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United States Senate Republican 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 Republican 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.
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 Republican primaries. For more in-depth information about the U.S. Senate Democratic 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 | |
Republican primaries
By date
March
May
- United States Senate election in Indiana (May 8, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Ohio (May 8, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in West Virginia (May 8, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Nebraska (May 15, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Pennsylvania (May 15, 2018 Republican primary)
June
- United States Senate election in Mississippi (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Montana (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in New Jersey (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in New Mexico (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Maine (June 12, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Nevada (June 12, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in North Dakota (June 12, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Virginia (June 12, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Maryland (June 26, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Utah (June 26, 2018 Republican primary)
August
- United States Senate election in Tennessee (August 2, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Michigan (August 7, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Missouri (August 7, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Hawaii (August 11, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Connecticut (August 14, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Minnesota (August 14, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Vermont (August 14, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Wisconsin (August 14, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Wyoming (August 21, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Arizona (August 28, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Florida (August 28, 2018 Republican primary)
September
- United States Senate election in Massachusetts (September 4, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Delaware (September 6, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in New York (2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Rhode Island (September 12, 2018 Republican primary)
By state
Arizona
Republican primary candidatesConnecticut
Republican primary candidates
Delaware
Republican primary candidates
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyFlorida
Republican primary candidatesHawaii
Republican primary candidates- Consuelo Anderson
- George Berish
- Ron Curtis ✔
- Roque De La Fuente
- Robert Helsham
- Michael Hodgkiss
- Eddie Pirkowski
- Thomas E. White
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyIndiana
Republican primary candidatesMaine
Republican primary candidatesMaryland
Republican primary candidates- Tony Campbell ✔
- Chris Chaffee
- Evan Cronhardt
- Nnabu Eze
- John Graziani
- Christina Grigorian
- Albert Howard
- Bill Krehnbrink
- Gerald Smith
- Blaine Taylor
- Brian Vaeth
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyMassachusetts
Republican primary candidatesMichigan
Republican primary candidates = candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyMinnesota
Republican primary candidatesMississippi
Republican primary candidates- Roger Wicker (Incumbent) ✔
- Richard Boyanton
Missouri
Republican primary candidates- Brian Hagg
- Josh Hawley ✔
- Bradley Krembs
- Tony Monetti
- Kristi Nichols
- Ken Patterson
- Austin Petersen
- Peter Pfeifer
- Fred Ryman
- Christina Smith
- Courtland Sykes
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyMontana
Republican primary candidatesNebraska
Republican primary candidates
Nevada
Republican primary candidates- Dean Heller (Incumbent) ✔
- Sherry Brooks
- Sarah Gazala
- Vic Harrell
- Tom Heck
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyNew Jersey
Republican primary candidatesNew Mexico
Republican primary candidates
New York
Republican primary candidatesThis primary was canceled and this candidate advanced:
North Dakota
Republican primary candidatesOhio
Republican primary candidatesPennsylvania
Republican primary candidates = candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection surveyRhode Island
Republican primary candidatesTennessee
Republican primary candidates
Texas
Republican primary candidates
Utah
Republican primary candidates
Vermont
Republican primary candidates
Virginia
Republican primary candidatesWest Virginia
Republican primary candidatesWisconsin
Republican primary candidatesWyoming
Republican primary candidates
Seats up for election
There were 23 Democratic seats, eight Republican seats, and two seats held by independents up for 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.[1]
Battleground primaries
Ballotpedia identified 78 Republican federal and state battleground primaries in 2018.
Eight of those 78 Republican races were for seats in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Senate battleground primaries
- United States Senate election in Indiana (May 8, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Arizona (August 28, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in West Virginia (May 8, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Virginia (June 12, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Utah (June 26, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Montana (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Michigan (August 7, 2018 Republican primary)
- United States Senate election in Wisconsin (August 14, 2018 Republican 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.
Republican primaries
- Jonathan Bernstein discussed the significance of Trump's endorsement in Republican primaries in a Bloomberg article (August 22, 2018):
- "I’ve been impressed with Trump’s recent successes in primary endorsements. After the fiasco in the Alabama Senate special election, he’s been picking likely winners who then won, making Trump look good — and he’s restrained himself and stayed out of some contests in which the winner was difficult to determine in advance or where the Trumpiest candidate seemed unlikely to win. That streak ends in Wyoming."
- "The first tangible consequence for Trump is that he’ll most likely have a Wyoming governor who resents the president’s attempt to defeat him."
- "But the real danger here is that Republican politicians begin to believe that Trump isn’t a threat to them after all. My guess — and it’s only speculation — is that this has been true all along. While a presidential endorsement might move quite a few votes in low-interest primary elections because voters are looking for any kind of cue about who the acceptable candidate might be, it’s a lot harder for endorsements to move votes against an incumbent. Not impossible, but difficult."[2]
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
• Virginia’s U.S. Senate Republican primary
Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart defeated state Del. Nick Freitas by less than 2 percentage points to win the Virginia Senate Republican primary. Minister E.W. Jackson finished third.
Stewart tied himself closely to the president, saying he would run a “vicious, ruthless campaign” against Kaine. Stewart lost the 2017 Republican gubernatorial primary to Ed Gillespie by about 1 percentage point after campaigning on a promise to protect the state’s Confederate monuments.
In the campaign’s final days, Freitas attacked Stewart for his alleged ties to white supremacists and the August 2017 demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia. Stewart said he did not maintain those associations and condemned the violence in Charlottesville.
The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman said Stewart’s win might negatively affect Republican turnout for down-ballot congressional races in November, particularly the seats held by U.S. Reps. Barbara Comstock (R), Dave Brat (R), and Scott Taylor (R). Stewart has said that pro-Trump candidates such as himself are more likely to energize Republican voters.
• West Virginia’s U.S. Senate Republican primary
State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) defeated coal mining executive Don Blankenship (R), Rep. Evan Jenkins (R), and three other candidates for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia. Morrisey received 35 percent of the vote, while Jenkins finished second with 29 percent, and Blankenship was third with 20 percent. The top three candidates all touted their support of Trump and alignment with the President's agenda.
Satellite groups spent more than $4 million on the race, including Mountain Families PAC and Duty and Country PAC, which have ties to the Republican and Democratic national parties, respectively. Blankenship, who served a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards, spent more than $3 million of his own money in the race.[5][6][7]
Republicans considered the Senate race in West Virginia one of the party’s best opportunities to change a seat from Democratic to Republican control. Donald Trump (R) defeated Hillary Clinton (D) in the 2016 presidential election here by 42 points—the largest margin of victory in any state.[8] Morrisey, who unseated five-term incumbent state attorney general Darrell McGraw (D) in 2012, faced Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November.
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
- ↑ Slate, "Are You Dreaming of Democrats Taking the Senate in 2018? Time to Wake Up." November 14, 2016
- ↑ Bloomberg, "Trump Endorsements No Longer Look Like a Golden Touch," August 22, 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, "GOP Senate candidate compares McConnell to the Russians," April 16, 2018
- ↑ Politico, "Blankenship surging on eve of West Virginia Senate primary," May 5, 2018
- ↑ FEC.gov, "2018 Senate Independent Expenditure, State: West Virginia," accessed April 25, 2018
- ↑ The Hill, "West Virginia Senate primary off to raucous start," August 3, 2017
