This year, Democratic Senate candidates held 11 seats and flipped one in Pennsylvania, retaining control of the evenly split chamber. Although Republicans were able to hold on to more seats, 20, their failure to flip Nevada and Arizona, combined with their loss in Pennsylvania, prevented them from taking over the Senate.
Georgia’s Senate race is still to be decided in a runoff election next month. But even if Republican Herschel Walker unseats Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrats will have 50 seats—along with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
If the runoff vote goes in the Democrats’ favor, it will be the first time the party has made a positive net gain in the Senate during the midterms since 1962, when the Democrats gained two seats. Should Warnock be ousted by his Republican challenger, the Democrats would still have their biggest Senate gain since the 1998 midterms, when Bill Clinton was president and the party had a net gain of zero Senate seats.
In last Tuesday’s elections, Democrats managed to keep more Senate seats than they did in both the 2010 and 2014 midterms, when Barack Obama was president. In 2010, Republicans had a net gain of six seats—winning four seats held by retiring Democrats and defeating two incumbents. However, Democrats were able to maintain control of the Senate with 51 seats. That was also the last time the party had outright majority control of the chamber.
This year’s midterms were also better for the Democrats than the 2014 midterms, when Congress was hit with a massive red wave that saw the largest Senate gain by either party since 1980. In 2014, Republicans not only made a net gain of nine seats but won control of the Senate after defeating five Democratic incumbents and picking up four open seats.
Compared with the last midterms, when Donald Trump was in the White House, Democrats failed to make as many gains as the party of the sitting president did in those 2018 races. Four years ago, Republicans made a net gain of two seats, bringing their total to 53 and making it easier for Trump to pass more of his agenda with a GOP-controlled Senate.
If Democrats lose in Georgia next month, the party will continue to be confronted with an evenly divided Senate. Political scientist Steven Schier predicts that will mean the second half of Biden’s presidency will be marked by the same partisan conflict that occurred in the first half.
American University government professor James Thurber said that because neither party will have the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster, the next Congress will reflect the same polarization and gridlock that took place over the past two years, even if Warnock wins reelection.
As national politics have increasingly bled into state and local politics, midterms have become largely viewed as a referendum on the sitting administration rather than on individual politicians. Winning an outright majority in the Senate would be a way for the White House to show that it’s still “keeping their heads above water” with the American public, Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told Newsweek.
Despite the Democrats’ success in the Senate, they are still expected to lose control of the House, which will present other problems for Biden.
Without control of both chambers, his administration is poised to see fewer legislative wins. Susanne Schwarz, an assistant political science professor at Swarthmore College, said that presidents typically have a narrow window for passing their policy agenda before the parties turn their focus back on campaigning.
“Newly elected Republicans will have an eye toward the 2024 presidential race and thus have little incentive to pursue a bipartisan policy agenda,” Schwarz said.
