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Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
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===2015β2016 election cycle=== In [[2016 United States Senate elections|2016]], 10 Democratic and 23 Republicans seats were up for reelection. In order to have gained a majority, the Democrats would have needed to attain at least 51 seats or 50 seats (and hold the presidency) in the Senate. If they had won the presidency, the Democrats would have been able to gain a majority with 48 seats (assuming the two Independents continued to caucus with them) because, in event of a tie vote, the Vice President becomes the tie-breaker. Many of the incumbents were elected in the Republican wave year of 2010 midterm. The Democrats needed to gain 4 seats as the Republicans held the majority 54β46, with both independent candidates caucusing with the Democrats. Two-term Senator [[Jon Tester]] of Montana chaired the DSCC for this cycle. There were five seats that the Democrats needed to defend this cycle: [[Michael Bennet]] of [[Colorado]], [[Patty Murray]] of [[Washington (state)|Washington]], and the seats of retiring Senators [[Harry Reid]] of [[Nevada]], [[Barbara Boxer]] of [[California]], and [[Barbara Mikulski]] of [[Maryland]]. Seven of the Republican seats that were up for reelection were in states that Obama won twice, [[Mark Kirk]] of [[Illinois]], [[Pat Toomey]] of [[Pennsylvania]], [[Ron Johnson]] of [[Wisconsin]], [[Kelly Ayotte]] of [[New Hampshire]], [[Chuck Grassley]] of [[Iowa]], [[Rob Portman]] of [[Ohio]] and [[Marco Rubio]] of [[Florida]] who ran for reelection after an unsuccessful presidential bid. In all but one of those seats, Iowa, the Republican incumbents were fighting to be reelected for the first time. Democrats were also targeting the open seat in Indiana which was vacated by retiring Republican [[Dan Coats]]. There were several other states the Democrats were focused on where the Republican incumbents may have been vulnerable: [[John McCain]] of [[Arizona]], [[Lisa Murkowski]] of [[Alaska]], [[John Boozman]] of [[Arkansas]], [[Richard Burr]] of [[North Carolina]], [[Johnny Isakson]] of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Roy Blunt]] of [[Missouri]], [[Rand Paul]] of [[Kentucky]] who simultaneously ran for president, and Senator [[David Vitter]] of [[Louisiana]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://atr.rollcall.com/senate-democrats-prepare-unlikely/?dcz=|title=Democrats Prepare for the Unlikely in Senate races|work=At the Races|access-date=2015-09-14|archive-date=2015-09-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919233251/http://atr.rollcall.com/senate-democrats-prepare-unlikely/?dcz=|url-status=dead}}</ref> After the election, Democrats gained two seats. [[Tammy Duckworth]] of [[Illinois]] and [[Maggie Hassan]] of [[New Hampshire]] joined the caucus. They also successfully defended their only seat in contention, [[Nevada]] where [[Catherine Cortez Masto]] became the first Latina U.S. Senator. This was the first time since 1992 that the Democrats gained seats in this Senate Class. For the first time the DSCC did not endorse a candidate in the general election in [[California]] because both women were Democrats competing for the seat of retiring Senator [[Barbara Boxer]]. [[Kamala Harris]] beat [[Loretta Sanchez]] for the seat.
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