The Senate alone didn’t tell the full story of the GOP sweep. | M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO GOP takes control of Senate

Republicans seized control of the U.S. Senate and were on track to expand their grip on the House of Representatives and governorships in the 2014 elections, marking a dramatic midterm rout that cut deep into territory President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party won by commanding margins only two years ago.

With several Democratic-held Senate seats still up for grabs, the GOP has already captured more than the six seats required to take the upper chamber of Congress. Their candidates ousted Democratic incumbents in North Carolina, Arkansas and Colorado and sailed into the open seats of retiring Democrats in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana. A seventh Republican candidate, Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst, won a brutally competitive open-seat race in Iowa to pad the GOP’s new majority.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, released a statement conceding that his party had lost control of the chamber and congratulating his GOP counterpart, just-reelected Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together,” Reid said. “I look forward to working with Sen. McConnell to get things done for the middle class.”

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The Senate alone didn’t tell the full story of the GOP sweep: Across the map, Republican candidates startled Washington – including leaders in their own party – by ousting entrenched Democratic lawmakers and beating back energetic challengers on difficult turf.

The GOP reelected divisive governors in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas and Maine, and booted incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn out of office in Obama’s home state of Illinois. In deep-blue Maryland, Republican Larry Hogan became only the second member of his party to win the governor’s office since Spiro Agnew. The party took Massachusetts, too, electing Charlie Baker governor in his second run for the job.

In the House, Republicans defeated 36-year incumbent Nick Rahall in West Virginia and snuffed out South Florida Democrat Joe Garcia’s congressional career after just a single term. In deep-blue New York, Republicans took over House seats on Long Island, upstate near Syracuse and in the North County along the border with Vermont, and reelected Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm in the face of a multi-count federal indictment. As the returns keep trickling in, the congressional GOP’s margin of control is certain to grow.

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It may take days – or weeks – to measure the full scale and sweep of the Republican victory. A Senate race in Louisiana is headed to a runoff vote on Dec. 6, while the slow-counting state of Alaska may take days to resolve the race between first-term Sen. Mark Begich and Republican challenger Dan Sullivan.

But if the breadth of the Republican triumph is still being tabulated, party leaders quickly hailed the election results as a rebuke to the White House and a mandate for change in Washington during the final two years of the Obama presidency.

Mitch McConnell, basking in the glow of a titanic victory over his Democratic opponent, declared that this vote marks the start of a “more important” task – “the race to turn this country around.

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Typically a sharp-elbowed partisan, the Kentuckian struck an uncharacteristically conciliatory note in his moment of triumph.

“I don’t expect the President to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. He knows I won’t either. But I do think we have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree,” McConnell said. “Just because we have a two-party system doesn’t mean we have to be in perpetual conflict.”

There were a smattering of bright spots for Democrats, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule: In Michigan, Democratic Rep. Gary Peters dispatched Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land in a race the GOP once hoped could break their way. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen turned back a stiff challenge from former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown.

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In Pennsylvania, wealthy Democratic businessman Tom Wolf ousted Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. And in northern Florida, Democrat Gwen Graham defeated Republican Rep. Steve Southerland in a conservative-leaning district, handing her party their only House pickup of the night so far.

But Democratic leaders made few efforts to sugarcoat the results of the election, which saw even some of the party’s prized 2014 recruit go down by ruinous margins.

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, long neck and neck in her race against McConnell, ultimately lost by nearly 16 points. Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, once viewed as a possible catalyst for turning the Lone Star State blue, got buried in the governor’s race there by 21 points and nearly 900,000 votes.

As the night began, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave a grim prognosis for the evening ahead to reporters at Democratic Party headquarters in Washington.

“It’s a difficult night,” she acknowledged. “We can’t predict what will happen.”