Four Senate races to watch—and why “muskets only” fails the constitutional test

The November 3 elections put Senate control—and the future of federal legislation and judicial confirmations—before voters. Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio offer four consequential contests to watch. These are general elections, not four scheduled runoffs. Georgia’s calendar does provide for a December 1 runoff if no candidate wins a majority; that possibility should not be confused with a result already determined. Reuters’ October 12 race overview and Georgia’s official calendar establish the distinction.

Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed versus Mike Rogers. Democrat El-Sayed and Republican Rogers are competing for the open Senate seat. WDIV’s October 21 debate coverage describes a contest over household costs, healthcare, immigration enforcement and Iran. Rogers accused El-Sayed of wanting to defund law enforcement; El-Sayed denied it. El-Sayed attacked Rogers’ alignment with President Donald Trump, while Rogers complained that his opponent kept inserting Trump into his answers. WDIV reported the accusation and El-Sayed’s denial separately. WDIV’s original debate report.

What a win means: A Rogers victory would flip a Democratic-held seat to Republicans, forcing Democrats to offset that loss with an additional pickup elsewhere. An El-Sayed victory would preserve the seat for Democrats and deny Republicans a gain; it would protect the Democratic starting position rather than add a new seat.

Georgia: Jon Ossoff versus Mike Collins. Democratic incumbent Ossoff faces Republican Collins in a race that could change either party’s Senate arithmetic. Georgia requires a majority: if nobody clears that threshold, the top two advance to December 1. That makes Georgia worth watching beyond election night, but a close poll is not evidence that a runoff will occur. Reuters; State of Georgia runoff rules.

What a win means: A Collins victory would take a seat from Democrats and strengthen Republicans’ position in the Senate. An Ossoff victory would preserve a Democratic-held seat, keeping the party’s majority ambitions from suffering a setback. If a runoff is required, the seat’s outcome would remain unresolved until December 1; its importance to control would depend on other results.

North Carolina: Roy Cooper versus Michael Whatley. Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper faces former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley for the Republican-held open seat. Reuters’ race overview.

What a win means: A Cooper victory would flip a Republican-held seat to Democrats, bringing them one seat closer to a majority. A Whatley victory would preserve the seat for Republicans and deny Democrats a pickup, increasing their dependence on wins elsewhere.

Ohio: Sherrod Brown versus Jon Husted. Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown challenges Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed after JD Vance became vice president. This special election fills the remainder of that term through January 2029. Reuters’ race overview.

What a win means: A Brown victory would flip this Republican-held seat to Democrats. A Husted victory would keep it Republican and close off another Democratic pickup opportunity. Either result affects the parties’ majority calculations; the winner serves the remaining term, rather than a new six-year term.

The Michigan campaign also raises a constitutional question. In the YouTube transcript of a Fox News clip uploaded October 21, El-Sayed invokes originalism, contrasts founding-era muskets with modern firearms and refers to “equal rights to a musket.” Fox identifies the setting as a town hall in Midland, Michigan; the upload date does not establish when the speech was recorded. The Four Boxes Diner’s October 25 analysis includes a longer excerpt, in which El-Sayed also challenges unrestricted gun access. Both captioned excerpts were reviewed; the complete original speech remains unverified. Fox News, 0:00–0:24, especially 0:20; Mr. Smith’s longer excerpt, approximately 1:44–3:19.

Editorial Opinion

A constitutional right does not come with a manufacturing-date cutoff. Taken as a legal proposition, the musket-only argument described in that reporting fails directly under District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). The Court protected an individual right to possess a handgun for self-defense in the home, independent of service in a militia. At page 582, it expressly rejected limiting protected arms to those available in the eighteenth century, calling that argument “bordering on the frivolous.” This is not a clever loophole conservative judges forgot to consider. They considered it and rejected it. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 582, 635.

Mr. Smith puts the core point succinctly: “constitutional rights go far beyond technology that existed in 1791.” His discussion of Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) supplies the concrete example. In its per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court rejected Massachusetts’ reasoning that stun guns fell outside the Second Amendment because they were not in common use when it was adopted. The Court vacated the judgment and sent the case back; it did not decide every modern-weapons question. But a candidate using muskets to narrow an originalist reading is running into an answer the Court has already given. Mr. Smith, approximately 5:08 and 6:34–7:30; Caetano, 577 U.S. 411, 411–412.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022) supplies the governing method, not a nostalgic gun catalog. When the amendment’s text covers the conduct, the government must justify its restriction through the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. A politician’s assessment that a restriction would be useful does not replace that inquiry. Bruen expressly explains that the historically understood category of arms includes modern instruments of armed self-defense. A blanket exclusion based merely on a weapon’s invention after the founding runs into the precedent head-on. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 17–30.

But a pro-Constitution argument must describe the limits honestly. United States v. Rahimi (2024) upheld temporary disarmament where a court had found an individual posed a credible physical threat to another. The Court explained that a modern restriction can fit historical principles without duplicating an old statute word for word. Historical reasoning works by relevant analogy; it neither freezes firearms technology nor wipes out every regulation. Claiming that Bruen invalidates all gun laws would be another shortcut around the actual cases. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 690–700.

Mr. Smith also offers a useful discipline in his 2025 scholarship: a historical principle should not contradict rights the Supreme Court has already recognized. His proposed framework is scholarship, not a new test adopted by the Court. Applied here, the point is straightforward: general appeals to public safety do not erase the precedents protecting modern arms. The Constitution is not an antique dealer’s inventory. Mr. Smith’s published analysis.

The 2026 decisions make that distinction more concrete. In United States v. Hemani on June 18, the Court rejected the government’s prosecution based on regular marijuana use under the theory presented, while expressly leaving questions involving addiction, present intoxication and individualized dangerousness unresolved. On June 25, Wolford v. Lopez invalidated Hawaii’s rule barring licensed handgun carry on private property open to the public without express owner permission. It preserved owners’ authority to exclude firearms. These are specific applications of constitutional analysis, not permission to declare every gun restriction invalid—or every modern gun unprotected. Hemani, slip op. pp. 18–19; Wolford, slip op. pp. 7–8, 13–24.

The fuller excerpt makes the criticism more precise. El-Sayed’s objection to unrestricted gun access is not, by itself, contrary to Supreme Court precedent. The problem is the suggestion that originalism can shrink protection to founding-era equipment. Calling the opposing position unlimited does not answer the actual rule protecting modern arms. Nor does this excerpt establish a legislative promise to confiscate every modern firearm. The fair, hard question is whether El-Sayed accepts Heller and Caetano or wants their rule changed. Conservatives should demand that answer rather than give him an easy escape through an exaggerated account of what he said.

If you see some odd mistakes, bad citations, inconsistent analysis, do let us know in the comments below.

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