United States Senate elections, 1998

← 1996

November 3, 1998

2000 →

Class 3 (34 of the 100) seats in the United States Senate
51 seats needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Trent Lott	Tom Daschle
Party	Republican	Democratic
Leader's seat	Mississippi	South Dakota
Last election	55 seats	45 seats
Seats won	55	45
Seat change
Popular vote	25,346,613	26,768,699
Percentage	46.8%	49.5%
Swing	2.6%	1.6%
Seats up	16	18

Republican gain

Republican hold

Democratic hold

Democratic gain

Majority Leader before election

Trent Lott
Republican

Elected Majority Leader

Trent Lott
Republican

The United States Senate elections, 1998 was a roughly even contest between the Republican and Democratic parties. While the Democrats had to defend more seats up for election, Republican attacks on the morality of President Bill Clinton failed to connect with voters and anticipated Republican gains did not materialize. The Republicans picked up open seats in Ohio and Kentucky and narrowly defeated incumbent Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL), but these were cancelled out by the Democrats' gain of an open seat in Indiana and defeats of Senators Al D'Amato (R-NY) and Lauch Faircloth (R-NC). The balance of the Senate remained unchanged at 55–45 in favor of the Republicans. With Democratic gaining five seats in the House of Representatives, this marked the first time since 1934 that the out-of-Presidency party failed to gain congressional seats in a mid-term election, and the first time since 1822 that the party not in control of the White House failed to gain seats in the mid-term election of a President's second term.

Source: Election Statistics - Office of the Clerk

...
Wikipedia