Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) won reelection Tuesday night, defeating Republican challenger Raymond McKay and extending a Senate career that began nearly three decades ago.
The Associated Press and other outlets called the race shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern. Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, retains a seat that was not viewed as competitive but was still seen as important for Democrats trying to chip away at the Republican majority in the chamber.
Reed was among the Democratic senators who last year defended the party’s government shutdown strategy, which included repeated refusals to reopen the federal government over disputes involving health care for illegal immigrants and roughly $1.5 trillion in other Democratic priorities. Reed said at the time he believed the shutdown was worthwhile.
“I think it was because I think the perception — we made it clear that it’s not just a healthcare issue, but the whole issue,” he said.
Reed has also been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump’s handling of tensions with Iran, an issue that factored into this year’s campaign. In a May interview, Reed argued that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, has left the United States with less visibility into Iran’s nuclear program even as the country has accumulated more enriched nuclear material.
“We’re in a situation now because of Trump’s discarding the JCPOA, where we have no real insights into or detailed insights into their nuclear program, and they have significantly more enriched nuclear material,” Reed said.
“We had controls in place. We could build on those controls. Trump took them away. We’re in a much more difficult position. … And now they’re holding the whole world by the oil. They can control commands for their move. So this is a situation that may have been made much worse by the actions of Donald Trump. And now he’s floundering around trying to figure out a way to get out of it. And there’s no obvious way,” he said.
Reed’s win does not change the partisan makeup of the Senate, since Rhode Island’s seat was already held by a Democrat. But holding the seat was considered essential to Democrats’ broader effort to narrow the Republican majority in the chamber.
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