Republicans secured a majority in the U.S. Senate Tuesday evening with a slew of key victories.
The GOP needed a net gain of six seats to win a majority.
Polls heading into election day showed Republicans were set to get four of those pickups — Arkansas, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. This left the GOP needing to win just two tossup races in states that currently have Democratic Senators.
They scored those pickups Tuesday evening in Colorado, where Rep. Cory Gardner defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall and in Iowa where Joni Ernst beat Rep. Bruce Braley (D).
After locking down the majority, Republicans added to their election night gains when Thom Tillis was declared the winner against incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina.
Kentucky, Georgia, and Kansas, which all currently have Republican senators, were also supposed to be competitive. However, the GOP swept all three of these tossup states where they were playing defense setting themselves up to secure the Senate majority with just two pickups.
Republican Senate Minority Mitch McConnell was declared the winner in Kentucky shortly after the polls closed there Tuesday night. With his win, McConnell is now expected to become the next Majority Leader. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement congratulating McConnell shortly after Ernst's victory was called in Iowa.
"I'd like to congratulate Senator McConnell, who will be the new Senate Majority Leader. The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together. I look forward to working with Senator McConnell to get things done for the middle class," Reid said.
In Georgia, another state where the GOP was playing defense, businessman David Perdue avoided a runoff against Democrat Michelle Nunn in their race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. And in Kansas, another Republican incumbent, Sen. Pat Roberts, defeated independent Greg Orman, who was expected to caucus with the Democrats if he was victorious.
Though they didn't get a pickup, there was also good news for Republicans in Louisiana. Shortly after 9:30 p.m. Eastern, MSNBC, ABC, and Fox all declared the Senate race there will be decided in a runoff next month. Though incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu led her rivals in the initial race, polls indicate she would lose to either of the two top Republicans in a runoff, which will be scheduled for Dec. 6. Unless Landrieu can improve her standing in the next month, the GOP could further pad their majority with a win in Louisiana.
Republicans also got a nice surprise in Virginia where a race that was expected to be an easy win for Democratic Sen. Mark Warner seems to be up in the air based on initial results that show the incumbent essentially neck-and-neck with Republican political operative Ed Gillespie. If Gillespie pulls off the upset, that will be another pickup for the GOP.
Despite all these major wins, not all of the news coming in so far from key states has been good for Republicans.
Another state that was a tossup heading into election day was New Hampshire. However, around 9:00 p.m. both ABC and NBC News called that race for incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. She survived a challenge from Republican former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who crossed the border after losing in the Bay State in 2012.
Initially there were eight key Senate races heading into today's election. Gillespie's stunning performance in Virginia made nine crucial contests. Only two important races remain uncalled — Alaska, where some polls will be open until 1 a.m. Eastern, and Louisiana, which is headed towards a runoff.
Read about all the day's top races below.
Louisiana
Louisiana's Senate race is going to continue for another month.
Multiple news outlets have declared the race will be decided by a runoff on Dec. 6. Louisiana law calls for a runoff if no candidate got 40% of Tuesday' vote.
The likely matchup is Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican candidate Bill Cassidy. Though Landrieu led the three-way contest heading into election day, the same polls showed she would trail either Cassidy or Tea Party favorite Rob Maness in a head-to-head runoff matchup. She will need to improve her standing drastically if Democrats hope to use the extra time in Louisiana to avoid losing another seat.
Alaska
The political class was probably praying the election wouldn't come down to Alaska as polls there don't begin closing until midnight on the East Coast. Voting in Alaska won't be complete until 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
However, the race between the state's Republican former attorney general Dan Sullivan and Democratic Sen. Mark Begich was a close one, which meant it could have been a late night for election watchers if the GOP hadn't locked down a majority without a pickup in Alaska.
Polls have been somewhat divided in Alaska with Sullivan having had a solid lead that was seemingly erased by a few recent surveys that favored Begich. Furthermore, there's been a long history of questionable polling in Alaska making the race even more of a question mark.
Due to the late closure of the polls in Alaska, definitive results are not expected until the wee hours of Wednesday morning on the East Coast at the earliest.
Virginia
Virginia was not supposed to be on this list.
For months polls showed Democratic Sen. Mark Warner with a wide lead over his opponent, Ed Gillespie, a longtime Republican political strategist, former RNC chair, and staffer in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Shortly before midnight, the Associated Press reported Warner was leading by less than 13,000 votes with more than 99% of precincts reporting. NBC News called Warner the "apparent" winner, however the network's political director Chuck Todd explained why their call came with a caveat.
"It's not outside a potential recount issue," Todd said.
However, a Democratic source who spoke to Business Insider suggested there would be no recount. They claimed Warner's margin was higher than other races in the state that didn't end with a disputed total.
Whether Virginia goes to a recount or ends in a slim victory for either candidate, Gillespie clearly pulled off a stunning turnaround.
New Hampshire
By about 9 p.m. Eastern, two hours after polls closed in New Hampshire, both ABC and NBC News called the state for incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Shaheen was long considered the favorite to win re-election in New Hampshire, but the well-traveled Scott Brown is mounted a late comeback. Shaheen lead an average of six recent polls by less than a single point. And the gap tightened considerably from when she held a 10-point lead in late August.
President Barack Obama is not popular in the state, something that has been a drag on the relatively well-liked former governor Shaheen. Brown tried to exploit Shaheen's ties to the president over the last two months on foreign -policy and national-security issues, including the war against ISIS and the Ebola crisis. However, that effort was ultimately unsuccessful.
New Hampshire already has one Republican senator in Kelly Ayotte. If its other seat turned red, it would have put Republicans well on their way to a majority early in the evening.
Colorado
The Republicans picked up one of the seats they need to take Senate control in Rocky Mountain state Tuesday evening. The Associated Press, NBC News, and Fox News had all declared GOP Rep. Cory Gardner defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall by 10:20 p.m. Polls in Colorado close at 9 p.m. Eastern.
Udall spent much of the summer ahead of Gardner, however, since late September, polls showed the Republican emerging with a slight lead.
Udall tried to fight off the challenge by focusing on Gardner's opposition to abortion. Gardner countered by trying to paint Udall as a single issue politician and touting his support for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Georgia
Democrat Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, might have been the Democrats' best chance to pickup a red seat tonight. However, her effort failed against Republican businessman David Perdue.
Most recent polls showed Perdue with a slim lead over Nunn in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. However, a CNN/ORC poll released October 24 found Nunn three points ahead.
Georgia potentially could have continued through next year. The state's election laws called for a runoff if no candidate was able to get over 50% of the vote. However, by 10:55 p.m., both NBC News and CNN projected Perdue would havesuffiicent support to avoid a runoff, which would have been scheduled for Jan. 6.
If the Senate majority depended on Georgia, the question of who would controld the upper chamber of Congress would not have been resolved when the new session was scheduled to begin on Jan. 3.
Kansas
Two of the most fascinating elections took place in Kansas, the stalwart red state where Republicans were nevertheless in trouble in both the US Senate and gubernatorial races. Incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Roberts and independent candidate Greg Orman were separated by no more than 2 points in the last five polls of the state.
But shortly before 11 p.m. ET, multiple outlets called the race for Roberts.
Roberts significantly closed the gap with Orman over the past two months, turning what was once a double-digit deficit into a statistical tie. But he was unable to pull ahead over the past few weeks.
Orman, an independent, was something of a wild card. Most strategists believe he would choose to caucus with Democrats, since he briefly ran for Kansas' Senate seat in 2008 as a Democrat. As a result, if Roberts loses, it could complicate the GOP's path toward a Senate majority as this is one of the three states with close races where they're playing defense.
The state's gubernatorial race also has potential national implications. Fellow Kansas Republicans have revolted against incumbent GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, who was once viewed as a candidate with presidential potential. His tax "experiment" divided Kansans who elected Brownback by a 30-point majority in 2010. This dissatisfaction led Brownback to trail Democrat Paul Davis by an average of 2 points in the latest polls.
North Carolina
North Carolina's Senate race became the most expensive in history, as Republicans made it an early target to swing from blue to red. Their effort was a success and GOP candidate Thom Tillis defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.
Tillis, the preferred candidate of the Republican establishment, initially struggled against Hagan after beating back a Tea Party challenge.
After more than $100 million spent on the race, according to the Sunlight Foundation, Hagan and Tillis were virtually tied — Hagan lead an average of recent polls by just 0.7 points. Tillis narrowed the gap in the past two months, using the familiar GOP playbook of tying Hagan to Obama.
Hagan attempted to fight back by exploiting the unpopularity of the state legislature where Tillis is speaker of the House. Ultimately, Tillis emerged the victor.
Iowa
On Tuesday night, Republican Joni Ernst's victory in Iowa was the one that put the Republicans over the top and ensured them a Senate majority.
The Senate race in the Hawkeye state initially made national headlines in March when Ernst released an ad that referenced her childhood "castrating hogs on an Iowa farm."
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