It’s not exactly a secret that Senate Democrats are on the defensive this election cycle. The party currently has a one-seat majority in the chamber, but with Sen. Joe Manchin retiring in West Virginia, Republicans have, for all intents and purposes, already flipped one seat.

As we discussed last week, to secure a majority, Republicans will need to win only one additional seat, which is hardly unrealistic: Democrats are having to fight tooth and nail to hold on to competitive seats in Montana, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Maryland. To have a chance of a 50-50 split in the Senate, Democrats would have to win literally all of those races, some of which are being held in states where Donald Trump is all but certain to win easily.

And so, the party is on the defensive. But what if the map could grow? The conventional wisdom suggests every incumbent Senate Republican is all but certain to win re-election, but what if the conventional wisdom is wrong?

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that a “small but vocal number” of Senate Democrats believe the party is leaving potential pickup opportunities on the table, and are “pushing party leaders and political operatives to pour money into trying to knock off GOP incumbents.”

And not just any Republican incumbents.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has finite resources, and it doesn’t want to see any of the party’s incumbents lose due to lack of investment. That said, Axios reported that Democratic leaders are telling their party’s biggest donors that their perspective is evolving.

… Democrats are signaling they want to expand the playing field and be in a position to steal Republican seats in states like Florida. Yes, it’s still red, but former President Trump isn’t expected to win by double digits. They are also eyeing Texas, where a recent poll has Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) up by three points against Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).

This isn’t just scuttlebutt from unnamed partisan operatives: Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the current chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, confirmed to Axios this week that the races in Florida and Texas “are real and we hope to get resources into those states.”

The report added that airtime hasn’t yet been officially booked in the race against Rick Scott, though “Democratic sources tell us they expect the DSCC to make a splash in Florida in the coming weeks.”

All things considered, it’d be overstating matters to describe the Senate races in Texas and Florida as among the nation’s most competitive, but this shift in focus isn’t rooted in pie-in-the-sky optimism.

Revisiting our recent coverage, Cruz barely won a second term in 2018, and this year, Rep. Colin Allred looks like a candidate with plenty of crossover appeal. It was against this backdrop that Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign adviser for Donald Trump, wrote via social media two weeks ago, “What the hell is wrong with the Senate race in Texas?”

LaCivita added that, as far as he’s concerned, it’s “time to get some real professionals in to save” Cruz. Implicit in the message, of course, is that Cruz needs saving.

Meanwhile, Florida’s Scott — who has won three statewide campaigns by incredibly narrow margins — last month started dumping quite a bit of his own money into his re-election campaign. What’s more, a handful of recent statewide polls have shown former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell trailing the far-right incumbent by 5 points or less, raising Democratic hopes of a possible upset.

In case that weren’t quite enough, there’s Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, a Republican who was widely seen as a shoo-in for re-election — up until very recently.

There is no Democratic nominee in the race, but independent Dan Osborn — best known for having led a labor strike at a Kellogg’s plant in 2021 — appears to be faring better than expected.

How do I know that for sure? In part because of fresh polling showing Osborn within striking distance, and in part because Republicans are starting to target Osborn with attack ads, and if he weren’t picking up support, they wouldn’t bother spending money in one of the nation’s reddest states.

Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.