Republicans Lock Down Control of Senate
Donald Trump has won the presidency, and Republicans have taken control of the Senate in the culmination of an intense — and expensive battle — for dominance in Congress.
The GOP picked up four seats this cycle, flipping the chamber and netting a decisive 53 seat majority. A Republican majority under a Republican president will grant Trump a blank check to approve nominations and appointments until the 2026 midterm elections.
Thirty-four of the Senate’s 100 seats were on the ballot in 2024. Seven of them were open seats with no candidate running for reelection. Democrats have narrowly controlled the chamber for the past four years, but Republicans flipped enough seats.
Incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was defeated by Republican challenger Bernie Moreno in a single digit margin that cost Democrats a critical seat in their already slim majority. Republicans gained a second seat in West Virginia, where Jim Justice won the Senate seat vacated by former Independent Senator Joe Manchin. Montana’s Democratic incumbent Jon Tester was defeated by Republican challenger Tim Sheehy.
On Friday, after a close contest that dragged on for days after Election Night, Pennsylvania’s three-term incumbent Senator Bob Casey — a Democrat — lost to Republican David McCormick in a narrow upset.
Democrat Colin Alred failed to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz in a close race in Texas, and Independent challenger Dan Osborne floundered against two-term Republican incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer in Nebraska. All in all, a bad showing.
2024’s battle for the Senate was one of the most expensive in American history, coming in at a total price tag of over $2.5 billion. Most of the spending was concentrated on highly competitive races in Ohio, Montana, and Pennsylvania.
The contest between Brown and Moreno brought in a whopping $526 million in spending overall, with $310 million spent in 2024 alone.
In the 2022 midterms, Democrats managed to narrowly expand their majority in the Senate to 51-49. Over the last two years, Vice President Kamala Harris has served as a tie-breaking vote in a divided upper chamber. With the House under Republican control since 2022, the split 118th Congress was largely ineffective as a legislative body.
Frankly, the most notable events for the Senate in the last two years had little to do with lawmaking. In September of last year, Sen. Dainne Feinstein (D-Ca.) died in office at the age of 90, after serving more than three decades in the Senate. Her death, and reports of the efforts her staff took to obscure her declining health, revived criticism of aging politicians refusal to leave office despite an inability to cope with the rigors of the job.
In February, after multiple incidents where he seemingly disconnected from the present while speaking to reports, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (RF-Ky.) — currently 82 years old — announced he would be stepping down from his position in the caucus’ leadership.
But among the more dramatic exits from the Senate this electoral cycle is that of Bob Menendez, who resigned from his position as a Democratic Senator for New Jersey after being found guilty of corruption charges in July. The former senator and his wife accepted cash payments, luxury vehicles, and even solid bars of gold from foreign agents in exchange for Menendez’s influence in Congress. His now vacant seat is expected to be won by Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).
With the GOP-controlled House also up for grabs this election cycle, Republicans could potentially walk away from the 2024 election with the fist unified Congress since 2017, when the party held control of both chambers during the first two years in office.
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