Control over Senate undecided
WASHINGTON — The battle for control of the Senate could go into overtime, as Republicans defended their majority in close races that reached from Maine to Georgia to Arizona.
Democrats headed into Election Day favored to win a slight majority in the Senate, but early returns were mixed.
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado was beaten by Democratic former Gov. John Hickenlooper, whose candidacy was boosted by President Donald Trump’s unpopularity in the state. But Gardner had been Democrats’ easiest target, and their gain of that seat was offset by their loss of a seat in Alabama held by Sen. Doug Jones. Jones’ defeat by Republican Tommy Tuberville, former football coach at Auburn University, had been widely expected. In 2017, Jones won a fluke victory in the deep-red pro-Trump state against a Republican rival hit by a sex scandal.
Some other Democratic challengers fell short in contests against durable senior Republican incumbents.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina fended off Democrat Jaime Harrison, who mounted a surprisingly stiff challenge in the strongly Republican state. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky easily beat Democrat Amy McGrath, a veteran whose campaign drew national attention and money from Democrats who wanted to end his reign as Senate majority leader. And McConnell’s lieutenant, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, beat Democrat MJ
Hagar, again dashing Democrats’ hopes that the Lone Star State had turned blue.
Republicans now hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to achieve a majority — or three if Joe Biden won the presidency and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, then became the president and the tie-breaker in a Senate split 50-50.
The Senate contest this year has been fought on a political map that has favored Democrats: There are 12 competitive races in states with Republicanheld seats while only two Senate Democrats are considered vulnerable, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Democrats are looking to regain the Senate majority for the first time since 2014. They had swamped their GOP rivals in fundraising. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that Democratic Senate candidates raised $726 million through the end of September to Republicans’ $423 million.
That made for a tough slog for Republican senators who were seen as vulnerable from the outset, like North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, as well as others who started strong but were dragged down by Trump’s sagging fortunes, like Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.
“I’ve got a little bit of a scratchy voice today but it’s all good, Election Day is here,” Ernst said in a Tuesday radio interview with conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt. Tillis, also speaking to Hewitt, described the home stretch: “I’ve eaten about 30 pounds of barbeque over the last seven days and talked to a lot of people.”
The fate of candidates of both parties was closely tied to the outcome of the presidential race because ticket-splitting voters are increasingly rare. In 2016, for the first time ever, there was no state that voted for a Senate candidate of one party and the presidential nominee of the other party.
The question of which party controls the Senate may not be settled for some time because of the large number of mail-in ballots to be counted — an unprecedented share reflecting many voters’ desire to avoid polling places amid a pandemic. And some states’ results could be delayed because their election laws require candidates to win by a majority vote, and the presence of third-party candidates makes it harder for anyone to get 50% outright.