Republicans Got More Votes Than Democrats in Senate Races

Republicans may not have gotten the "red wave" they wanted in last week's midterms. But with only a small percentage of votes left to be counted, Republicans appear to be on the path to accomplish something the GOP has not been able to do in a half-decade: win the popular vote.

After earning fewer votes nationwide than Democrats in three straight elections, the GOP saw approximately 544,000 more people across the country vote for a Republican Senate candidate than a Democratic one last Tuesday. This represents the first time the party has won the popular vote since regaining majority control of the Senate in 2014.

When expanded to states without a U.S. Senate race this election cycle, numbers from the Cook Political Report show more than 4,986,000 voters supported a Republican at the top of their ballot over a Democrat, as Republicans drove up the numbers in several congressional and gubernatorial contests.

However, the numbers ring somewhat hollow. While Republicans outran Democrats by roughly 1.7 percentage points in U.S. Senate races this cycle, this still falls well below the 5.7 percent margin achieved by Republicans six years ago. It also lags well behind the record-setting 8.6 percent margin Democrats achieved in the "blue wave" election of 2018.

Meanwhile, Democrats now have a clear Senate majority in the next Congress after flipping control of a Republican-held seat in Pennsylvania, leaving the Senate evenly divided. (Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie vote.) If they win a runoff election in Georgia next month, they will add only to their control of the chamber.

Historically, this was also a smaller "wave" election than has been seen in recent history.

With all votes taken into account, Republicans outran Democrats by just 4.9 percent overall. The Republican lead could be whittled down further following the counting of additional ballots in Arizona and in deep-blue California, where roughly 35 percent of precincts have yet to submit their final results.

And where the races were close, GOP candidates ended up on the wrong side of the coin.

Republicans lost a large majority of the "toss-up" races they were expected to win this election cycle, while Republican vote counts were padded by strong GOP performances in big-state races against weaker Democratic candidates. Notable examples included the Florida U.S. Senate race (where Republican Marco Rubio soundly defeated Democrat Val Demings by more than 1.27 million votes) and the Texas governor's race, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott soundly defeated Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke by nearly 890,000 votes.

Some prominent Republicans, like Conservative Political Action Coalition Chairman Matt Schlapp, appeared to question the results in the days following the elections, arguing that Democrats "ran the same Corona voting scheme" of "filling out and returning dubious ballots" by mail. Some conservatives argue that scheme handed Democrats the 2020 presidential election.

"[The red wave that] seemed to be there in the polling—was definitely there in the issue set—stumbled," Schlapp told Fox News' Stuart Varney on Monday. "And why did it stumble? Well, it looks like, despite getting 53 percent of all the votes for the House and 51 percent of all the votes for the Senate—which should result in us winning at least 50 percent of these close contests—every contest that went to extra innings.... We seem to lose almost every single one of them. No transparency.

"Democrats ran the same play in 2022," Schlapp continued. "They ran it in 2020. In Pennsylvania, in Michigan, and Wisconsin and all these important states. And so a lot of Republicans are wondering how you can get more votes and yet lose so many of these races."

Some observers, like Cook Political Report analyst Dave Wassermann, highlighted other factors that could have contributed to the lack of movement in the GOP's favor in this year's U.S. House races. Those factors include strong Democratic incumbents defeating weaker Republican challengers, low turnout in urban seats considered safe for Democrats and a larger than usual share of uncontested Republican House races.

But that seeming lack of movement could also be a matter of perspective.

While Republicans did not have the night they hoped, most projections show the party is still likely to regain its majority in the House this cycle, largely thanks to the GOP's overperformance in liberal strongholds like New York and Oregon. Meanwhile, this cycle's results only build on preexisting momentum from the last election, in which Republicans gained 14 seats.

In that sense, one could say the "red wave" may have come in two installments. If current projections hold, political forecasters predict Republicans stand to have gained between 24 and 32 seats over where they were in 2020, representing one of the largest partisan swings in U.S. history.