SENATE SEES DECLINE IN NUMBER OF VETERANS

The Senate will have six fewer veterans and the House may see little or no change in veterans’ representation as a result of Tuesday’s election, a disappointing result for those hoping to see more veterans in Congress.

The Senate has 26 veterans; that number will fall to 20. Thirteen veteran senators were up for election Tuesday, four incumbents and nine challengers. None of the challengers won, and one incumbent — Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.— lost.

Full results of all House races are not yet known, but three incumbent veterans lost Tuesday and 12 veteran challengers won, said Seth Lynn, director of the Center for Second Service at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

Nine of the veterans who will be part of the freshman class in Congress in January are Republicans, including seven who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. The other three are Democrats, including two women who are Iraq veterans.

Lynn had been predicting an increase in the current total of 92 veterans serving in the House, but acknowledges that he may have been overly optimistic.

“There probably won’t be as large an increase, if any, in veterans in the next Congress,” he said. “We have been losing about 10 veterans in each election over the last few cycles.”