United States Senate Democratic Party primaries, 2018
Elections to the U.S. Senate were held on November 6, 2018. A total of 33 of the 100 seats were up for regular election. Special elections were also held to fill vacancies that occurred in the 115th Congress. These took place for the seats previously held by Al Franken (D) in Minnesota and Thad Cochran (R) in Mississippi.
This page provides an overview of U.S. Senate Democratic Party primaries, including which races have been identified as competitive, when elections are being held, and how the media has covered them.
Heading into the election, the Republican Party held 51 seats in the chamber. Democrats held 47 seats, and the remaining two were held by independents who caucus with the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party faced greater partisan risk in 2018, as they were defending 26 seats (two of which were held by independents), while nine seats up for election in 2018 were held by Republican incumbents. The Democratic Party had to defend seats in 10 states that supported Donald Trump (R) over Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016.
Primary elections—in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political party's candidate for elected office to run in the general election—do more than simply select candidates. They often determine a party's self-definition. In September 2017, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said of the future of the Democratic Party, "We're going to have a fight. There's no question about it."[1]
The ideological divide between progressive and moderate Democrats highlighted during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary remained as the party sought to redefine itself under the Trump administration. Beyond policy differences, limited resources will also play a role in how fiercely contested Democratic primaries will be. "The Democratic Party now has more candidates than it can support, and next spring is likely to be a season of what national Democratic officials tactfully refer to as 'messy primaries,'" The New York Times reported in November 2017.[2]
Those elected to the U.S. Senate in the 33 regular elections on November 6, 2018, began their six-year terms on January 3, 2019.
This page focuses on the U.S. Senate Democratic primaries. For more in-depth information about the U.S. Senate Republican primaries and general elections, see the following pages:
Partisan breakdown
Heading into the election, the Republican Party held the majority in the U.S. Senate. Republicans had 51 Senate seats while Democrats had 47 Senate seats. Two seats were held by independents who caucus with the Democratic Party. The Republican Party lost two seats in the 2016 elections but maintained its Senate majority.
| U.S. Senate Partisan Breakdown | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | As of November 5, 2018 | After the 2018 Election | |
| Democratic Party | 47 | 45 | |
| Republican Party | 51 | 53 | |
| Independent | 2 | 2 | |
| Vacancies | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 100 | 100 | |
Democratic primaries
By date
March
May
- United States Senate election in Indiana (May 8, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Ohio (May 8, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in West Virginia (May 8, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Nebraska (May 15, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Pennsylvania (May 15, 2018 Democratic primary)
June
- United States Senate election in Mississippi (June 5, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Montana (June 5, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in New Jersey (June 5, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in New Mexico (June 5, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Maine (June 12, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Nevada (June 12, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in North Dakota (June 12, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Virginia (June 12, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Maryland (June 26, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Utah (June 26, 2018 Democratic primary)
August
- United States Senate election in Tennessee (August 2, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Michigan (August 7, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Missouri (August 7, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Hawaii (August 11, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Connecticut (August 14, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Minnesota (August 14, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Vermont (August 14, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Wisconsin (August 14, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Wyoming (August 21, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Arizona (August 28, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Florida (August 28, 2018 Democratic primary)
September
- United States Senate election in Massachusetts (September 4, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Delaware (September 6, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in New York (2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate election in Rhode Island (September 12, 2018 Democratic primary)
By state
Arizona
Connecticut
- Christopher S. Murphy (Incumbent) ✔
Delaware
- Tom Carper (Incumbent) ✔
- Kerri Evelyn Harris
Florida
- Bill Nelson (Incumbent) ✔
Hawaii
- Mazie K. Hirono (Incumbent) ✔
Indiana
- Joe Donnelly (Incumbent) ✔
Maine
Maryland
- Ben Cardin (Incumbent) ✔
- Erik Jetmir
- Chelsea Manning
- Marcia Morgan
- Jerry Segal
- Richard Vaughn
- Debbie Wilson
- Lih Young
Massachusetts
- Elizabeth Warren (Incumbent) ✔
Michigan
- Debbie Stabenow (Incumbent) ✔
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
- Claire McCaskill (Incumbent) ✔
- Angelica Earl
- David Faust
- Travis Gonzalez
- John Hogan
- Leonard Steinman II
- Carla Wright
Montana
- Jon Tester (Incumbent) ✔
Nebraska
Nevada
New Jersey
- Bob Menendez (Incumbent) ✔
- Lisa McCormick
New Mexico
- Martin Heinrich (Incumbent) ✔
New York
This primary was canceled and this candidate advanced:
- Kirsten Gillibrand (Incumbent) ✔
North Dakota
- Heidi Heitkamp (Incumbent) ✔
Ohio
- Sherrod Brown (Incumbent) ✔
Pennsylvania
- Bob Casey Jr. (Incumbent) ✔
Rhode Island
- Sheldon Whitehouse (Incumbent) ✔
- Patricia Fontes
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
- Bernie Sanders (Incumbent) ✔
- Folasade Adeluola
Virginia
- Tim Kaine (Incumbent) ✔
West Virginia
- Joe Manchin III (Incumbent) ✔
- Paula Jean Swearengin
Wisconsin
- Tammy Baldwin (Incumbent) ✔
Wyoming
Seats up for election
There were 23 Democratic seats, eight Republican seats, and two seats held by independents up for regular election in 2018. In 2018, the Democratic Party needed to pick up two seats in the Senate in order to regain the majority they lost in 2014. This was unlikely as there were so few Republican seats up for election.[3]
Battleground primaries
Ballotpedia identified 79 Democratic federal and state battleground primaries in 2018.
Two of those 79 Democratic races were for seats in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Senate battleground primaries
- United States Senate election in Delaware (September 6, 2018 Democratic primary)
- United States Senate special election in Minnesota (August 14, 2018 Democratic primary)
Media coverage
The media highlighted various events that potentially impacted the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections. This included major policy developments, the outcome of certain interim or special elections, and noteworthy national and international events. Such stories assessed the impact of these major events on the 2018 elections for the U.S. House or U.S. Senate, and sometimes, both.
Democratic primaries
- Katrina vanden Heuvel discussed the state of the progressive insurgency in the Democratic Party in an Atlantic article (August 16, 2018):
- "How do you cover an insurgency like the one now roiling the Democratic Party? The mainstream media’s treatment would give readers a severe case of whiplash. The 2018 primaries had barely started when The New York Times announced the virtual demise of the movement sparked by Bernie Sanders. Then, when newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez eviscerated Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, in a New York primary, the Times ran a story headlined There Is a Revolution on the Left, warning that 'a new generation of confrontational progressives has put Democrats at the precipice of a sweeping transition.'
- "To date, the reform movement has made its greatest gains in the war of ideas. This shouldn’t be surprising. The reforms that the activists are championing are bold, striking, and address real needs: Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, a $15 minimum wage, universal pre-K, a federal jobs guarantee, a commitment to rebuild America, a challenge to big-money politics, police and prison reforms, and a fierce commitment to liberty and justice for all."
- "Moreover, the media too often assume that if the movement candidate has lost, a 'moderate' has won. ... The media need to focus less on the horse races and more on what’s being built and what’s being discarded. The insurgency is neither on its deathbed nor about to sweep out the old. Indeed, Democrats are still in the early stages of a huge debate on the party’s direction. Insurgent candidates are only starting to build the capacity to run serious challengers."[4]
Presidential data
The following section compares data from recent presidential and gubernatorial elections with the party of the incumbent in each 2018 Senate race. These trends can be used as an early indicator of expected competitive Senate races in the 2018 elections. All of these statistics predict that the Democratic Party will be far more vulnerable than the Republican Party in the 2018 Senate elections.
- There were 10 states with a Democratic incumbent that Donald Trump won in 2016: Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and only one state with a Republican incumbent that was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016: Nevada.
- There were 13 states with a Democratic incumbent that have a Republican governor: New Mexico, North Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine but no states with a Republican incumbent and a Democratic governor.
- There were four states that Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012 that were won by Donald Trump in 2016: Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin but no states that were won by the Republican nominee in 2008 and 2012 (McCain and Romney) which were won by Hillary Clinton in 2016:
Race ratings
The following table compares the most recent race ratings from The Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections.
Special elections
Special elections made up the bulk of Ballotpedia's congressional election coverage in 2017. Special elections to Congress occur when a legislator resigns or is removed from office. Depending on the specific state laws governing vacancies, a state can either hold an election within the same calendar year, or wait until the next regularly scheduled election. Since 2016 was a presidential year, there were more special elections than normal for members of Congress chosen for cabinet positions.
The table below lists special elections to the 115th United States Congress.
Noteworthy primary results
• California’s U.S. Senate top-two primary
Incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), seeking her sixth term in office, advanced to the general election for U.S. Senate in California, along with second-place finisher state Sen. Kevin de León (D).[7]
Feinstein, who won her 2012 re-election bid by 25 points, had support from national and state party figures, including former President Barack Obama (D), former Vice President Joe Biden (D), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Gov. Jerry Brown (D). De León received major endorsements from the Service Employees International Union of California, California Nurses Association, and California Labor Federation AFL-CIO but struggled to match Feinstein’s $10.3 million in cash on hand.[8] He raised $1 million in the first quarter of 2018 with $672,000 in cash on hand.[9]
Primary competitiveness
A contested primary is one in which voters have a choice on the ballot. Most commonly, this means that there is more than one candidate from the same political party in the race. Exceptions to this include states with multi-member state legislative districts and states featuring a top-two primary system, such as California and Washington.
The following chart compares the number of open seats, incumbents with primary competition, contested partisan primaries, total seats, and total candidates in 2018 versus 2016 and 2014:
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ TIME, "Divided Democratic Party Debates Its Future as 2020 Looms," September 21, 2017
- ↑ The New York Times, "A Post-Obama Democratic Party in Search of Itself," November 1, 2017
- ↑ Slate, "Are You Dreaming of Democrats Taking the Senate in 2018? Time to Wake Up." November 14, 2016
- ↑ The Nation, "The Democratic Insurgency Is Winning the War of Ideas," August 26, 2018
- ↑ While technically a general election, the April 18 election was functionally a top-two primary because no candidate received the 50 percent of the vote required to win the race outright.
- ↑ June 20, 2017, runoff election between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff.
- ↑ Politico, "California Primary Results 2018," June 6, 2018
- ↑ National Nurses United, "Nurses Endorse Kevin de León for U.S. Senate," February 12, 2018
- ↑ San Francisco Chronicle, "Feinstein has huge lead on de León in money race for California’s Senate seat," April 17, 2018
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