The last big race that could affect the Senate Armed Services Committee was still playing out Wednesday morning as Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., had yet to concede a extremely tight race to Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
Nelson, the second most senior Democrat on the committee, was trailing and in danger of becoming the third from his party to lose a seat in the Senate and on Armed Services.
Both Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., were defeated in their re-election bids Tuesday night, shaking up a committee tasked with overseeing the Pentagon and writing defense policy.
Meanwhile, five other Armed Services Democrats won their races and could move up in seniority on the panel: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; Mazie Hirono of Hawaii; Tim Kaine of Virginia; and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
All three Republicans on the committee who were up for election won, including subcommittee chairs Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Deb Fischer of Nebraska. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz beat Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a member of the House Armed Services, in a Texas race that drew national attention.
Nelson, a former Army captain who once traveled aboard the Space Shuttle, was a staunch opponent of President Trump’s proposal for a new Space Force military branch and served on the Senate Armed Services Committee since 2001.
By Wednesday morning, Scott held a lead of 38,717 votes of the more than 8 million cast in the Senate race in Florida, which could trigger a mandatory recount.
McCaskill, who lost to Republican Josh Hawley, had served on the committee since joining the Senate in 2007. She had railed against Pentagon waste and abuse, including an Afghanistan contract that included luxury cars, and also had a high-profile battle with Gillibrand over sexual assault prosecutions in the military.
Donnelly was pummeled by almost 10 percentage points by Republican Mike Braun.
As Senate Democrats face filling the seats with a diminished minority, the House Armed Services also faces new leadership and a shuffling for different reasons.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., cruised to victory last night and is now in line to be the new chairman of the House committee under the Democratic majority, making him one of the most powerful voices on defense.
Smith has warned about ballooning deficits and the Republican tax cuts while indicating he will push to rein in overall defense spending and Trump’s Space Force plan.
Most of the House Armed Services Committee’s incumbents on both sides of the aisle won re-election.
In California, Rep. Duncan Hunter clung to his seat against a Democrat challenger despite being indicted for allegedly misspending campaign funds on a lavish lifestyle for years and being stripped of his committee assignment during the case.
But two Republicans, and possibly a third candidate, could not hold on. Rep. Steve Knight, R-Calif., was trailing a Democrat challenger Wednesday morning. Another dozen seats will be open next year due to members retiring, leaving, or running for other office.
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Col., the chairman of the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, had also made his opposition to Space Force an election issue but suffered a punishing loss to Democrat Jason Crow.
“In the end, the waves were too big for this ship of ours to stay afloat,” Coffman said, pointing to a failed strategy of trying to localize his race and avoid running on Trump’s record.
The Democratic victories also claimed Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., an Army veteran elected in 2014, who lost Tuesday night by a little over a percentage point to Kendra Horn.
