The United States Senate Elections of 2018 took place in the middle of Hillary Clinton's first term. The elections are the first to have Puerto Rico participate, and thus, it elected both of its senators at once. The Democrats were under pressure, as 23 of their 48 seats were up for election, giving the Republicans a golden opportunity to make massive gains on the Democrats. However, that didn't happen, as the Republican Party's popularity plummeted after the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016, which allowed the Tea Party has been slowly absorbing Republican voters and local formerly Republican politicians. By 2018, they had gotten big enough to block Republicans from winning any Senate elections. A multitude of existing Republican senators also switched to the Tea Party, including then-Se