · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Jack Reed
Who is running?
Jack Reed (Democratic), Raymond McKay (Republican). The margin below is Jack Reed minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Rhode Island elects a U.S. senator on November 3, 2026. Republicans have not won a Senate election in the state since 2000. The state profile records a median household income of 86372.0, a white non-Hispanic share of 0.7 and a college share of 0.373.
Democrat Jack Reed, a senator since 1997, is seeking a sixth term. He won the September 9 primary with 76.8% over Connor Burbridge and Luis Daniel Muñoz. The Republican nominee is Raymond McKay, a former member of the state party's central committee and 2024 Senate candidate, who was unopposed. Independent Michael Bahry has also declared. As of June 30, 2026 Reed had raised $4,213,768 with $3,642,761 on hand; McKay had raised $163,438 with $2,745 on hand.
All ten raters listed call the race D, among them the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, Sabato's Crystal Ball and Split Ticket, all dated September 2026. Four University of New Hampshire polls are listed; the latest (September 17–21, 2026) has Reed 53%, McKay 33%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Democratic incumbent Jack Reed is seeking a sixth term. He is being challenged by Republican former state party committee member Raymond McKay.
Democratic incumbent Jack Reed is seeking a sixth term.
Reed won the Democratic nomination with 76.8% vote against minimal opposition.
In the Republican primary, McKay ran unopposed.
*Jack Reed, incumbent U.S. senator (1997–present)
former president of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly, and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2024
Republicans have not won a Senate election in Rhode Island since 2000.
candidate: Jack Reed (Rhode Island politician) party: Democratic Party (United States) votes: 98,473 percentage: 76.8
The Cook Political Report D September 23, 2026 Decision Desk HQ D September 25, 2026
|Raymond McKay (R) $163,438 $161,032 $2,745
University of New Hampshire September 17–21, 2026 595 (LV) ± 4.0% |53% 33%
|Jack Reed (D) $4,213,768 $2,580,394 $3,642,761
*Michael Bahry, theologian
Not in the source: facts.candidates marks Reed as incumbent: false, but the text says he is the Democratic incumbent seeking a sixth term.; facts.forecast carries no basis field, so it is not stated whether the model used the statewide polls the text lists.; The text gives no presidential results for the state and no vote shares from Reed's earlier elections.; No rating is finer than 'D'; endorsement sections are empty in the text.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as b1d44f5e9bd1; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat), in this chamber since 2007, 4 terms, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (Ranking Member); Senate Committee on Finance; Senate Committee on the Budget; Senate Committee on the Judiciary; United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control (Chairman); Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Jack Reed (Democrat), in this chamber since 1997, 5 terms, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Appropriations; Senate Committee on Armed Services (Ranking Member); Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Ex Officio).
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reed, John F. (DEM) incumbent | $3,381,651 | $3,093,684 | 34% | 0% | $10 | $0 |
| Mckay, Raymond Tyler Mr (REP) challenger | $180,468 | $7,569 | 1% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Burbridge, Connor (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $26,856 | $0 | 0% | 13% | $0 | $0 |
| Bahry, Michael (IND) challenger · not on our roster | $5,050 | $2,206 | 0% | 100% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through September 30, 2026; $10 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | D+16.5 | D+21.0 | D+13.9 |
A shift of 2.6 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 37.3% | 34.0% | +3.3 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 69.1% | 66.3% | +2.8 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 5.0% | 10.1% | -5.0 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 17.1% | 12.9% | +4.3 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 3.4% | 4.4% | -0.9 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 14.8% | 9.6% | +5.2 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 40.5 | 39.1 | +1.42 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $86,372 | $77,633 | $+8,739 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $368,800 | $314,132 | $+54,668 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 63.2% | 67.4% | -4.1 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 5.7% | 4.8% | +0.9 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 2.8% | 3.0% | -0.3 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 11.4% | 12.3% | -0.8 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 14.0% | 11.1% | +2.9 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 33.5% | 32.1% | +1.4 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 4.2% | 2.6% | +1.5 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 3.5% | 2.9% | +0.7 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.46 | 0.47 | -0.01 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 3.6% | 4.0% | -0.4 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -0.8 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.6 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -1.0 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.9 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $70,622 | $70,662 | $-40 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 28.1% | 32.4% | -4.3 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 20.4% | 19.4% | +1.0 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 6.3% | 6.1% | +0.2 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 4.4% | 4.4% | +0.1 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 4.7% | 3.8% | +0.9 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.6% | +0.1 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.3% | 0.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.6% | 0.9% | -0.3 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.7% | 1.5% | +0.2 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.1% | 1.2% | -0.0 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.0 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between +8.8 and +29.1 points. Election day: +8.9 to +33.0. The election-day interval is 3.7 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 7.60 points, made of race-specific polling error 43%, drift to election day 28%, latent opinion 19%, correlated polling error 10%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
4 polls, most recent 2026-09-21. every input is provisional.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Jack Reed ahead of Raymond McKay. Over 18 stored forecasts the central estimate moved +2.5 points. There were 7 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run d42a5219-4fc9-4e73-b18c-40035b06feea and election-day run 458268d2-d870-4b35-8932-b960dd024f3d, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.