Republicans keep grip on U.S. Senate

The U.S. Senate will remain held by the Republican Party after Tuesday’s election, with the Republicans holding 52 seats versus the Democrats’ 47 seats at press time,

Republicans held their ground in most competitive races, staving off a Democratic wave that could have flipped control of the chamber. While the Democrats held on to seats in Nevada and Colorado, Republicans maintained control of seats in Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey had not led a poll in three weeks; Wisconsin's Ron Johnson had been viewed as a lost cause by national republicans for months.

As of press time, the race between Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Maggie Hassan had not been called.

In one of the only Democratic pickups of the cycle, Tammy Duckworth defeated Sen. Mark S. Kirk in Illinois, putting both Senate seats in Illinois in Democrat control. Kirk, a centrist Republican who served in the US House of Representatives from 2001 until 2010 and has served in the Senate since then, refused to back Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and, shortly before the election, attacked Duckworth's immigrant background, according to the New York Times.

Junior Max Hornung, a Chicago native, believed Duckworth was seen in Illinois as a more populist candidate than Kirk.

“I think her presence is a source of a pride for the state as a champion of the disempowered,” Hornung said. “What her presence will mean for [Illinois] legislatively depends on how the rest of the evening turns out in terms of Senate races.”

Former contenders for the Republican presidential nomination did well, as Marco Rubio won Florida and Rand Paul won Kentucky. John McCain also earned his sixth term as Senator of Arizona, having been brought into national headlines earlier this year after being mocked by Trump for his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, according to the New York Times.

Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware and Massachusetts did not have Senate seats up for reelection, meaning that 36 Democrats and 30 Republicans were not up for re-election.

With the battle for the Senate winding down once, Democrats failed to flip control of the chamber, leaving many to eye wearily at their daunting prospects to do so in 2018.