Republican Rick Scott won reelection in Florida, and Republican Jim Justice won the U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, the Associated Press said, narrowing Democrats’ chances of holding on to their slim majority in the U.S. Senate became.
Justice, a Donald Trump loyalist, flipped the seat vacated by retiring independent Joe Manchin, who teamed with the Democratic party as it held a 51-49 lead.
Scott defeated Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman who had campaigned for abortion rights.
Democrats now face an increasingly uphill battle to retain the Senate majority, which would require the re-election of Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana, or a surprise win by Colin Allred in Texas, running against Ted Cruz. These are all red states.
In other early races, independent Bernie Sanders won reelection in Vermont, and Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indianaw comfortably won his first Senate challenge.
Victory for Sanders, who is aligned with the Democrats, was declared by the AP with less than 10% of the vote. It will be the 83-year-old’s fourth term in the Senate.
Thirty-four seats in the U.S. Senate — a third of the 100-member chamber — were up for grabs Tuesday in contests that could shape the composition of the new administration, influence the balance of the Supreme Court and shape policy on areas ranging from foreign affairs to abortion.
Democrats are trying to hold on to a one-seat majority, knowing that the odds appear stacked against them given Manchin’s retirement and the fall of his seat to a Republican.
Elsewhere, the party faces an uphill battle, with incumbents trying to hold on to 23 seats, often in states that have become increasingly pro-Republican as Trump has tightened his grip on the party.
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In contrast, only eleven Republican senators are up for re-election, all in solidly Republican states, giving Democrats much less room to make gains.
The most vulnerable incumbent Democrat is widely considered to be three-term Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who — if the polls are correct — is likely to face defeat by a Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy, an ex-Navy Seal who is endorsed by Trump .
A win for Sheehy, whose campaign has faced accusations that he made racist comments about the state’s indigenous community, could in itself be enough to flip the Senate into Republican hands — unless Democrats succeed in removing an incumbent. to be dethroned elsewhere.
Brown’s race in Ohio is rated a flop by the Cook Political Report. Brown is facing a challenge from Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer and immigrant from Colombia who has also aligned himself with Trump.
Some $500 million has been invested in advertising spending, making it the most expensive Senate race in history. Brown has sought to emphasize shared policy goals with Trump — including supporting anti-fentanyl legislation — in a one-time battleground state that the Republican presidential nominee is expected to hold comfortably.
This tactic may well work, as recent polls show the 71-year-old Brown with a marginal lead.
Also crucial are the races in the Democrats’ three blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, whose closeness mirrors the sharp presidential battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic incumbent Bob Casey, a senator for 18 years, is seeking a fourth term despite a challenge from Republican Dave McCormick. McCormick, who has funded his own campaign, has tried to tie Casey to the same policies for which Trump has attacked Harris, namely immigration and past support for a fracking ban.
The race has been labeled by the Cook Political Report as a battle, like the one in Wisconsin between another incumbent Democrat, two-term Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde, a wealthy banker and real estate developer who is also a different party. . self-funding the campaign.
Democrats are also on the defensive in Michigan, where House of Representatives member Elissa Slotkin is running to fill the seat left vacant by the retirement of a fellow Democrat, Debbie Stabenow. Her Republican opponent is Mike Rogers, a former Republican House member and ex-FBI agent who was once a critic of Trump but has now won his support.
Another Democratic weak spot is Nevada, where the party’s incumbent senator, Jacky Rosen, is in a tight race with Sam Brown, a decorated Army veteran who was seriously injured in Afghanistan. Brown has tried to fend off Rosen’s attacks on his abortion position, saying he would not support a nationwide ban and acknowledging that his wife once underwent the procedure.
In Arizona, Ruben Gallego, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, is trying to keep a seat in the Democratic camp after the retirement of the independent senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who voted with the party in the House. Opposing him is Kari Lake, a Trump ally who baselessly claimed her failed 2022 bid for the state’s governorship was derailed by Democratic cheating.
Against that promising landscape for Republicans, Democrats have only a small number of potentially winnable Republican Party seats in which to make waves.
Chief among them is in Texas, where outspoken 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is facing a well-funded challenge from Colin Allred, a former football pro turned civil rights lawyer. Democrats hope Allred can go one step further than Beto O’Rourke, who narrowly failed to dethrone Cruz in the 2018 Senate race, losing with 2.6% of the vote.
Another hopeful, if less likely, Democratic hunting ground is Nebraska, where Republican incumbent Deb Fischer is being challenged by Dan Osborn, an independent labor leader.
Both the Texas and Nebraska races recently saw their pro-GOP strength downgraded from “lean Republican” to “likely Republican” by the Cook Report.
Read more about the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Chris Stein contributed reporting
