Nov. 5 (UPI) — Republican Gov. Jim Justice won and flipped the U.S. Senate seat, formerly held by Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin, who decided not to run for re-election.
Votes in other key U.S. Senate races, including Ohio’s contest, are also coming in as polls begin to close. These and other key races will determine the balance of power between Democrats and Republicans with thirty-four seats in the U.S. Senate up for election on Tuesday. The results of these key Senate races will play a major role in the next president’s ability to achieve key policy goals before the 2026 midterms.
Democrats have a majority in the Senate, though they only hold 47 seats to the Republican Party’s 49. Two independent senators — Sen. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — were elected as Democrats before breaking for the party.
West Virginia
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, flipped the state’s open seat Tuesday night, according to NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, after Manchin decided not to run for re-election. Justice, 73, beat Democrat Glenn Elliott, the former mayor of Wheeling.
Justice is the 36th governor of West Virginia, elected in 2016. He is a former billionaire who amassed his fortune by inheriting a coal mining business from his father.
That fortune has greatly declined since 2018, as U.S. energy production has moved away from coal. Justice’s financial downturn led to one of his biggest assets, The Greenbrier Hotel, to face foreclosure due to unpaid debts.
The Justice Companies ultimately reached an agreement with the capital company that purchased the debt to avoid the resort going up for auction for the time being.
Manchin, a one-time Democrat turned independent announced he would not campaign for re-election last year, saying in a statement that he will instead travel the county to “see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”
Manchin was elected in 2018 by a three-point margin over Republican Patrick Morrisey. The state has otherwise favored Republicans in recent years. Former President Donald Trump received more than 68% of votes in the state in the last two general elections. Republican candidates have received 51% of West Virginians’ votes since 2000.
Manchin gave Elliott his endorsement in April before West Virginia’s Democratic primary, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reported.
“The character of the candidate we choose in the Democratic primary is crucial for achieving the results West Virginians need in Washington,” Manchin said in a press release. “Character is one of the most important factors for our state’s success.”
Ohio
The race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Republican Bernie Moreno is too close to call at this point with only 7% of the vote reported. Moreno currently holds 51.5% of the votes to Brown’s 45.8%.
Brown is seeking re-election in a state that has voted Republican in the last two presidential elections. Moreno is running for Senate for the second time after dropping out of the race to succeed Republican Rob Portman in 2022.
Portman’s seat was won by vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
Brown has served in the U.S. Senate since 2007. In 2018, he was re-elected with 2.3 million votes, about 53% of the vote share, over Republican Jim Renacci. He serves on the committees on finance; veterans’ affairs; banking, housing and urban affairs and agriculture, nutrition and forestry.
Moreno is the owner of a chain of car dealerships in the Cleveland area, as well as in Massachusetts and Florida. His businesses have been sued for wage theft, with allegations of not paying overtime and commissions, on as many as a dozen occasions.
Moreno has been endorsed by Trump.
Montana
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester faces a significant challenge seeking re-election in Republican-leaning Montana, running against Republican Tim Sheehy.
Tester has served as Montana’s senator since being elected in 2007, despite Republican presidential candidates winning the state in every cycle since 1992. In 2018, Tester received 253,876 votes, about 50%, to win his re-election bid over Republican challenger Matt Rosendale. Rosendale received 235,963 votes.
Tester serves on the committees on appropriations, veterans’ affairs; Indian affairs; banking, housing and urban affairs and commerce, science and transportation. He is a third-generation farmer that tends the land his grandparents farmed more than 100 years ago.
Sheehy is a former U.S. Navy SEAL Officer who has been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and South America. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 2008 and is a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient. In 2014 he founded Bridger Aerospace, described as an aerial firefighting and aerospace company based in Belgrade, Mont.
This is Sheehy’s first time running for office.
Maryland
An open Senate seat is on the ballot in Maryland after Democrat Ben Cardin announced he would not seek re-election. Democrat Angela Alsobrooks seeks to maintain a seat that has been held by the Democratic Party since 1977. Former Gov. Larry Hogan is representing the Republican Party on the other side of the ticket.
Cardin has held Maryland’s Class 1 Senate seat since 2007. Prior to him, it was long-serving Sen. Paul Sarbanes who occupied the office for 30 years before retiring. The state’s Class 3 Senate seat has also been held by Democrats since 1987.
In 2018, Alsobrooks became the first Black woman to be elected as the executive for Prince George’s County, the second-largest county in Maryland. County executives in Maryland are the head of their county’s executive branch of government.
Alsobrooks was the county’s youngest state attorney and was the first woman elected to that position. Prior to that, she was an assistant state attorney for the county and specialized in domestic violence cases.
Hogan was Maryland’s 62nd governor, serving from 2015 to 2023. He received 884,400 votes for a 51% vote share in his first election and a record of more than 1.2 million votes for a 55.4% vote share in his re-election in 2018. He was the second Republican governor to be re-elected in state history.
Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is seeking re-election for his third term in the Senate, facing a challenge from Rep. Colin Allred.
Cruz was elected to the Senate in 2013, succeeding Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Following a failed campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, he has become a supportive voice for Republican presidential candidate Trump in the Senate.
Cruz won re-election narrowly in 2018, receiving 50.9% of the vote to Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s 48.3%.
In 2020 he launched “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” a conservative podcast focused on political and social issues. It is a weekly program with 267 episodes.
Cruz serves on the Senate committees on foreign relations, rules and administration, the judiciary and commerce, science and transportation.
Allred was elected to represent Texas District 32 in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019. He serves on the committees on foreign affairs and transportation and infrastructure.
In 2006, Allred was signed to the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted rookie. The former Baylor University linebacker played four seasons for the Titans before retiring.
After the 2010 season Allred enrolled in law school at the University of California, Berkely. He became a civil rights attorney and served in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s General Counsel’s office.
Michigan
Longtime Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow is not running for re-election after 24 years in office. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., seeks to maintain Stabenow’s seat for the Democratic Party in a race against former U.S. House representative Mike Rogers, a Republican.
Stabenow was re-elected in 2018 after receiving more than 2.2 million votes. Republican John James received about 1.9 million votes.
Slotkin is completing her first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Michigan District 7. In 2021, she was one of 15 Democrats to not vote for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for House speaker.
“In the spring of 2018, before I was elected, I made a commitment to my constituents not to support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House,” Slotkin said in a statement. “I believed then as I do now, that it is time for new leadership on both sides of the aisle in Washington. And that’s how I have voted.”
Slotkin serves on the committees on agriculture and armed services. She is a former CIA analyst and worked for President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama’s administrations as a national security staff member.
Rogers was Michigan’s District 8 representative in the House from 2001 to 2015. He is a U.S. Army veteran and a former special agent with the FBI. As a lawmaker he served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Arizona
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat is open as the Democrat-turned-independent is not seeking re-election. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is representing the Republican Party in the race against Democrat and District 3 Rep. Ruben Gallego.
A Republican has not won a Senate election in Arizona since 2016 when the late John McCain won re-election in a landslide. In 2018, Sinema was elected as a Democrat, receiving more than 1.1 million votes and 50% of the vote share.
Lake has been among the more vocal critics of the results of the 2020 Presidential Election and maintains the position that former President Trump’s loss was illegitimate, despite a lack of evidence. She has also continued to question and challenge her gubernatorial loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs in 2022. She lost her appeal.
Lake is a former news anchor for FOX 10 Phoenix. She left the Republican Party and voted for Democrats John Kerry and Barack Obama in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. She returned to the Republican Party in 2012.
Gallego is in his first term in the U.S. House. He serves on the committees on armed services and natural resources.
Gallego is a U.S. Marine veteran and was a member of the Arizona Legislature from 2010 to 2014. During his military service he was deployed to Iraq as an infantryman.
