The End of the Line for Red State Senate Democrats

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— As a part of capturing the Senate this yr, Republicans knocked out the ultimate remaining Democratic senators from a bunch of 20 states which have constantly voted Republican for president since at the very least the 2000 election.

— 1 / 4-century in the past, Democrats held almost a 3rd of the Senate seats from these 20 states. However that tally was down to only 2 main into this election, and Republican victories in Montana and West Virginia decreased it to 0.

— Moreover, 5 different states backed a Democratic presidential candidate at the very least as soon as this century however voted for Donald Trump in all 3 of his elections. Republicans now maintain all the Senate seats in these states as properly.

— In complete, these 25 states maintain half the Senate seats. Realistically, Democrats can’t win future Senate majorities with out making at the very least some inroads again into this now absolutely Republican bloc of states.

Senate Democrats shut out of the reddest states

As a part of profitable again the Senate majority in 2024, Republicans accomplished a process that had been years if not a long time within the making: They lastly received all the Senate seats within the states which have constantly voted Republican for president for at the very least the previous quarter century.

There are 20 states—which account for 40 Senate seats in complete—which have voted Republican for president in at the very least each presidential election this century, and Donald Trump received all of them by double-digit margins in 2024. These 20 states are proven on Map 1.

Map 1: States that voted Republican for president 2000-2024

For the primary time within the historical past of Senate in style elections, Republicans will maintain all 40 of the Senate seats from these states after flipping Montana and West Virginia.

5 different states—Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio—have most of the time voted Republican for president this century, together with backing Trump in all 3 of his elections. Republicans additionally will maintain all the Senate seats in these states, following Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) loss in November. That along with the 20 states recognized on Map 1 equals 25 states, or half of your entire membership of the Senate (50 seats). These account for 50 of the 53 seats Republicans will maintain beginning in January. The three further Republican Senate seats are from Maine, which has voted Democratic in all 7 of the presidential elections this century, in addition to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that are presidential battlegrounds that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2024 however not 2020.

Map 2 reveals the make-up of the Senate following the 2024 election.

Map 2: Partisan make-up of Senate following 2024 election

Democrats now maintain 10 seats in states Trump received in 2024: each seats in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada and a seat apiece in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Granted, we simply noticed the perfect Republican presidential efficiency in 20 years, however this does assist illustrate the Democratic problem within the Senate: They’ve been doing higher in probably the most aggressive presidential states than the Republicans, however they nonetheless will discover themselves within the minority subsequent yr. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is the one Republican in a state that Kamala Harris received in 2024—Collins’s seat is up in 2026, and she or he has already stated she is operating once more.

Collins is now the lone outlier amongst all 100 senators as somebody who continues to carry a Senate seat in a state that hasn’t supported her social gathering’s presidential nominee in a long time. Such outliers have been essential components of previous current Democratic Senate majorities, however they’ll now be all gone. Let’s briefly undergo the historical past.

Map 3 reveals the partisan make-up of the Senate instantly following the 2000 election—our place to begin for figuring out the 20 reliably Republican presidential states proven in Map 1.

Map 3: Partisan make-up of Senate following 2000 election

Discover how a lot completely different the post-2000 map appears in comparison with the post-2024 map. To start with, there are far more break up delegations on this map than on the post-2024 map. Following 2024, there shall be simply 3 break up Senate delegations: Maine, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (this counts independents Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont as Democrats, the social gathering with whom they caucus). Again in 2000, there have been 12 break up Senate delegations, almost 1 / 4 of all of the states. That did successfully decline to 11 by mid-2001 nonetheless, as Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont—Sanders’s predecessor within the Senate—switched from Republican to unbiased and jumped to the Democratic caucus, giving the Democrats a 51-49 Senate majority for roughly a yr and a half earlier than Republicans received again the bulk within the 2002 election.

Extra to the purpose, you possibly can see the Democratic presence within the purple states recognized in Map 1. Firstly of the century, Democrats held 5 of 6 seats within the Dakotas/Montana. That they had a extra strong presence within the South, together with holding each of Louisiana’s seats and, following the 2002 election, each seats in Arkansas, as Mark Pryor (D) beat an incumbent Republican that yr. We level this out simply to notice that whereas the historical past in these states is of Republican acquire and Democratic loss over 1 / 4 century, Democrats did nonetheless generally truly flip management of Senate seats in these states since 2000, however they finally misplaced them in a future election. For example, Pryor would lose to now-Sen. Tom Cotton (R) in 2014, an election yr that hastened the decline of those purple state Democrats, as we’ll focus on under. The final Democratic flip in considered one of these states got here within the 2017 Alabama Senate particular election received by Doug Jones (D), however he would lose that seat in a 2020 common election.

Again in 2000, Senate Republicans additionally had extra of a presence in states which might be extra Democratic on the presidential stage, as they nonetheless held seats in states that constantly voted Democratic for president this century, like Illinois, Oregon, and Rhode Island, and so they even held each seats in a number of states that may go on to vote in opposition to Trump all 3 instances: Colorado, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Republicans additionally held each seats in Maine, though they do nonetheless maintain one there. However Republicans are shut out from the 18 different states that by no means voted for Trump.

Desk 1 tracks the biennial partisan make-up of the 20 purple state Senate delegations beginning in 2000, noting their standing instantly following every even-numbered yr election.

Desk 1: Variety of Democratic senators in states that solely voted Republican for president since 2000

Democrats had rather less than a 3rd of those states’ Senate seats (13 of 40) in 2000, and so they constantly held at the very least 10 seats from these states till the 2014 election. This midterm Republican wave election held throughout Obama’s second time period noticed Republicans internet 9 Senate seats, together with 6 from this group of states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia). That knocked the variety of Democratic seats from these 20 states down to only 4, with the overall lastly falling to 0 on this yr’s election.

Twelve years after that essential 2014 election, that very same class of Senate seats (Class 2) shall be on the poll for an additional midterm, 2026, this time happening throughout the presidency of a Republican, Trump. At first blush, Republicans appear overextended: They’re defending 22 seats, whereas Democrats are defending simply 13. Nonetheless, a lot of their protection must be straightforward. Map 4 reveals the Senate seats up in 2026, which assumes particular elections in Florida and Ohio to fill the seats of the possible subsequent secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Vice President-elect JD Vance. Solely one of many at the moment Republican seats up in 2026—once more, Collins in Maine—is in a state that didn’t vote for Trump all 3 instances he was on the poll. And of these 3-time Trump states, just one of the 21—North Carolina—didn’t vote for Trump by double digits in 2024.

Map 4: 2026 Senate elections

Democratic Senate majorities, together with the one which ended with this most up-to-date election, have typically relied on at the very least a number of members from states that have been unfavorable to the social gathering on the presidential stage. A future Democratic majority most likely does too—profitable all the seats in states that voted in opposition to Trump at the very least as soon as would solely get Democrats to 50 on the nostril, technically sufficient for a majority with a vice presidential tiebreaker however solely achievable, on the earliest, by 2030, due to Sen.-elect Dave McCormick’s (R) slender victory in Pennsylvania this yr. And that may require the Democrats to win or maintain all the seats from these 25 states over the subsequent 3 Senate election cycles, hardly a given.

So the problem for Democrats is determining a solution to as soon as once more win in states which have often or at all times voted in opposition to them on the presidential stage this century. The current historic pattern in such locations is, for Democrats, formidable to say the least.