9 competitive Senate races to watch on election night

Democrats are fighting to retain their narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate. Democrats are defending 23 seats, including three held by independents who caucus with them. That's compared with just 11 seats that Republicans hope to keep in their column, according to the Associated Press. 

Trump carried Ohio by eight points in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. 

McCormick previously ran an unsuccessful primary bid for Senate in 2022, losing the nomination to Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz was defeated by Democrat John Fetterman.

Her first television ad noted that her buy-American bill was signed into law by Trump. In July, she touted Senate committee approval of a bill she co-authored with Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, that seeks to ensure that taxpayer-funded inventions are manufactured in the United States.

Hovde has portrayed Baldwin as an out-of-touch liberal career politician who didn't do enough to combat inflation, illegal immigration and crime. He has stressed that Baldwin has been in elected office since 1987, including the past 12 years in the Senate and 14 in the House before that. 

Hovde's wealth, primarily his management of Utah-based Sunwest Bank and ownership of a $7 million Laguna Beach, California, estate, has been a key line of attack from Baldwin, who has tried to cast him as an outsider who doesn't represent Wisconsin values.

Three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana faces perhaps his toughest election challenge yet on Tuesday, with control of the Senate on the line in a state that's veered sharply rightward since the 68-year-old grain farmer's first election.

Republicans have pinned their hopes on Tim Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and founder of an aerial firefighting company. Sheehy, 38, had early backing from party leaders, including Trump, clearing the political newcomer's path to win the June primary.

A Sheehy victory would seal Republican Party dominance across the five-state Northern Plains region: Tester entered office as one of six Democratic senators in the largely rural swath of American heartland that also includes Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. He's now the only one.

The lawmaker also is the sole remaining Democrat to hold statewide office in Montana.

Two-term Republican Sen. Deb Fischer faces her strongest re-election challenge yet Tuesday as she takes Dan Osborn, a former labor union boss who eschewed both major political parties to run as an independent while painting himself as a working class champion.The state GOP, whose leadership is loyal to Trump, endorsed primary challengers to all five of the Republicans who represent Nebraska in Congress, including Fischer.

Fischer held a recent news conference to showcase the backing of several state Republicans, including popular former Gov. Dave Heineman. She also leaned into her support for Trump, despite having called for him to leave the 2016 race in response to the notorious "Access Hollywood" tape.Trump has endorsed Fischer for re-election, which she has touted in her campaign ads.Osborn, a 20-year industrial mechanic and veteran of the Navy and Nebraska Army National Guard, successfully led a 2021 strike at the Kellogg's cereal plant in Omaha to gain higher wages for roughly 1,400 workers following a year in which the company saw soaring revenue.

Osborn has leaned into that background in centering his platform on what he says is a need for equitable economic policies. In his political ads, he's contrasted his own story with Fischer's, accusing her of enriching herself while in office as average families struggle financially.

The stakes are unusually high for a Maryland race that includes a Republican who won significant Democratic support in his 2014 and 2018 gubernatorial victories. Hogan is only the second Republican in Maryland history to be re-elected governor.

Abortion has been a major issue in a campaign taking place at the same time that voters in Maryland and eight other states will be considering a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Alsobrooks has prioritized abortion rights in her campaign, saying one of her first actions as a senator would be to sponsor legislation to codify Roe into federal law. Hogan also says he would co-sponsor such legislation, but Alsobrooks is quick to point to a Hogan veto when he was governor of a bill in Maryland to expand abortion access in 2022.

The first-term Rosen has outspent Brown by more than 3-1 in the contest, positioning herself as a nonideological senator who delivers for her home state on issues like broadband internet access and a high-speed rail connection with Southern California. Brown, who was awarded the Purple Heart, has campaigned on his biography and the state's cost-of-living crisis, particularly acute in working-class Nevada. He's had trouble gaining traction, though a last-minute infusion of GOP money in late October came as Republicans, cheered by strong turnout for their party in early voting, hoped Brown could upend expectations in the race.

Trump endorsed Brown in the state's primary.