U.S. Senate map looking grim for Democrats; Republicans may end up with the majority

There are still many bal­lots left to count in quite a few places, but the U.S. Sen­ate map is not look­ing good for Democ­rats of this hour. The mass media are pro­ject­ing Repub­li­can vic­to­ries in Iowa and Col­orado — two states that Democ­rats real­ly need­ed to win in order to pro­tect their U.S. Sen­ate majority.

The Repub­li­cans began the night with pick­ups in West Vir­ginia and Arkansas. Then, South Dako­ta and Mon­tana were called for the Republicans.

Now, it’s Iowa and Col­orado. That makes six.

There will almost cer­tain­ly be a U.S. Sen­ate runoff in Louisiana and pos­si­bly Geor­gia, which could mean that Mitch McConnell won’t be able to pro­claim him­self pre­sump­tive major­i­ty leader for at least a few more weeks.

UPDATE: Looks like Repub­li­can David Per­due may be able to avoid a runoff in Geor­gia. We shall see.

Net­works have also called the Flori­da gov­er­nor’s race for Rick Scott. Flori­da was a state where Democ­rats were very much hop­ing to knock out a Repub­li­can incum­bent. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it does­n’t look like it’s going to happen.