United States Senate elections, 1978

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November 7, 1978

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35 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate
51 seats needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Robert Byrd	Howard Baker
Party	Democratic	Republican
Leader's seat	West Virginia	Tennessee
Last election	61 seats	38 seats
Seats won	58	41
Seat change	3	3
Popular vote	14,362,402	13,520,147
Percentage	50.6%	47.6%
Swing	3.1%	6.1%

	Third party

Party	Independent
Last election	1 seat
Seats before	1
Seats won	1
Seat change

Democratic gain

Democratic hold

Republican hold

Republican gain

Majority Leader before election

Robert Byrd
Democratic

Elected Majority Leader

Robert Byrd
Democratic

The United States Senate elections, 1978 in the middle of Democratic President Jimmy Carter's term. Thirteen seats changed hands between parties. The Democrats lost a net of three seats to the Republicans, leaving the balance of the chamber 58-41 in favor of the Democrats.

Republicans took three open seats, including one in Minnesota (a special election was called after the death of Hubert Humphrey (D-MN)), as well as in Mississippi and South Dakota. They also defeated five Democratic incumbents: Floyd Haskell (Colorado), Dick Clark (Iowa), William Hathaway (Maine), Wendell Anderson (Minnesota), and Thomas McIntyre (New Hampshire). The two Republican victories in Minnesota saw the state's Senate delegation change from two Democrats to two Republicans in the same election.

The Republican gains were offset by Democratic defeats of Edward Brooke (Massachusetts) and Robert Griffin (Michigan), and captures of Republican open seats in Nebraska, New Jersey, and Oklahoma.

A bolded state name indicates an article about that state's election.

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