Election 2012: Dems expand their Senate majority – but how much?
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- Published on November 7th, 2012
At the beginning of the cycle, the GOP was convinced it was going to win back the Senate. But a funny thing happened on the way to the election… again.
Just like last time, the GOP primary electorate went for hard-line, ultra-conservative and Tea Party candidates, which just like last time probably cost them the majority they crave.
- In red-state Missouri, Claire McCaskill was deeply vulnerable… but was blessed with anti-abortion zealot Todd Akin as an opponent
- In Indiana, Dick Lugar would have been happy to win once more for the GOP. But Rep Richard Mourdock decided Lugar wasn’t conservative enough, the knives came out… and then Mourdock shot himself in the foot, again over abortion and rape. (Quip of the night, from Red State: “I guess God intended Richard Mourdock to throw away Indiana for us”)
- In Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson lost at least as much as Tammy Baldwin won.
- Weak candidates also torpedoed GOP chances in FL, CN, ME, OH and PA.
- Shelley Berkley ran substantially behind Obama in Nevada; a stronger candidate should have won that race.
- For a while we thought we had a decent candidate in Richard Carmona in Arizona, but he fizzled.
- The surprise primary victory of Tea Partier Deb Fischer should have given us an opening in Nebraska, but Bob Kerrey just forgot how to campaign in his long years away from the Senate (or maybe Nebraska really is a different state than when he was a popular Governor and Senator… 20 years ago).
And the races in Montana and North Dakota remain too close to call, although Dems lead in both. So we could see as many as three pickups… or only one. Either way, that’s a big improvement over the way things looked at the start of the year. Next up: Filibuster reform!
Here’s our rundown of the tightest races. “Tossup/lean/etc” indicates a consensus of where the seat stood going into the election; bold indicates the winner, * indicates party holding the seat going in.
| Arizona | Tossup… | Carmona |
|
GOP Hold | ||
| Conn. | Lean D… | Murphy | McMahon | Dem Gain | ||
| Florida | Likely D… | *Nelson | Mack | Dem Hold | ||
| Hawaii | Likely D… | *Hirono | Lingle | Dem Hold | ||
| Indiana | Tossup… | Donnelly | *Mourdock | Dem Gain | ||
| Mass | Lean D… | Warren | *Brown | Dem Gain | ||
| Maine | Lean I… | King (Ind.) | *Summers | Dem Gain | ||
| Missouri | Lean D… | *McCaskill | Akin | Dem Hold | ||
| Montana | Tossup… | *Tester | Rehberg | too close | ||
| N. Dak | Tossup… | *Heitkamp | Berg | too close | ||
| Nebraska | Likely R… | *Kerrey | Fischer | Fischer | GOP Gain | |
| New Jersey | Likely D… | *Menendez | Kyrillos | Dem Hold | ||
| New Mexico | Likely D… | *Heinrich | Wilson | Dem Hold | ||
| Nevada | Tossup… | Berkley | *Heller | GOP Hold | ||
| Ohio | Lean D… | *Brown | Mandel | Dem Hold | ||
| Penn. | Lean D… | *Casey | Smith | Dem Hold | ||
| Virginia | Tossup… | *Kaine | Allen | Dem Hold | ||
| Wisconsin | Tossup… | *Baldwin | Thompson | Dem Hold | ||
| West Virginia | Likely D… | *Manchin | Raese | Dem Hold |
(Capital image by MV_Jantzen via Flickr)
