Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner participates with Democratic challenger and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in the final debate in the 2020 race for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S. October
WASHINGTON: Republican Senator Cory Gardner was defeated on Tuesday in Colorado by former Governor John Hickenlooper, giving the Democrats their first victory of an election battle in which they are attempting to win control of the U.S. Senate.
Final results from at least five of the contests may not be available for days, and in some cases, months, however.
Voters are also deciding whether to end the political careers of Trump ally Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and moderate Susan Collins of Maine, among other embattled Republican senators.
In total, 12 Republican-held seats and two Democratic-held seats have been in play, based on a Reuters analysis of three nonpartisan U.S. elections forecasters - the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections.
Gardner, a first-term Republican long seen as his party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbent, lost to Hickenlooper in a formerly Republican state where demographic changes have increasingly favored Democrats in recent years, according to projections by television networks and Edison Research.
To win the majority in the Senate, Democrats need to pick up only three Republican seats if Joe Biden is elected president and Senator Kamala Harris wields the tie-breaking vote as vice president. Republicans now hold a 53-47 seat majority.
Another vulnerable Republican, Senator John Cornyn, was declared the winner against Democratic challenger M.J. Hegar in Texas, a state that appeared to be drifting toward Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the final days of the campaign.
Republican Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won re-election on Tuesday. He was among a number of incumbents from both parties to be declared winners in less competitive races.
McConnell overcame a challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath, a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot who out-fundraised McConnell by $40 million but was unable to overcome Kentucky’s Republican sway.
All told, 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats are up for election.
“There are dogfights all over the country,” McConnell, the top Republican in Congress, said at a campaign stop earlier in the week. He described the possibility of Republicans holding onto the Senate majority as a “50-50 proposition.”
Those odds appear optimistic, based on the three forecasters.
They forecast that Democrats could emerge with as many as 55 Senate seats, giving them a majority for the first time in a decade in both the Senate and the 435-seat House of Representatives, where they are expected to maintain control.
