The Morning After

Midterm elections rarely focus on international politics, but the recent outbreak of foreign crises ignited by Ebola in West Africa, the Islamic State’s conquest of broad swaths of Syria and Iraq, and Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine have propelled a series of congressional races far beyond the water’s edge.

On Tuesday, Republicans took control of the Senate, collecting at least 52 seats. The results of the Senate races in Virginia and Alaska haven’t been released yet, while Louisiana is headed towards a run-off that Republican challenger Bill Cassidy is widely expected to win. President Barack Obama can expect a bevy of opposition to both his domestic and international agendas. Here at home, the already-slim chances of comprehensive immigration reform, the extension of unemployment benefits, and tax code reforms will fall to zero as Republicans focus on using their investigative powers to badger the White House and join their colleagues in the House in trying to repeal all or part of Obamacare.

When it comes to foreign policy, a GOP win could make it easier for Obama to push through stalled trade deals and, if the president decided to shift his strategy against the Islamic State, win Congressional backing for sending ground troops to Iraq or Syria. At the same time, an emboldened Republican-controlled Senate would seek to complicate or derail a potential nuclear deal with Iran — Obama’s top foreign policy priority — and make it much harder for the administration to pressure the Israeli government to halt settlement construction and consider the kinds of concessions needed to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.

Some vulnerable Democrats who’ve staked their careers on foreign policy issues like surveillance and torture faced extinction this election, which could change the ideological priorities of national security committees on Capitol Hill. With that in mind, we’ve selected handful of races to watch tonight:

ALASKA, SENATE: Mark Begich (D) vs. Dan Sullivan (R) (not yet called)
ARIZONA, HOUSE: Ron Barber (D) vs. Martha McSally (R) (not yet called)
ARKANSAS, SENATE: Tom Cotton (R) defeats Mark Pryor (D)
COLORADO, SENATE: Cory Gardner (R) defeats Mark Udall (D)
KANSAS, SENATE: Pat Roberts (R) defeats Greg Orman (I)
NEW HAMPSHIRE, SENATE: Jeanne Shaheen (D) defeats Scott Brown (R)
NEW HAMPSHIRE, HOUSE: Frank Guinta (R) defeats Carol Shea-Porter (D)
NORTH CAROLINA, SENATE: Thom Tillis (R) defeats Kay Hagan (D)

ALASKA, SENATE: Mark Begich (D) vs. Dan Sullivan (R) (not yet called)

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) won six years ago by running on an ethics platform against an incumbent convicted on federal corruption charges. Now the Senate Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs committees member faces a former state attorney general who would rather talk about military and foreign affairs issues than tout his background of keeping Alaskans honest as the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

Republican Dan Sullivan is a Marine Corps reservist who most recently saw active duty in July 2013 in Afghanistan. Sullivan has been hammering Begich over his vote against funding the training and arming of moderate Syrian rebels to fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State and his refusal to support ground troops to fight the terrorist group.

"If we need combat troops to protect personnel, to protect the embassy, to protect ambassadors like we didn’t have in Benghazi, to protect pilots, I would be for it," he said during a recent debate, according to The Hill.

Begich has hit Sullivan, a senior White House advisor on national security and economic issues under President George W. Bush who went on to be an assistant secretary of State under Bush, over how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Begich maintains that victims should be able to report incidents outside the chain of command, Sullivan responded in a direct exchange with Begich that he isn’t privy to Pentagon briefings on such matters as incumbents are, according to the Associated Press.

As a sexual assault, fraud and, corruption scandal engulfed Alaska’s National Guard in the campaign’s waning days, Sullivan was repeatedly asked by Begich, voters, and the media whether as attorney general he knew about the allegations. He maintains that he did not, even though the FBI investigated the matter while he was the state’s attorney general.

Whether voters believe him may decide this neck-and-neck race.

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ARIZONA, HOUSE: Ron Barber (D) vs. Martha McSally (R) (not yet called)

Though largely focused on domestic issues, the race for the Arizona seat left by retired U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords has turned into a veritable foreign policy food fight in recent weeks. The challenger to Democratic incumbent and former Giffords confidante Ron Barber is an Air Force veteran named Martha McSally (R). McSally says her military experience will help her save jobs at the nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, push through reforms at the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs and develop a tougher strategy for addressing the terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

But McSally has also gone on the offensive, with a TV ad claiming that Barber skipped a congressional hearing on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Barber responded with an attendance sheet noting his presence at the hearing, and he excoriated McSally for engaging in "misinformation and misrepresentation." The two candidates remain neck-and-neck with the latest RCP ranking designating the contest as a "toss up."

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ARKANSAS, SENATE: Tom Cotton (R) defeats Mark Pryor (D)

In deep red Arkansas, foreign policy issues loomed large in the Senate race in which GOP challenger Tom Cotton defeated Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor.

Much of that is thanks to Cotton, a veteran who served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, holds two Ivy League degrees, and would just as often invoke the foreign policy shortcomings of President Obama as he would the everyday shortcomings of his opponent. Stocked with a familiar arsenal of neoconservative talking points, Cotton regularly spoke to the American desire of a government "that doesn’t apologize for our actions overseas" and "protects our national defense."

Pryor, a conservative Democrat, broke many times with the White House, but remained badly damaged by his "yes" vote on the Affordable Care Act.

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COLORADO, SENATE: Cory Gardner (R) defeats Mark Udall (D)

In Colorado, Democratic Senator Mark Udall has lost his seat in a state that Obama won twice — a fact that has drawn intensive national media attention to the Centennial State. But for national security wonks, Udall’s fate was of keen interest due to his outsized role on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he spent his freshman term boldly challenging the White House on issues ranging from torture to surveillance to drone strikes.

A powerful liberal voice for human rights and transparency, Udall pushed the committee into open conflict with the Central Intelligence Agency over the declassification of the panel’s 6,300 report on enhanced interrogation and detention practices during the George W. Bush administration. On the Armed Services Committee, Udall was a voice for restraint as the Obama administration looked to intervene more forcefully against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. "We’ve got to not make the mistake of rushing into armed conflict without clear goals that happened 12 years ago," he told a local CBS affiliate in Colorado last month. For those reasons, Udall’s Republican challenger Cory Gardner attacked him as weak on terrorism.

With Udall’s defeat, the Intelligence Committee has lost a loud and principled voice on a range of civil liberties issues, though many voters may not even know. That’s because Udall made his campaign almost exclusively about abortion and contraception — a strategy that raised literal heckles from powerful Democratic power brokers in Colorado as Udall sunk in the polls.

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KANSAS, SENATE: Pat Roberts (R) defeats Greg Orman (I)

Most news coverage of this race in deep-red Kansas focused on how surprisingly tight of a race it had become. But in the end, incumbent Republican Pat Roberts kept his seat, defeating a previously-unknown businessman named Greg Orman.

The vote was in some ways also a referendum on Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul and a test of whether the presumed 2016 presidential candidate’s libertarian philosophy, which includes a desire to shrink America’s military commitments around the globe, carries weight in a solidly Republican state with a large community of active-duty and retired troops.

Paul campaigned for Republicans in 30 states, but he was unusually involved in the Roberts race, with his political action committee making a six-figure TV ad buy in favor of the Republican incumbent.

Roberts also drew endorsements from mainstream Republicans who favor a more muscular foreign policy like former Kansas senator and GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole. But it was Paul who drew the largest crowds across the state, and the Roberts victory could be another sign that the Kentuckian — despite foreign policy views far to the left of most Republicans — will be a formidable presidential candidate.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE, SENATE: Jeanne Shaheen (D) defeats Scott Brown (R)

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) has defeated former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) after one of the most closely watched Senate races. Their heated contest in the Granite State (Brown moved to New Hampshire after losing his seat in 2012) has been a prime example of how foreign affairs dominated the campaign’s closing months in a cycle that began by focusing on domestic issues.

Serving on the same Senate Armed Services Committee that Brown once did, former GOP presidential nominee John McCain stumping for Brown slammed his committee colleague, branding her a light weight in remarks that made national waves.

She is “not a serious member,” he said. “I don’t see her at very many of the hearings. I’ve not seen her propose any amendments or proposals that have to do with national security.” Brown hit her over Ebola and ISIS — a tactic Republicans across the country ramped up in the last days of the campaign.

Brown favored a travel ban on passengers from the West African nations at the heart of the epidemic while chiding Shaheen for taking a more nuanced stance.

“I’m in the camp of, let’s do what’s going to work based on what we’re hearing from medical experts and emergency response,” Shaheen said, according to the Concord Monitor. “If the experts tell us that that’s what we need to do and that’s workable, I think that’s what we should support. But I’m not willing to tell the experts that this is what we need to do.”

Brown also criticized Shaheen for her reluctance to deploy ground troops to the Islamic State. And he took swipes at her seriousness about her seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cutting an ad attacking her for missing a Treasury briefing in April that warned of then-unknown Islamic State.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE, HOUSE: Frank Guinta (R) defeats Carol Shea-Porter (D)

In a contest labeled a “bellwether race” by Roll Call, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) a staunch anti-war advocate and military watchdog again lost her seat to Frank Guinta, a former Manchester mayor who ousted her in 2010.

Shea-Porter first came to office after running on an anti-Iraq War campaign in 2006, despite being a quintessential underdog in both the primary and general elections. A member of the House Armed Services Committee, she made military and veterans’ issues a top priority throughout her three terms in office. She won her seat back from Guinta in 2012, making this go-around a true grudge match.

Last year she won a number of notable provisions to the 2014 Defense authorization bill touching on the environment, troop equipment, and contractor fraud. One expanded the list of waste prohibited from open-air burn pits in war zones. Another followed up on a recommendation by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction aimed at making sure Defense contract money was not being diverted to enemy groups. And another required the Defense Department to report on contractor compliance in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also won passage of and had pending several bills aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military and making such crimes easier to investigate.

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NORTH CAROLINA, SENATE: Thom Tillis (R) defeats Kay Hagan (D)

Until recently, North Carolina Senator Senator Kay Hagan (D) had held a comfortable lead over Republican challenger Thom Tillis, the speaker of the North Carolina House. For months, Hagan successfully attacked Tillis for leading North Carolina’s state government sharply right. At the beginning of September, Hagan was comfortably ahead.

Then things changed. Tillis inundated North Carolinians on the campaign trail and in television advertisements about the Obama administration’s muddled response to the Ebola outbreak and the Islamic State. On Ebola, Hagan was forced to change her position on travel bans after Tillis successfully campaigned that they were necessary. His most effective television spot attacked Hagan, a member of the Armed Services Committee, for being at a fundraiser in New York City during a classified briefing on the Islamic State. Now, the most expensive Senate race in American history — reports indicate that at least $103 million had been spent by mid-October — has been won by Tillis.

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