Republicans are projected to win back control of the U.S. Senate following Tuesday’s 2024 general election.
As of this article’s publication, the GOP has secured at least 51 seats to create a governing majority in the upper chamber. This will give Republicans a Senate majority for the first time since 2020.
In addition to winning races in traditional GOP states such as Texas and Florida, Republicans made several pick-ups in seats currently occupied by Democrats.
In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno defeated incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown to win one of the Buckeye State’s Senate seats. Brown has held the seat since 2007.
Republicans also experienced a pick-up in West Virginia, where GOP Gov. Jim Justice handily beat Democrat Glenn Elliott to fill the seat of retiring Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin.
Several highly contested races have yet to be called as of 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
Preliminary election results show Republican Tim Sheehy leading incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Tester by roughly 4.5 points. Wisconsin’s Senate matchup showed similar margins, in which Republican Eric Hovde leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin by roughly 2.5 points, according to The New York Times.
Nevada’s contest produced tighter margins, with incumbent Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen trailing Republican Sam Brown by less than 1 point with 77 percent of votes tabulated, according to early results. In Pennsylvania, Republican Dave McCormick leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Bob Casey by 1.3 points with 94 percent of the vote in.
Preliminary results also show Republican Mike Rogers leading Democrat Elissa Slotkin by 4.7 points with 70 percent of votes counted.
While it’s unclear how large Republicans’ final Senate majority will be, the party knows for certain it will have a new leader next year. In February, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell announced he would be stepping down as leader of the Senate GOP.
The Kentucky senator regularly betrayed conservative principles throughout his tenure in leadership. In addition to shipping endless amounts of U.S. taxpayer money to Ukraine to fund its forever war against Russia, McConnell spearheaded “negotiations” earlier this year on a horrendous border bill that enshrined the Biden-Harris open border policies into federal law.