After a hard-fought election cycle that brought hundreds of millions of dollars in outside spending into the mix, Republicans are expected to flip control of the Senate to their advantage when the 119th Congress gavels in next year, after The Associated Press called the Ohio Senate race for Republican Bernie Moreno. It was a costly, frustrating, and tougher-than-it-should-have-been victory in an environment that should have been an easy lift for Republicans.
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Democrats arrived on Election Day with a 51-49 advantage in the Upper Chamber. But Democrats wrote-off West Virginia as a lost cause after Sen. Joe Manchin announced he would not seek another term. That meant Democrats needed to run a perfect table and hold all three highly at-risk incumbents in Montana, Ohio, and Nevada. Early Wednesday, it became apparent that Democrats had failed in Ohio.
Despite former President Donald Trump’s strong positioning and Republicans’ clear advantages, Senators Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Jackie Rosen of Nevada all were stronger-than-expected incumbents. Democrats invested heavily in those races; combined, those three races raked in close to a quarter-billion dollars in spending to boost their nominees and ding their Republican rivals.
The spending—and Democratic incumbents who all ran ahead of Democratic nominee Kamala HarrisCK—still failed to keep Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York atop a chamber that is expected to be crucial to Harris’ agenda. Senate Republicans have not officially selected their next leader to follow Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is expected to step down as the longest-serving Leader. And it’s not clear how the newly elected Republicans can sync with the party as newcomers in an environment that rewards longevity and loyalty.
Democrats started the cycle on the defense on a map that favored them not in the least. National Democrats went to work early to bulk up their endangered incumbents in the face of violent headwinds. With shrewd positioning that kept Joe Biden at arm’s length and careful messaging that hewed to home-state priorities, parochial pork projects, and amplifying Republicans’ problematic records, Democrats failed to run the straight-flush they needed on Election Day.