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| Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) |
Until 2018, no Democrat had won a US Senate seat in the state of Arizona since 1988, with Dennis DeConcini's victory that year. This was a very lengthy losing streak for the Democrats. Coupled with Doug Jones' win the year before in Alabama, these victories took two long-running streaks off of the table for the Democrats. With Joe Biden looking at territory that has traditionally been red at a presidential level (places like Arizona, Georgia, & Texas), I thought it would be worthwhile to take a peak at the states with the longest-running Democratic losing streaks for the Senate, and with them, whether any might take themselves off of the list this coming November. Here are the ten current biggest losing streaks for the Democratic Party in the Senate.
Top 10 Longest Democratic Senate Losing Streaks
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| Sen. Wendell Ford (D-KY) |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1992
Who was the Last Democrat to Win: Wendell Ford
Reason for Him Leaving: Ford retired after three decades of public office in Kentucky, including a stint as governor before he went to the Senate.
Anyone Serve Since?: Nope-the Democrats have certainly run high-profile candidates, but there have been no unexpected vacancies & only three senators since Ford left office.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: The Democrats have run 3 statewide officials for Kentucky Senate since then, but the closest they came was the race to immediately succeed Ford, in 1998. That race pitted then-Rep. Jim Bunning (R), a Yankees Hall of Famer, against then-Rep. Scotty Baesler, a conservative Democratic congressman. Baesler ended up losing by only half a percentage point (and then was humiliated two years later when he attempted to win back his House seat and got crushed by future-Gov. Ernie Fletcher in a 35-point landslide).
Stop the Streak?: I know Democrats get really mad when I say this, but Mitch McConnell is not losing in November. If Alison Ludergan Grimes, Jack Conway, Dan Mongiardo, Scotty Baesler, Jim Gray, and Steve freaking Beshear couldn't win a Senate seat in Kentucky, there's no way that Amy McGrath, who just lost a much more palatable House race, is going to beat McConnell with Trump on the ticket. The best they can hope for is a Beshear eventually wants to run for the Senate, maybe if McConnell's seat opens up in 2026.
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| Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1990
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: Al Gore, Jr.
Reason for Him Leaving: He became Vice President
Anyone Serve Since?: Harlan Matthews was a Democrat who succeeded Gore, but didn't stand for reelection and the seat was lost to future presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Sen. James Sasser was serving with Gore, but lost his reelection bid during the 1994 landslide to future Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: 2006, when the seat opened up by Frist's retirement was surprisingly close. Republicans won with Rep. Bob Corker, but Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. was only 2.72 points behind him.
Stop the Streak?: If Gov. Phil Bredesen couldn't make it into even single digits last year, there's no way that this state becomes competitive short of a Doug Jones/Roy Moore situation. Unlike Georgia or the Carolinas, there's no indication that Tennessee is trending leftward, even with two major metropolitan areas.
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| Sen. David Boren (D-OK) |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1990
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: David Boren
Reason for Him Leaving: Boren retired to become the President of the University of Oklahoma, a position the beloved former governor has held for 23 years.
Anyone Serve Since?: Nope-Boren won by a 60-point margin but wasn't able to ever get another Democrat elected to the Senate.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: Not very, to be honest. Oklahoma is the only state on this list where the Democrats haven't gotten within 10 points since, the only remotely close election was in 2004, when former Rep. Tom Coburn beat sitting-Rep. Brad Carson by 11.56 points.
Stop the Streak?: Probably not. There is some indication that parts of Oklahoma are turning blue, and Rep. Kendra Horn was the first Democrat to win a seat in the US House delegation since 2010, but the red portions of the state are still strong enough it's impossible to imagine any Democrat winning a Senate seat in the state, even though they now have a plausible first-tier candidate in Horn.
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| Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX), right, with Gov. Michael Dukakis |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1988
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: Lloyd Bentsen, Jr.
Reason for Him Leaving: Was appointed by President Clinton to serve as Secretary of the Treasury.
Anyone Serve Since? Yes-former Ambassador Bob Kruegger was briefly appointed to fill Bentsen's seat, but then lost in a landslide against Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: In a good sign for the Democrats, by far the closest the party has gotten to winning a Senate seat in Texas is the last time they were on the ballot, 2018. That year, then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke lost to incumbent-Sen. Ted Cruz by 2.6 points, which led to enormous talk about O'Rourke becoming the future of the party...which he misread as a sign he should run for president (and in the process, fail miserably) rather than pursue the Senate seat in 2020.
Stop the Streak? Possibly. Without O'Rourke, the Democrats have a steeper climb than they might have had against Sen. John Cornyn, but MJ Hegar, who nearly won a House seat in 2018, is doing well in fundraising, albeit nowhere near what O'Rourke would've done (or what Cornyn is doing). Perhaps the biggest question here is if Biden is actually competitive in Texas, and if so, what effect might that have to lift Hegar.
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| Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME) |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1988
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: George Mitchell
Reason for Him Leaving: He retired as part of the mass exodus of 1994 (he was the Senate Majority Leader at the time).
Anyone Serve Since? No Democrats, but Sen. Angus King, who won reelection in 2018, is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: The only state on this list that Hillary Clinton won, Maine is a weird anomaly aided by a long and successful tenure by two women: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of whom have used their popularity to defy the odds in the Pine Tree State. The closest race since Mitchell's last victory was in 1994, when Collins defeated former Rep. Joseph Brennan by 5.3 points.
Stop the Streak? Of all of the states on this list, Maine looks the most promising to finally end the streak for the Democrats. Joe Biden is polling well here, arguably better than Hillary Clinton did, and more importantly, the Democrats have a solid candidate (House Speaker Sara Gideon) against Sen. Susan Collins, who has spent most of her career coated in teflon, but this year has become the least popular senator in the country. You might be able to pull off that title & keep your job in Kentucky, but not in a state as blue as Maine. Polling shows Gideon leading slightly over Collins, and she'll certainly have the closest race of Collins' Senate career, possibly the race that ends the senator's career.
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| Sen. John Stennis (D-MS), right, with President Ronald Reagan |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1982
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: John Stennis
Reason for Him Leaving: He was 88 at the time of his retirement (though he did live long enough to have made it through his next term). He likely wouldn't have been a Democrat in the modern-era, however, being a noted Segregationist who served for 41 years in the Senate, then second only to Carl Hayden.
Anyone Serve Since? Nope-the seats have changed hands a few times since, but despite a couple of Democratic governors none of them appointed D's to the Senate.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: This is a little weird, because it got no press that year, but the Democrats came weirdly close in Mississippi in 2018, the closest they've come to winning a Senate election since Stennis. Former-Rep. Mike Espy came within 7.26 points of beating appointed-Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a runoff election in 2018.
Stop the Streak? Espy & Hyde-Smith are racing against each other again, and most people think this is a foregone conclusion for Hyde-Smith, which it is. I'm curious, though, after both Espy & Hood put in respectable (though losing) margins in Mississippi if there's ever going to be a point where the state with the largest African-American population is able to get their nominee through by having particularly strong turnout. It's worth watching if Espy can keep it to single digits again, even if there's little chance he wins.
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| Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), right, with President Jimmy Carter |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1974
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: Frank Church
Reason for Him Leaving: I'm genuinely surprised it took this long, but Church is the first "most recent Democrat" to go down in a blaze of glory on this list, losing his reelection bid in 1980.
Anyone Serve Since? No-weirdly Larry Craig didn't actually resign after his Minneapolis airport "wide stance" incident (I always think he did), so there hasn't even been an appointment in 43 years.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: Sen. Steve Symms served two terms as a senator in Idaho, and was perhaps even too conservative for the Gem State (Symms' became notorious for smearing Kitty Dukakis with lies during the 1988 presidential election), winning both of those races by slim margins; in 1980 he defeated Sen. Church by less than a point and beat Gov. John Evans in 1986 by 3.12 points.
Stop the Streak? Since Symms' retirement there's never been any real jeopardy, and honestly there's not really a bench for Idaho Democrats. Democrats can't even seem to win the governor's mansion, which was at one point a theoretical possibility for them. It'll probably take a massive scandal and a deep-pocketed Blue Dog to finally end this run.
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| Sen. Gale McGee (D-WY), right, with President John F. Kennedy |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1970
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: Gale McGee
Reason for Him Leaving: McGee wasn't able to handle an impressive use of television advertising from Malcolm Wallop even in a Democratic year, losing by nearly ten points.
Anyone Serve Since? No-we've had a few appointments since, but Wyoming has laws about a Senate seat changing hands through an appointment so what would have been a pickup upon the death of Sen. Craig Thomas ended up being status quo in terms of partisan makeup.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: By far the closest the Democrats have come since was in 1988, when Sen. Wallop nearly lost in a major upset against State Sen. John Vinich, winning by just over 1300 votes (less than a percentage point even in sparsely-populated Wyoming), after an election where Vinich ran as a moderate populist against Wallop, who had become more noted for national than local concerns, a big no-no in a rural state.
Stop the Streak? Honestly, it's one of the most conservative states in the country, so I doubt it. Even with an open seat this year, the Democrats couldn't even get a member of the state legislature to make the plunge and run here.
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| Sen. Frank Moss (D-UT) |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1970
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: Frank Moss
Reason for Him Leaving: Moss, like Church and McGee, also lost in his reelection bid, here being taken out by Orrin Hatch, who just left office.
Anyone Serve Since? Nope-the other seat hasn't had a Democrat in it since the Korean War.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: Despite it being a Democratic year Moss got hammered in 1976, losing by double digits, but the same cannot be said for the 1974 race, where an open seat nearly went blue, as Republican Mayor Jake Garn beat Rep. Wayne Owens by 5.92 points (Owens would later run successfully for his old House seat in the mid-80's).
Stop the Streak? Similar to Oklahoma, a Democrat finally broke through in the House delegation (Rep. Ben McAdams), so there's someone to be "rumored" to run every time there's an opening in the Senate, but as 2018 proved, open Senate seats are no indication that this state can be competitive, even in a state that surprisingly dislikes Trump (by far the "red" state that most took the #NeverTrump movement).
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| Sen. George McGill (D-KS), center with future Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and Attorney General Homer S. Cummings |
Last Elected a Democrat: 1932 (that's not a typo-Kansas hasn't had a Democratic senator in almost 90 years)
Who Was the Last Democrat to Win: George McGill, so Kansas' last Democratic senator was born when Rutherford B. Hayes was still in office.
Reason for Him Leaving: He lost reelection.
Anyone Serve Since? Nope-though Kansas has had Democratic governors since, including incumbent Laura Kelly, none of them have appointed Democratic senators. The other Senate seat has been red since before World War I ended.
Closest the Democrats Have Come Since: The closest the Democrats have come was in 1974, in the wake of Watergate, when Sen. Bob Dole barely won a second term to Rep. Bill Roy (a 1.7 point win for the GOP). It's quite probable that the Republican party would look very different today if Roy had managed the upset over Dole, who after his slim victory was on the GOP ticket twice (1976 and 1996) and ran the Republican caucus in the Senate for nearly a decade.
Stop the Streak? For the first time in a while, it's possible. The Republicans would need to nominate controversial former Secretary of State Kris Kobach (who has already lost a US House seat in 2004 and the governor's race in 2018 to Democrats) to the seat, which is possible, though not guaranteed (Republican establishment figures are rallying around Rep. Roger Marshall for the nomination). If Kobach is the nominee, all bets are off. This is still a state that Donald Trump will win, but he's not popular here in the way most former Republicans have been, and thanks to the Kansas City suburbs & Wichita turning bright blue in 2018, there's hope for the Democrats in the form of State Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former Republican who switched parties right before she ran for this seat. The Democrats have seen the football disappear too often in Kansas to be too excited, but optimism isn't unwarranted if Kobach is the nominee.
There you have it-the ten longest Republican winning streaks in the Senate. Which do you think will be the first to end? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
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