Best Senate cycle for a major party since 2000

[Orser67]

Which Senate election cycle since 2000 saw the best/most dominant performance by one of the two major parties? For the poll above, I took the net gains directly from the Wikipedia infobox for that election year.

I think there are different ways of looking at this, e.g. net gain, total number of races won, performance compared to the difficulty of the map, etc.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Close call between 2008, 2012, and 2018. 2012 was more of an R screw up than D doing well. 2008 was just a good year for Dems overall. 2018, even though Ds lost seats, their map was terrible, and things were so partisan. They were able to hold onto MT, WV, OH, MI, WI, PA, ME, VA, MN. Really the only race salvageable for them in 2018 was FL. Imma say 2008 since they picked up about just about eevry possible seat they could, and it was a good year for them overall.

[UncleSam]

2008 was the most dominant election year at every level of government in recent memory.

[Storr]

2014 for me. It's the largest numerical gain, after all. Yes, a lot of the seats Dems were defending were lost causes (South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, Alaska, Montana post plagiarism scandal). But, Republicans won more than enough seats needed to get the majority (+9!!!, I doubt we will see that big of a swing anytime soon), including a few from competitive states (North Carolina, Colorado). That win allowed McConnell to refuse to fill Obama's judicial appointees, enabling Trump to appoint Conservative hacks in many cases. Not to mention the "McConnell rule" became a thing directly as a result of the majority Republicans won in 2014.

[Orser67]

Here's a quick look at how Democrats did each cycle in states by presidential voting in either the concurrent election cycle or (for mid-terms) the previous election cycle. It's broken down by states that Republicans won by ten or more points, states that Republicans won by less than ten points, states that Democrats won by ten or more points, and states that Democrats won by less than ten points. For the sake of simplicity, Angus King, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Lieberman are all counted as Democrats; only special elections held concurrently with regular elections are included.


2008:
D>=10: 9/10 (90%)
D<10: 5/5 (100%)
R<10: 2/4 (50%)
R>=10: 4/16 (25%)
Total: 20/35 (57%)

2010:
D>=10: 11/14 (79%)
D<10: 1/7 (14%)
R<10: 0/6 (0%)
R>=10: 1/10 (10%)
Total: 12/37 (32%)

2012:
D>=10: 13/13 (100%)
D<10: 7/8 (88%)
R<10: 1/2 (50%)
R>=10: 4/10 (40%)
Total: 25/33 (76%)

2014:
D>=10: 8/9 (89%)
D<10: 4/6 (67%)
R<10: 0/2 (0%)
R>=10: 0/19 (0%)
Total: 12/36 (33%)

2016:
D>=10: 9/9 (100%)
D<10: 3/3 (100%)
R<10: 0/8 (0%)
R>=10: 0/14 (0%)
Total: 12/34 (35%)

2018:
D>=10: 11/11 (100%)
D<10: 6/6 (100%)
R<10: 5/7 (71%)
R>=10: 2/11 (18%)
Total: 24/35 (69%)

(to be continued...maybe)

[Roll Roons]

2006, 2008 and 2014. Bear in mind, Democrats were huge underdogs to take the Senate in January 2005. Virginia was much more Republican in the 2000s than it is now, and Allen was seen as a top-tier 2008 presidential contender. Until the last month or so, no one actually thought he might lose. Yes, he made the macaca gaffe, but the fact that Webb pulled it off is impressive.

2008 was also a good year for them. The only seat they really left on the table was Kentucky. In hindsight, I'm sure they wish they could trade it for one or both of Minnesota and Oregon.

2014 was pretty great for Republicans. They finally got it together and didn't nominate any witches or legitimate rape apologists. It helped that some Democrats (looking at M. Udall and Braley) ran horrible campaigns, but they also put themselves in a great position to capitalize.

[Gass3268]

We are still dealing with the negative consequences of 2014.

[Lognog]

We are still dealing with the negative consequences of 2014.

hopefully we can remedy that in November

also same with 2010 as far as gerrymandering

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

2008 D+8

[Cowboys for Christ]

In terms of performance, 2008. With the most people ever turning out for a US election, Democrats swept the competitive races, and only lost several reach seats. Most Democrats running for Congress managed to outperform Obama, and significantly so in states with an incumbent Democratic Senator.

2014 had the largest gain for a party, but with much lower turnout than 2008. It was fairly consequential, though; if the Democrats won the races in NC, CO, and AK that year, they very well may have been able to control the Senate again after the 2016 elections if they still pick up two seats (at least). It would still be a difficult task for the Democrats to keep the Senate after 2018 -  though the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh sagas would likely be nonexistent under a Democratic Senate, given Trump still wins 2016.

Dynamics for the 2018 would change entirely, really - the Trump administration could easily frame the Democratic Senate as "obstructionist", and given how that attack knocked out several red-state Democrats, it may cause more Democratic Senators to be defeated... if Trump is still as unpopular as he was in OTL 2018.

Even then, the narrow control of the Senate OTL stopped some of the most draconian measures passed by the House, so maybe dynamics may have not been as different as OTL. Hey, maybe because Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would never be nominated, Donnelly, Heitkamp, and McCaskill all hold on by never needing to play conservative with the administration and voters!

[The Mamdani Virus]

2008, without a doubt

[Astatine]

2014 had a large number of seats flipping, but considering that MT, SD and WV were de facto automatic pickups, a gain of 6 is not too outstanding. Nevertheless, the GOP won seats by large margins that were supposed to be closer (AR, KS, GA and IA) and even flipped NC, which was considered to tilt in favor of Kay Hagan, and miracliously they almost took down Mark Warner. However, MI could have been closer.

I still go with 2008 as everything went perfect for Democrats. They flipped or defended almost all competitive seats and the major gains they made basically put the Senate to such a Democratic lean that the GOP had almost no chance of retaking it in 2010. Who knows how things would have ended up like if the GOP had flipped both chambers back then?

If the GOP had flipped VA and MI in 2010, I would have gone with 2014. That would have put the Senate out of reach for Democrats for a very long time probably.

[Orser67]

For me, it's pretty even between 2006 and 2008. In both cases, Democrats won or defended a majority, defeated several incumbents, and pretty much swept the blue states and swing states with the exception of a couple Republican incumbents (Snowe and Ensign in 2006, Collins and arguably Chambliss* in 2008). Democrats picked up more seats in 2008, but they won more overall races in 2006 and I think the degree of difficulty was maybe a little higher for some of the 2006 pickups.

Compare that to 2012, when Democrats won more races but didn't have the same marquee pickups, 2014, when Republican gains were powered by the large number of races in strongly Republican-leaning seats, and 2010 where Republican gains were powered by picking up open seats and defeating Democratic incumbents in deeply red states (with the big exception of Feingold). For 2010, it's also notable that Republicans could have taken the majority if they hadn't come up short in a few potentially winnable races (NV, CO, DE, WV, CT, WA).

*McCain won GA by about five points, but it voted 12 points to the right of the country, so YMMV if it counts as a battleground state in 2008

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

I think I'd go with 2008.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

2014 followed by 2006. 2008 is sort of a fluke due to how much of that was driven by Obama's landslide victory and how much of a unicorn that was. 2014 really showed how much of that was rentals. The 2006 gains were more sustainable - as for 2014, we'll see.

[Non Swing Voter]

2008 because it followed 2006, which was already a good year for Democrats on many levels.  It also got them to a senate margin that would be unthinkable now.