Daniel Hamilton: America's Senate Races 2008

Daniel Hamilton is a Runnymede Borough Councillor and a regular contributor to CentreRight.com

Too close to call

GEORGIA - Senator Saxby Chambliss over Former State Representative Jim Martin

It is a mark of how dire the situation is for the Republicans that they need even consider dedicating scarce financial resources to a race that until only a couple of weeks ago wasn’t on even the most hopeful of Democrats’ radars.  A poll released in late September showing first-term Senator Saxby Chambliss leading former State Representative Jim Martin by only 2% was the first indication that the Republicans may be in trouble in a state George W. Bush carried by seventeen points in 2004.  The poll was widely ignored by political establishment and dismissed as an outlier - until Survey USA and Research 2000 published similar polls showing statistically insignificant Chambliss leads of 2% and 1%.  A poll conducted on 10th October found Chambliss and Martin statistically tied at 45% each.

Despite being more than a little rough around the edges, the plain-talking Chambliss is an effective legislator, taking the chair of the influential agriculture committee during his first term in office.  Martin remains relatively unknown but benefits from higher than usual name ID having lost a state-wide race for Lieutenant Governor two years ago.

The incumbent remains somewhat of a hate figure amongst Democrats for the vile campaign he ran in 2002 where he aired ads questioning his opponent, Vietnam triple-amputee Senator Max Cleland‘s dedication to country, displaying pictures of him alongside Osama Bin Laden.  As the heat in this race continues to rise, look for the Democrats to roll out the big guns on Martin’s behalf.

When all’s said and done, though, Georgia remains a Republican state.  Despite recent polls point to a close race between John McCain and Barack Obama, it is a state McCain is likely to carry.  Unless there is a phenomenally high pro-Obama turn out of black voters in Atlanta and Savannah, sharing a ballot with McCain can only help Chambliss. 

The incumbent, who holds commanding fundraising leads over Martin, should win this race - but it won’t be by much.   

MINNESOTA - Senator Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken vs Former Senator Dean Barkley 

Norm Coleman is one the most likeable people in American politics; clever, witty and self-deprecating.  It is a testament to his positive qualities that he has kept this Senate race competitive at the same time as polls have shown Obama leading McCain in the state by as much as 14%.   

Coleman was first elected to the Senate in 2002 following a bizarre race which saw him face off against former Vice President Walter Mondale, a last minute replacement for incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone who died in a tragic plane crash with his wife and several campaign staff less than a month from election day.

Contrasting Coleman’s dignified response to the Senator’s death alongside the grotesque spectacle of overzealous Mondale supporters hijacking Wellstone’s memorial service and turning it into a partisan political rally, he won the race by a couple of points.  Coleman’s legal term of office not beginning until January 2003, the power to name a replacement for Wellstone until the start of Coleman’s term lay with maverick Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura.   After openly speculating about appointing his dustman to the Senate seat, Ventura opted for his former campaign manager Dean Barkley.  Barkley, who held the Senate seat for less than three months, is running again this year.

As a result of Barkley’s presence on the ballot paper, opinion polls on the Coleman/Franken race have been schizophrenic.  Polls over the past few weeks show Barkley’s support ranging between 14 and 19%, a remarkable showing for a third-party candidate.  49% of Barkley supporters describe Coleman as their second choice as opposed to only 33% who would favour Franken, indicating that the third-party challenge is hurting the incumbent more than his challenger. Recent polling trends show Barkley’s support continuing to rise.   

Barkley’s supporters are keen to note that whilst their candidate remains well behind both Franken and Coleman, the same was true until a week before the 1998 Governor’s election which ultimately resulted in Ventura defeating Norm Coleman and Democrat challenger Hubert Humphrey III by a 37/34/28% margin.

Al Franken, a veteran of the late-night television comedy circuit, is probably the most passionate challenger the Democrats are fielding in 2008.  His passion is also his problem and Coleman’s campaign has effectively sought to portray him as an angry demagogue unsuitable for high office.  Franken is a weak candidate but if pro-McCain turnout in Georgia is likely to benefit Senator Saxby Chambliss, the same logic can be used in Minnesota – strong pro-Obama turnout in Minneapolis, St Paul and the state’s impoverished rural areas can only benefit Franken. 

Coleman has recently suspended all his negative advertisements in an effort to capitalise on the calls for “unity” that carried him over the top in 2002 (“I am not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of the voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want voters to vote for me and not against the other folks”).   

To date, this race has been the most expensive Senate race in the country with Coleman and Franken recording joint expenditures of $22,046,110.  The latest opinion polls show Franken leading 41/37 – a statistical dead heat. Whilst the ultimate outcome of this bizarre race could still conceivably go any of three ways, the stars appear to be lining up nicely for Al Franken. 

OREGON - Senator Gordon Smith vs. Oregon State House Speaker Jeff Merkley

The dapper businessman-turned-Senator Gordon Smith is in the fight of his life to hold onto the Senate seat he first won in 1996.  A social moderate with a strong record on environmental matters, Smith’s long-cultivated image as a centrist have served him well in his Democrat-inclined state.   

Perhaps recognising the Democratic tidal-wave which is set to engulf Senate Republicans this year, Smith was the first GOP Senator to publicly call for an end to the war in Iraq.  His personal popularity in the state remains high but 2008 is not a good year for any Republican candidate, particularly one running in a state as traditionally loyal to the Democrats as Oregon.

At no point during the campaign have any of Gordon Smith’s campaign adverts made any reference to his party affiliation, ending only with the words, “I’m Gordon Smith and I approve this message and working together across party lines”.  Smith dedicated one entire campaign advert to his bi-partisan work with Barack Obama, has run footage of his fellow Oregon Senator Democrat Ron Wyden praising "my friend, my colleague Gordon Smith, who always meets me halfway” and has even name-checked Teddy Kennedy! 

As far as candidates go, Jeff Merkley has hardly set the world on fire.  Despite being the sitting State House Speaker, he struggled to defeat left-wing lawyer Steve Novick in the Democratic primary and his fundraising efforts have been largely cathartic.  When you’ve got Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer funding your race, none of this seems to matter.  Schumer has pledged millions of dollars for television advertising in the closing weeks of the campaign.   

For months, Gordon Smith held a convincing lead over Jeff Merkley.  Those days are gone.  Weeks have now passed since Smith recorded a lead and recent polls show Merkley up by as much as five points.  With Oregon breaking overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, it is difficult to imagine how Gordon Smith is going to keep his head above water.  It’s increasingly looking as if Obama’s coattails are going to hand this seat to the Democrats. 

Certain to change from Republican to Democrat

ALASKA - Senator Ted Stevens vs. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich

Alaska, which delivered George W. Bush a twenty-five point margin of victory in 2004, will be the site of the easiest Democrat Senatorial pick-up of this election cycle. 

On 27th October Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican Senator in history having been in Washington since 1968, was convicted in a federal courtroom on seven counts of accepting more than $250,000 in free home renovations and gifts from an oil contractor.  He now faces up to five years in prison. 

Even before the guilty verdict was delivered the Democrats had an excellent candidate in Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the son of former Alaska Congressman Nick Begich who was killed in a plane crash with House Majority Leader Hale Boggs during his 1972 re-election campaign.  Begich has not been shy about reminding voters who his father was.  Last re-elected in 2006 with 56% of the vote, the nearly 50% of Alaska’s population that either live in Anchorage and its surrounding suburbs are both familiar with and amenable towards him.

In the immediate weeks after the Stevens scandal first broke the incumbent trailed Begich in the polls by more than twenty points but had come back strongly in the weeks before the verdict, no doubt aided by the presence of his Republican colleague Governor Sarah Palin on the Presidential ticket.

For small states like Alaska, retaining congressional seniority is imperative.  Stevens may have represented one of the smallest states in the union but as a result of his tenure in Washington served as ‘ranking member’ on the influential Commerce committee, allowing him to divert literally billions of dollars in funding into Alaska’s coffers.  Similarly, other small-state Senators like Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye (elected 1963) and West Virginia’s Robert Byrd (elected 1958) control the mighty Commerce and Appropriations committees respectively. 

At present, Alaska’s three representatives in Washington DC have a combined total of 82 years of service.  With Alaska’s only Congressman Don Young and Senator Stevens both certain to lose their re-election bids this year, the state will be left with only Senator Lisa Murkowski’s six years.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that the loss of both Young and Stevens at once will consign the state to the Congressional scrapheap for at least the next twenty years. 

Had ‘Uncle Ted’ been acquitted he would have triumphantly jetted back into Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage (another prescient reminder of his ability to “bring home the pork”) in a strong position to retain his seat for another six years.  As it is, all he has to look forward to now is a jail sentence. VIRGINIA - Former Governor Mark Warner over Former Governor Jim Gilmore

When people say there’s nothing certain in politics, they’re wrong.  Former Democrat Governor Mark Warner will defeat his Republican gubernatorial predecessor Jim Gilmore in the Virginia Senate race by as much as thirty points. 

Warner, like so many of the Democratic candidates who are likely to win this year, has worked for years to project a centrist image to voters in his historically Republican state.  As Governor, his approval ratings rarely dipped under 70%, even as he raised taxes in order to fix a budget surplus left by his predecessor Jim Gilmore.  The image of the popular problem solver Mark Warner alongside the guy who made the mess in the first place is a powerful one. Few people can understand why Gilmore has left himself so open to humiliation by choosing to pick a fight with Warner.   

Republicans are not exactly thrilled with Gilmore’s candidacy, nominating him by a narrow margin of 50.3% to 49.7% over political neophyte Bob Marshall at the state convention in June.  Tom Davis, a popular Congressman who has held an ultra-marginal district in the Democrat-leaning suburbs of Northern Virginia/Washington DC since 1994 considered entering the race but balked at the possibility of taking on Warner.  Instead, Davis opted to announce his retirement from the House and is expected to run against the state’s other Senator Jim Webb in 2012. 

Early on in the 2008 election cycle, Warner was widely talked about as the leading opposition Democrat opponent against Hillary Clinton.  He backed away from plans to run for the Presidency in October 2006 and declared his candidacy for retiring Republican Senator John Warner’s (no relation) seat early in September 2007.  Look for Warner to become one of the party’s leading spokesman in the next few years as he plots his candidacy for the Presidency in either 2012 or 2016.

Say hello to Senator Mark Warner. 

NEW MEXICO - Congressman Tom Udall over Congressman Steve Pearce

After thirty years, Senator Pete Domenici, the “big beast” of New Mexico politics is retiring, setting up a contest between Democrat Congressman Tom Udall and Republican Congressman Steve Pearce.   

Udall, a former state Attorney General who has represented the strongest Democratic area of the state (Santa Fe) since 1996 has recorded strong leads over Pearce throughout the campaign.  Pearce is a distinctly unappealing candidate who displays a spectacular lack of either charm or empathy. Campaign adverts have hammered him for past comments he has made suggesting that social security benefits for orphans should be “cut off”.  Udall’s patrician manner and easy-going charm mask a liberal voting record that would better suit New York than socially conservative New Mexico.   

Republicans shot themselves in the foot when they nominated the profoundly unappealing Peace over gutsy Congresswoman Heather Wilson in the primary.  The moderate Wilson, whose political base of Albuquerque is a close-fought political battleground, surprised nearly everyone by winning re-election to her House seat by a wafer-thin margin in 2006.  Whilst Wilson would have made this a race, Pearce has gone out of his way to alienate all but the most conservative elements of the Republican Party. 

Interestingly, if Tom Udall wins this race in New Mexico, Mark Udall gains a seat in Colorado and Gordon Smith survives the Democrat onslaught in Oregon then it will be the first time in history that three cousins have simultaneously served in the Senate.  Of the three, New Mexico’s Udall has the easiest passage to Washington this year.

Likely to change from Republican to Democrat

COLORADO - Congressman Mark Udall over Former Congressman Bob Schaffer

After two terms, the mediocre Senator Wayne Allard is retiring.  It is indicative of the weakness of the Republican’s candidate recruitment efforts this year that the party’s leaders in the Senate were unable to convince popular former Governor Bill Owens to run for this seat.  Instead, the party has been left with Bob Schaffer, an energetic but off-putting former Congressman who lost a Republican Senate primary to beer magnate Pete Coors in 2004.   

The Democrats are fielding Mark Udall, a five-term congressman from the solidly Democratic skiing community of Boulder who informally declared his candidacy for the seat before a single ballot had been cast in the 2004 elections.  Much like his cousin Tom who is standing in New Mexico, Mark Udall is considerably to the left of the average voter in this closely contested swing-state yet his folksy style and populist rhetoric has helped him overcome this problem.  In the battle of ideologies, Bob Schaffer’s ultra-conservatism and not Udall’s mainstream liberalism appears to be the main concern in voter’s minds. 

Colorado has been shifting towards the Democrats since 2004, when Ken Salazar picked up the seat of retiring Republican Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell.  In 2006, the term-limited Owens was succeeded by Democrat Bill Ritter who soundly defeated Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez (whose congressional seat was also lost) by a wide margin.

With such a large Hispanic population in Colorado, immigration has become a crucial issue in this campaign.  Whilst John McCain’s moderate line on immigration reform may boost him a little in the Presidential race, Schaffer’s bellicose utterances on the issue can only handicap his campaign. 

Polling over the past six months has consistently shown Mark Udall to be running a couple of points ahead of his Presidential nominee Barack Obama who has opened up a convincing lead in the state over the past few weeks.  It won’t be a landslide but Mark Udall can look forward to joining his cousin Tom - and, if he survives in Oregon, his cousin Gordon Smith - in the Senate in January.

NEW HAMPSHIRE - Senator John Sununu over Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen

No other Republican Senator up for re-election in 2008 had the cloud of inevitable defeat hanging above his head for as long than the youngest member of the institution, Senator John Sununu.   

Sununu’s roots in New Hampshire run deep: his father was Governor and he served four terms in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 2002.  This year he faces the same opponent that he defeated by a couple of percentage points in 2002, former Governor Jeanne Shaheen.

Despite trailing Shaheen by large margins, it is difficult to point to anything Sununu has actually done wrong during his term of office apart from be up for re-election at the wrong time in the wrong election cycle.  No other state that George W. Bush carried in 2000 has turned against the Republicans with such vehemence as New Hampshire where he currently records a lamentable 9% approval rating.  In 2004 New Hampshire was the only state Bush carried in 2000 that he failed to win in 2004. In 2006, Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes swept aside Republican incumbents in close House races at the same time as popular Democratic Governor John Lynch garnered in excess of 70% of the vote in his re-election bid.  One of the few states that still elects its Governor every two years, the popular Lynch is on the ballot again this year and has already recorded television adverts in support of Shaheen.   

One thing that Sununu still has on his side is his track-record as a fighter.  He came back powerfully in the finals days of the 2002 campaign to defeat Shaheen and he must rely upon the same skill this year.  Sununu may wish to remind voters of Shaheen’s deeply unpopular efforts to create a state income tax whilst in office.  In turn, she will describe Sununu as a rubber stamp for George W. Bush who has voted with the President more than 90% of the time and has consistently supported a war opposed by an overwhelming majority of electors in the state.  She’d be wrong: Sununu has consistently proved he is both independent-minded and more than willing to anger Republican leaders – but that doesn’t seem to matter now.   

Apart from one poll conducted during the Democratic primary season following the dismissal of Shaheen’s husband Bill from the Hillary Clinton campaign for making disparaging remarks about Barack Obama, Sununu has not held a poll lead for nearly eighteen months.   

Sununu could still save his seat but his chance of victory is no more than 20% - and probably a little less. 

NORTH CAROLINA - Senator Elizabeth Dole over State Senator Kay Hagan

It’s looking increasingly likely that this year will bring a humiliating - and even tragic - end to Elizabeth Dole’s forty year political career which has taken her from the Federal Trade Commission to the Reagan Cabinet and, in 2002, the Senate.   

Dole’s likely demise is largely her own fault and is can be put down to her lack of effectiveness in the Senate and lackadaisical attitude towards constituent services.  As head of the Republican National Senatorial Committee during the 2006 election cycle she presided over the Republican’s disastrous performance in that election and official Senate records show that she spent just 20 days in her state in 2005, 13 in 2006 and 50 in 2007.  In total, figures suggest she has spent just 13% of her six year term in the state.   

Her opponent is State Senator called Kay Hagan, a passionate campaigner who has hammered Dole not only on her effectiveness and attention to her constituency but also through some subtle ads which appear to highlight the 72 year old Dole’s advanced years (“I tell you, Liddy Dole is 93“).  Dole holds the Senate seat once occupied by Conservative firebrand Jesse Helms who was popularly known in press circles as "Senator No".  Playing upon the term, Hagan’s campaign have consistently referred to Dole as "Senator Nowhere in North Carolina”.

The incumbent’s non-existent response to Democratic attacks can be seen in either of two ways.  Firstly, one could conclude that Dole made a strategic decision to run a positive campaign focusing on her efforts to support law enforcement officials and strengthen national security rather than firing negative barbs and counterfactuals at Hagan.  Secondly – and more probably – her campaign could be seen as sluggish, aloof and unaware of the peril she was in until it was too late. 

Dole held a poll lead throughout much of the summer but the momentum now seems to be with Kay Hagan.  The incumbent has not held a poll lead for weeks.  Only a massive pro-McCain turnout in North Carolina, which now seems deeply unlikely, can save Dole.

Likely Republican retentions

MISSISSIPI (Special election) - Senator Roger Wicker over Former Governor Ronnie Musgrove

In June this year, the loss of the seat Roger Wicker resigned in the House of Representatives in order to accept an appointment to fill the Senate seat of former Republican leader Trent Lott to Democrat Travis Childers sent shockwaves through the Washington establishment.  “If even a seat in rural Mississippi can be lost to a Democrat“, Republicans asked, “do we have any safe seats?”.  “Could we”, Democrats gleefully speculated, “get our hands on the Senate seat too?”. 

In another candidate recruitment success for Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats’ 2008 Senate campaign, former Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove agreed to make the race.   

It’s worth remembering that whilst Musgrove is a strong candidate, Mississippi electors voted him out of office in favour of Haley Barbour in 2003 following a turbulent few years in which he turned a $230 million budget surplus into a near $700 million deficit.  For avoidance of any doubt, Wicker’s campaign would do well to forcefully remind voters exactly why they fired Musgrove in the first place.   

One thing Wicker cannot be criticized for is complacency.  Despite only being in office since 2008, he has raised an impressive amount of money.  Given that this is a strange race in that the challenger is actually better known than the incumbent, Wicker has been running television advertisements since the beginning of summer touting what he has already achieved in the Senate and promoting his personal, family-focused philosophy. 

This race is going to be close but Wicker should pull it off with a few points to spare. 

KENTUCKY - Senator Mitch McConnell over Bruce Lunsford

The Democrats would love to avenge the defeat of their own leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota four years ago by unseating the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell – and polls show that that McConnell is within striking distance.   

McConnell, who has held the seat since 1984, will be squaring off against businessman Bruce Lunsford who lost the Democratic primary for Governor last year and possesses almost endless financial resources.  It would be surprising if this race did not ultimately end up being the most costly Senate fight this year with McConnell having raised more than $15,000,000 and Lunsford displaying great willingness to spend the fortune he amassed in the healthcare sector. 

To date, McConnell has run a brutal campaign against Lunsford, questioning whether he actually lives in Kentucky and running television ads featuring war veterans criticizing him for putting “profit before patients” in hospitals his companies administer on behalf of the US government.  In turn, Lunsford has been hammering the Senate Minority Leader for acting as “Bush’s waterboy” as well as for his votes to weaken congressional oversight and regulation of the banking sector.  Clearly smelling blood, the Democrats are rolling out the big-guns with both Bill and Hillary Clinton scheduled to campaign for Lunsford in the week before election day.

McConnell is clearly worried.  Last week he fired out an e-mail to Republican supporters in which he declared that “the race for my seat has spilled out of Kentucky and is now the key battle being waged by the liberals who want to have total domination in the House and Senate” and alerting them to the risks of a “liberal juggernaut” ruling Washington.  Such e-mails have helped McConnell haul in nearly $18 million in campaign contributions, nearly three times the $7 million Lunsford has raised ($5.5 million of it coming from his own pocket) which will prove vital in the dying days of the campaign.   

As with Ted Stevens in Alaska, McConnell must be careful to play up the benefits of the seniority he wields as the Senate’s most powerful Republican, even if his ultimate goal of becoming Senate Majority Leader is nothing more than a pipedream. 

Polls indicate that this race is extremely close, with the latest numbers showing either a tie or a narrow lead for McConnell.  A lot will depend on how the state’s voters opt to cast their ballots in the Presidential race (probably for John McCain, narrowly) but the Senate Minority Leader should return to Washington - but not without a severely bruised ego.

MAINE - Senator Susan Collins over Congressman Tom Allen

Maine will provide one of the few bright spots for Senate Republicans in 2008 with popular Senator Susan Collins easily dispatching Democrat Congressman Tom Allen at the same time as the state votes for Obama by a 20% margin.   

Democrats had hoped that this race would mirror that which took place in Rhode Island in 2006 where popular Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee was defeated by former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse in a campaign which tied in the incumbent with the Bush presidency.  Collins, along with her fellow Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, has carefully positioned herself as a bi-partisan centrist and has consistently scored sky-high approval ratings throughout her term in office.  Her commitment to constituent services in a state where the personal touch matters has also been noted.  She has never missed a single vote in the Senate.

Tom Allen, a former Mayor of Portland and Congressman since 1996, may be a strong challenger but the fact remains that he is up against an even stronger incumbent.  If Allen is wise, he will take a few weeks off after the election and prepare for the 2010 gubernatorial election, a race in which he can he reasonably well assured of victory. 

To date, both Allen and Collins have been so cordial towards one another that one could almost describe this race as boring.

There are a still a few weeks left until polling day for him to make the “Collins = Bush = Evil” argument to the state’s voters but only a fool would bet on a Democratic gain in Maine.  Another six years for Susan Collins.

Likely Democrat retentions

LOUISIANA - Senator Mary Landrieu over State Treasurer John Kennedy

The Louisiana Senate race between twelve-year incumbent Mary Landrieu and Democrat-turned-Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy was long regarded as the Republican’s best opportunity to pick up a Senate seat this year.  Kennedy last ran for the Senate as a liberal Democrat in 2004, slamming his former party’s frontrunner Congressman Chris John for his “ultraconservative” positions. 

It would be fair to say that the Democrats are far more confident about holding this seat than they were a year ago.  With several of the Louisiana’s senior Congressman retiring this year, Landrieu’s stature as the delegation’s most senior member has grown and she has been able to capitalize on the benefits of being part of the majority party to steer funding towards the state.  A generally reliable Democrat, Landrieu has been careful to present herself as a social and fiscal moderate whilst being unafraid to use insulting and aggressive prose when referring to the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina. 

One area of concern for Landrieu must be New Orleans, the city where her father served as a wildly-popular, anti-segregation Mayor.  First elected in 1996 by less than 5,000 votes and winning re-election in 2002 by only 30,000, her margin of victory on both occasions has been provided by black voters in the hurricane-devastated city.  Whilst some of these voters have re-located to Baton Rouge, the state’s second largest city, thousands have yet to return and remain scattered across American’s southern states.  It remains to see what kind of an impact this factor will have on the race. 

Nationally, Republicans have blown hot and cold on this seat.  Two weeks ago, the National Republican Senatorial Committee cut off all funding for Kennedy’s campaign before recommitting to it last week after getting nearly giddy with excitement at polling numbers which showed Kennedy within striking distance of Landrieu. 

Despite stellar fundraising and a smattering of mid-summer polls showing Kennedy edging Landrieu, Republican chances in the state now appear slim.  Mary Landrieu will never be safe in this seat - but again looks likely to pull off a narrow victory. 

Certain Republican retentions

ALABAMA - Senator Jeff Sessions over State Senator Vivian Figures
IDAHO - Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch over Former Congressman Larry LaRocco
MISSISSIPPI - Senator Thad Cochran over Erik Fleming
MONTANA - Senator Max Baucus over Bob Kelleher
NEBRASKA - Former Governor/Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns over Scott Kleeb
OKLAHOMA - Senator Jim Inhofe over State Senator Andrew Rice
KANSAS - Senator Pat Roberts over Former Congressman Jim Slattery
SOUTH CAROLINA - Senator Lindsay Graham over Bob Conley
TENNESSEE - Senator Lamar Alexander over Bob Tuke
TEXAS - Senator John Cornyn over State Representative Rick Noriega
WYOMING - Senator Mike Enzi over Chris Rothfuss
WYOMING (Special election) - Senator John Barrasso over Nick Carter

Certain Democrat retentions

ARKANSAS - Senator Mark Pryor is unopposed
DELAWARE - Senator Joe Biden over Christine O’Donnell
ILLINOIS - Senator Dick Durbin over Steve Stauerberg
IOWA - Senator Tom Harkin over Christopher Reed
MASSACHUSSETS - Senator John Kerry over Jeff Beatty
MICHIGAN - Senator Carl Levin over Jack Hoogendyk
NEW JERSEY - Senator Frank Lautenberg over Former Congressman Dick Zimmer
RHODE ISLAND - Senator Jack Reed over Robert Tingle
SOUTH DAKOTA - Senator Tim Johnson over State Representative Joel Dykstra
WEST VIRGINIA - Senator Jay Rockefeller over Jay Wolfe