How Many US Senate Seats Will Flip in November?
The 2024 cycle could become just the third in history with partisan control changing in just one state
With challenging parties within striking distance of winning several U.S. Senate seats this cycle, there is a fairly wide band of how many seats could flip on Election Day.
But it is quite possible, perhaps likely, that very few will change – due in part to many down ballot Democrats in battleground states already positioned to outperform the top of the ticket when President Joe Biden was the presumptive nominee, and now enjoying a bit of a boost since Vice President Kamala Harris assumed that role.
But one historic U.S. Senate electoral streak is guaranteed to continue in November, however, and that is at least one seat will change partisan control.
For there has never been a midterm or presidential election since 1914 in which no seats flipped.
In 2024, the streak is assured to continue with Democrat-turned-Republican Governor Jim Justice (pictured) poised to pick up retiring Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin’s U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia.
But if Democrats limit their losses to just West Virginia and don’t pick up any seats in their own right, it will mark the first time in U.S. history that only one seat flipped in back-to-back cycles.
The only cycles with just one seat changing partisan control took place in 1990 (Minnesota DFLer Paul Wellstone unseating Independent-Republican Rudy Boschwitz) and two years ago in 2022 (Democrat John Fetterman winning Pat Toomey’s open seat in Pennsylvania).
In fact, there have only been four other cycles in which less than four seats flipped:
- 1914 (three seats): Democrats picked up open seats in California and Wisconsin and a seat in South Dakota (following incumbent Republican Coe Crawford losing his party’s nomination to U.S. Rep. Charles Burke)
- 1960 (three seats): Democrats won an open seat in North Dakota while the GOP unseated two-term Delaware incumbent J. Allen Frear and claimed an open seat in Wyoming
- 1966 (three seats): Republicans knocked three-term Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas out of office, defeated Governor Frank Clement in Tennessee (after he won the nomination over Sen. Ross Bass), and won an open seat in Oregon
- 2016 (two seats): Democrats unseated incumbents Mark Kirk in Illinois and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire
It has been highly unusual in recent decades for both parties to each flip three or more seats in the same cycle – a feat that has occurred only twice during the last 22 cycles since 1980. [In 1988, Democrats picked up four seats with the GOP gaining three; in 1998 both parties picked up three seats].
There is little opportunity for that to happen in 2024 with only 11 GOP-held seats on the ballot and Democratic nominees only remotely competitive in two of them – Florida and Texas.
If somehow VP Harris performed particularly strong at the top of the ticket and Democrats did unseat incumbents Rick Scott and Ted Cruz in Florida and Texas respectively, Republicans could still flip two states in their own right (West Virginia and Jon Tester’s seat in Montana).
Each party has picked up two or more seats in just three of the last 12 cycles since 2000:
- 2000: Democrats picked up six seats (Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Washington) with two for the Republicans (Nevada and Virginia)
- 2004: Republicans flipped six states (Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and South Dakota) with two for the Democrats (Colorado and Illinois)
- 2018: Republicans picked up four seats (Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota) with two for the Democrats (Arizona and Nevada)
The average number of seats to change partisan hands in midterm and general elections from 1914 to 2022 is 7.6 per cycle.
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In an alternate reality,the MT and WV seats would be safe holds for the Republicans, whereas the FL and TX seats (open seat or Democrat Nelson standing yet again, and Democrat O’Rourke seeking a second term or open seat for the latter) today would be heavily contested, with even larger sums of $$ than ‘normal’ pouring in from both sides.
We could get to the point where nothing flips in the senate if nothing else changes up top if only WV flips in 2024, only ME flips in 2026, only WI flips in 2028, and both MT and OH flip in 2030. At that point, 2032 would be the 1st time that no senate seat changes.
– A defeat of an incumbent in a primary election, or one bypassing a major party nomination, or one continuing with the general election after a major party primary loss – whether as a non-major party or write-in contender – has resulted in that seat being classified as an *open seat* (per political custom…maybe). Thus, the 1914 SD contest became an open-seat one after the primary loss of Crawford, ditto with the 1966 TN contest (and quite a few others, such as the ones in 1970 CT and 2017 AL).
– 1960: The R pickup in WY proved to be short-lived; barely a month thereafter, the Senator-elect had died, and the then-D governor, absent the ‘constraint’ of the same-elected-party-successor provision for Senate vacancies, was free to appoint anyone he wished. Lo and behold, he chose to resign his post and arranged for his own appointment to the seat (a maneuver that has nearly never worked; he unsurprisingly lost his “self-appointed” seat when it came up for a vote in 1962, and the Republicans have won and held it ever since).