116th Senate Will Look Much Like The 115th Senate

Posted on the 13 November 2018 by Jobsanger
ARIZONA Senate Race
FLORIDA Senate Race
If you listened to the cable news talking heads on election night, you might think the Republicans scored a huge victory in the Senate elections -- flipping flipping three Democratic seats while losing only one seat. That would have given them a 53 to 47 majority.
But those talking heads were counting chickens before they were hatched. They were right about three seats on election night. The Republicans flipped two seats (North Dakota and Indiana), while the Democrats flipped one (Nevada).
That left two seats to be decided -- Arizona and Florida. While McSally (R) led in Arizona on election night, as more votes were counted Sinema (D) has surged into the lead by over 32,000 votes. While there are still more votes to be counted, it now looks like the Democrats will flip that seat. That makes it 51 to 48 in favor of the GOP.
Then there's Florida, which is very close. Right now, Scott (R) leads by 12,562 out of more than 8 million votes. That has triggered a recount. If Nelson (D) can scrounge up 13,000 votes in the recount, then the GOP majority in the Senate will be exactly what it is right now (51 to 49). If not, then the GOP will have a 52 to 48 edge.
Either way, the Senate is going to look a whole lot like it looks currently. There was no huge red wave for the Senate.
NOTE -- 2020 could flip the Senate though. While most seats up for grabs were Democratic seats in 2018, the opposite will be true in 2020 (with 22 GOP seats up and only 11 Democratic seats). And those Republicans will have the disadvantage of running with Trump at the top of their ticket.