Where The Race For The Senate Stands
Before the election, Republicans held 53 Senate seats, Democrats 47 (including the two independent senators who caucused with Democrats). But polls suggested that Democrats could net four seats and win the chamber.
That's probably not happening. As expected, ex-football coach and Republican Tommy Tuberville easily defeated Democratic incumbent Doug Jones in Alabama. Democrats appear to have flipped two seats that they were expected to win, with former Colorado Gov. John Hicklooper beating Sen. Cory Gardner and retired astronaut Mark Kelly likely defeating Sen. Martha McSally. (ABC News has not yet called the race but the Associated Press did.) But Republicans Joni Ernst of Iowa and Steve Daines of Montana held off strong Democratic challengers. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also seems likely to win reelection, although that race has also not been called by most news outlets yet.
And Republicans could get an upset. Republican John James is narrowly ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, 49.3 percent to 48.7 percent, although 10 percent of the vote there remains untabulated so either candidate could win.
So the Senate looks like it's 48-47 in favor of Democrats right now. But even if Peters overtakes James, Republicans have a very good chance of winning all three remaining seats and getting to 51 seats overall. Republican Susan Collins of Maine is ahead of her challenger, Democrat Sara Gideon, 50 percent to 44 percent. But about 26 percent of Maine votes are untabulated. Also, Maine uses a ranked-choice voting system. Gideon is likely to be the second choice of most of the supporters of the more progressive independent candidate Lisa Savage. Savage is getting about 4 percent support, so this race favors Collins but could still swing to Gideon.
In Georgia, Sen. David Purdue is narrowly ahead of Democrat Jon Ossoff, 51 percent to 47 percent, but there are a lot of outstanding ballots in that state. If Purdue does not get 50 percent of the vote, the race will go to a Jan. 5 runoff. The Senate special election in Georgia is already headed to a runoff because none of the numerous candidates received 50 percent. Incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock will face off in that race. Both Purdue and Loeffler would be favored in runoffs, since Georgia is a GOP-leaning state.