The new session begins with five more veterans than the last Congress, a small increase (up from 17% of members in 2021 to 18% this year) but a significant one. It’s the first time since 1965 the number of veterans has gone up by five or more individuals, and only the fourth time in the last 50 years there has been any increase at all in the total veterans elected.

The number of veterans in Congress has declined almost steadily since the mid-1970s, as the military shifted from an end strength of largely drafted individuals to an all-volunteer force.

In 1973, nearly three in every four members of Congress had some type of military service. In 2023, it’ll be about one in every six members who have military experience.

Because of their backgrounds, veterans serving in the House and Senate are often seen as critical to discussions of Defense Department operations and Veterans Affairs procedures, and tapped to explain those issues to colleagues who lack direct personal experience on the topics.

Here’s a look at the incoming class of veterans:

• The new Congress includes 80 veterans in the House and 17 in the Senate.
• There are seven female veterans in Congress now, the most for any session.
• Congress has 42 Army veterans, the most of any single service.
• Nearly half of the veterans caucus (47) served a deployment in a combat zone.
• The list includes 19 newly elected veterans.
• The political breakdown of the veterans in Congress is 72 Republican veterans, 25 Democratic veterans.
• Of the group, 60 veterans served at least part of their career in the 2000s.
• Texas’ delegation includes 10 veterans, the most of any state.

Below is the full list of veterans elected to Congress last fall or returning to incumbent Senate seats that were not up for re-election this cycle:

If you haven’t already mailed your absentee ballot, there’s still time. To vote in the Georgia runoff election, you must have already been registered. You can check on your registration status at Georgia’s My Voter Page. If you are registered to vote and had requested an absentee ballot for the November 2022 general election, you should automatically receive an absentee ballot for the Dec. 6 runoff.

But you can also request an absentee ballot for the runoff even if you didn’t request one previously.

• You must request your absentee ballot by Nov. 28. You can do that electronically with the Federal Post Card Application, which you can download on the Federal Voting Assistance Program website. You can receive the ballot by electronic transmission, so be sure to include your email address. You can also use Georgia’s My Voter Page to find your county election office’s email address and send the request for the ballot. With the limited amount of time, you should request the ballot be delivered to you electronically.
• New this year: Military and overseas Georgia absentee voters may have already cast a vote in the runoff. Because the Georgia runoff election on Dec. 6 comes just a month after the general election, officials sent out a “ranked choice” runoff ballot along with the general election absentee ballot to ensure those voters got runoff ballots as soon as possible in case one was required. If voters chose to do so, they could cast their ballot for a runoff election, ranking their preferred choices of candidates and sending the ranked choice ballot in a separate envelope.
• The runoff ballots have now been updated, so any military or overseas voter who hasn’t sent in the ranked choice ballot can still send that ballot or request the new runoff ballot, which looks like a regular ballot. If you already sent in the ranked choice ballot, that will count. Both are valid.

The voting rights of military and overseas citizen voters are protected under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, and they’re commonly known as UOCAVA voters. This applies to U.S. citizens living overseas and to military personnel and their families anywhere in the United States or across the globe who are stationed or deployed away from their home voting district.

In Georgia, UOCAVA voters are the only absentee voters who are allowed to receive a ballot electronically from their election officials. But voted absentee ballots must be downloaded and mailed to the local Georgia election official where they are registered.

Georgia has special rules for UOCAVA voters that allow ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by election day, Dec. 6, and received by 5 p.m. on the third day after the election, Dec. 9.

Use express mail

Military members and their eligible dependents overseas can still use the free express mail Label 11-DoD that was available during the general election cycle, said Air Force Lt. Col. Amy Oliver, a spokeswoman for the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

This label, which has been available since the beginning of September, provides free express mail service to your election official for your absentee ballot. You’ll need to take advantage of that free express mail from overseas because of the shorter time window.

You can request to have a Prepaid Mail Label 11-DoD applied to your absentee ballot at overseas Military Postal Office locations — APO and FPO addresses. Keep part of the tracking label to track your absentee ballot through the U.S. Postal Service.

UOCAVA voters can also send their ballots by diplomatic pouch through their U.S. embassy.

UOCAVA voters have another option. If you haven’t received your absentee ballot for the runoff election, download the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot from the Federal Voting Assistance Program website, fill it in and mail it to your local Georgia election official.

If you receive the absentee ballot from your election official after you’ve mailed the FWAB, officials advise to go ahead and vote that ballot and mail it, too; your vote won’t be counted twice, and all ballots are authenticated.

The conservative Republican was reelected to a third term in a district that has a 12.5-point Democratic registration edge and was carried by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden by double digits in 2020. It was Garcia’s third consecutive victory over Democrat Christy Smith, a former legislator.

Garcia was first elected in a special election in May 2020, then was reelected two years ago by just 333 votes. He faced an even tougher challenge this year, after his left-leaning district was redrawn and became more solidly Democratic.

With nearly 75% of the ballots counted, Garcia had 54.2%, to 45.8% for Smith.

Even though his victory carried historic weight by putting Republicans in charge of the House “the mission remains the same,” Garcia said in a statement, in which he promised to work to “get our country back on track.”

Garcia, who flew over 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom, is the sole GOP House member with a district anchored in heavily Democratic Los Angeles County.

It takes 218 seats to control the House. With the addition of the latest California results, Republicans have locked down 218 seats so far with Democrats claiming 211.

In another key race in the state, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin beat back a tough challenge from Republican businessman Brian Maryott in a Southern California district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties.

With nearly all the votes counted, Levin had 52.65%, to 47.4% for Maryott.

Levin said he was eager to return to Washington to continue working on affordable health care, climate change and assistance for veterans. Biden traveled to the district in the election’s closing days in hopes of giving Levin a boost.

Garcia’s win, which gave Republicans House control, came with a splash of political sass, arriving in a state so solidly Democratic that a Republican hasn’t won a statewide race since 2006. It is also home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. California is known nationally as a liberal monolith, but pockets of conservative strength remain, mainly in the Southern California suburbs and rural and farming stretches.

But even with the wins, Republicans will remain a small minority within the state’s congressional delegation.

Of the state’s 52 seats — the largest delegation in Congress — GOP candidates had captured just nine as of Wednesday. Counting continued in five districts, although one was a matchup between two Democrats.

Smith, a former legislator, had argued Garcia was out of step with district voters: He was endorsed by then-President Trump in 2020, then joined House Republicans who rejected electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania and opposed Trump’s impeachment after the Capitol insurrection. She also highlighted Garcia’s opposition to abortion rights.

Garcia emphasized his military service and pointed to his vote supporting $2,000 stimulus checks as one example of his political independence. He’s also stressed local issues, including concern over illegal marijuana cultivation.

In California, the primary House battlegrounds are Orange County — a suburban expanse southeast of Los Angeles that was once a GOP stronghold but has become increasingly diverse and Democratic — and the Central Valley, an inland stretch sometimes called the nation’s salad bowl for its agricultural production.

The tightest remaining contest in the state emerged in the Central Valley, where Democrat Adam Gray seized a tissue-thin lead over Republican John Duarte for an open seat in District 13.

Underscoring the closeness of the race, Gray’s campaign formed a committee to begin raising money to finance a possible recount. The latest returns showed Gray leading by 600 votes, with nearly 85% of the ballots tabulated.

In Orange County, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter was holding a nearly 3-point edge over Republican Scott Baugh in one of the nation’s marquee races. Baugh had slashed her lead in half earlier this week, but Porter, a star of the party’s progressive wing, rebounded. About 90% of the votes had been counted.

In the Central Valley’s 22nd District, where about two-thirds of the votes have been counted, Republican Rep. David Valadao, who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump, had a 5.6-point margin over Democrat Rudy Salas.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., is the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel and is in line to chair the powerful military spending subcommittee if Republicans win control of the House.

He faced a difficult re-election fight from Democratic challenger Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor who focused on counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases in southern California.

Redistricting by state officials for California’s 41st congressional district left Calvert with a less favorable election map than in past years. Calvert, the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation, had won each of his campaigns over the last decade by comfortable margins.

Calvert’s opponent attacked his vote against certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Rollins, who is gay, also emphasized Calvert’s anti-LGBT record. California redistricting added Palm Springs — a city with one of the highest concentration of LGBT voters in the country — to Calvert’s district.

Despite the narrow victory, Calvert’s win provides stability for the House Appropriations Committee. Along with House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., Calvert will serve as the point person for debates next year over the size of the Defense Department’s budget and military spending priorities.

As the Republican leader on the panel, Calvert’s campaign received considerable financial support from the defense industry. Calvert received at least $70,000 from the top five defense contractors – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics – for the 2022 election cycle.

The defense contractors paused political donations after the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election on January 6, but quickly resumed contributions to lawmakers across the aisle, including Republicans such as Calvert who voted against certifying the election results.

Last week, a key Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee — Democrat Marcy Kaptur of Ohio — won another closely watched race against Republican challenger and Air Force veteran J.R. Majewski.

Majewski came under fire for apparently fabricating part of his military service record.

Although he initially claimed to have served as an Air Force combat veteran in Afghanistan, military combat records obtained by the Associated Press did not document any service there and instead revealed that he had helped load and unload aircraft in Qatar. The records also indicated that the Air Force did not let Majewski reenlist in large part because he was stopped drunk driving while serving in Japan – and was not involved in a brawl as he initially claimed.

The revelations prompted the National Republican Campaign Committee to pull pro-Majewski ads from the district in September, creating an even more favorable battleground for Kaptur.

Former president Donald Trump had endorsed both Calvert and Majewski. Many of the other Trump-backed nominees for Congress lost to Democrats as Republicans fell well-short of expectations despite pre-election polling suggesting that they would take the House in a landslide.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 79 veterans had won House or Senate races in the congressional midterm elections. Another 12 veterans currently serving in the Senate were not up for reelection this year. One undecided race — the New York 22nd congressional district — features two veterans running against each other.

That’s a total of 92 veterans who will serve in the 118th Congress when it convenes in January, one more than at the start of the 117th Congress two years ago. And with more than 20 congressional races still undecided, the number could rise even higher in coming days, perhaps approaching 100 veterans.

“While this seems like a moderate uptick, it represents a profound and very positive shift in America’s relationship with its veterans,” said Seth Lynn, a University of San Francisco adjunct professor and founder of Veterans Campaign, which studies the participation and impact of veterans in public office.

“Having veterans in Congress has been shown to significantly affect how the country conducts foreign policy, and military experience is especially crucial as the world is becoming increasingly dangerous and complicated.”

The increase this cycle in the number of Congress members with military service is largely due to the low place they started — the number of veterans in America has declined steadily over the past five decades — and a resurgence in the number of younger veterans running for office.

Since the all-volunteer force was instituted in 1973, the total of Americans who served in the Armed Forces has decreased steadily. In 1980, about one in every eight American citizens had served in the military, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2020, that figure was closer to one in every 17 American citizens.

The makeup of Congress has reflected that.

In 1973, a total of 401 veterans were serving in House and Senate — 75% of all the seats in both chambers. By 1995, that number was down to 213. It dropped below 100 for the first time in 2013.

The number of members of Congress with military backgrounds increased in 2015 (up four) and again in 2017 (up three), but the total hasn’t risen by more than 1% of the congressional seat total since 1967 (when it was up 12 veterans from the previous session of Congress).

Of the 92 veterans who will serve in Congress, 16 are newly elected candidates. The group is overwhelmingly Republican, with 69 GOP members and 23 Democratic ones.

The caucus also includes seven female veterans, the largest group in congressional history: incumbent Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; incumbent Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa; and newly elected Reps. Anna Luna, R-Fla., and Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va.

The group also features a significant number of individuals who served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an important demographic shift, Lynn said.

“Whereas 20 years ago veterans were more customarily found among the elder cohorts of Congress, today it’s the youngest members who are the most likely to have served in the military,” he said.

Several of the remaining races could take days or weeks to settle. Orientation for new members of Congress is scheduled for next week, when lawmakers return from their pre-election break.

Military Times is tracking all of the veteran congressional races on this page.

Democrat Elaine Luria, a Virginia representative who used her seat to fiercely advocate for a larger Navy, lost her seat to Republican state senator Jen Kiggans. The district boasts a large number of shipyard workers, service members, veterans and their families given its proximity to Naval Station Norfolk — a base that services nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines.

Luria was one of four Democrats considered military and foreign policy leaders and labeled as vulnerable in what was expected to be a Republican-friendly election. However, Democrats generally outperformed those predictions.

Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin will return to Congress and the defense policy committee next year after winning a close race. Fellow committee member Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, also appears to be in line for a victory in his reelection bid, although the race still has not yet been called. Golden currently leads Republican Bruce Poliquin by more than 4% with 80% of the vote counted, according to the Associated Press.

Golden’s district includes the Bath Iron Works shipyard, which House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., toured in September to highlight the Maine Democrat’s defense work for his constituents.

And Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also defied national expectations and kept her seat.

Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska, another House Armed Services Committee member, ran in a race the Cook Political Report labeled a “toss-up,” but he managed to hold onto his seat as well.

Whether they’ll serve in a Republican-controlled Congress or a Democratic-led one remains to be seen. Dozens of House races across the country have yet to be settled, according to the Associated Press.

Kiggans is a Navy veteran who received significant help in the race from national Republican leaders. On Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin traveled to the district to campaign for Kiggans, calling a victory for her key to a Republican majority in the House.

Luria — a former Navy commander — has used her position as the House Armed Services Committee’s vice chairwoman to criticize President Joe Biden for proposing Pentagon budgets she views as too low and to push for large topline increases to boost the Navy’s fleet.

She bluntly said Biden’s proposed $813 billion defense budget for fiscal 2023 “sucks,” arguing the Pentagon budget should grow 3% to 5% every year over inflation.

Luria and Golden in June offered an amendment to the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act to boost the defense budget topline by $37 billion, in part to build five more ships and procure other hardware. Luria also co-sponsored a similar Republican amendment in 2021 that added to Biden’s proposed FY22 defense budget.

Kiggans has also called for a stronger military.

“I think of the unsafe world that they’ve inherited and the weakened state of the military and so now, I’m a mad mom and I talk about being a mom on a mission and that’s one thing you don’t want to mess with,” she said at her campaign rally Monday.

That’s because each state has different rules regarding absentee voting, counting of mail-in ballots, and verification of vote totals. In 2020, the presidential election could not be called until a week after the final votes were cast because of those complications, and some congressional races took significantly longer to settle.

The 196 veterans on House and Senate ballots this year represents the largest field of individuals with military experience running for office in a decade, and could lead to an increase in the total number of veterans in Congress starting next year.

Military Times will be tracking all of the races involving veterans here on Election Night and the weeks to come. For the latest results, refresh this page.

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin judge on Monday, less than 14 hours before polls opened, refused to order that military absentee ballots be pulled aside and sequestered until it can be verified that they were cast legally, saying that would be a “drastic remedy” that could disenfranchise voters.

The Republican chair of the Wisconsin Assembly’s elections committee along with a veterans group and other voters sued on Friday, seeking a court order to sequester the ballots.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Maxwell denied that request for a temporary restraining order in a ruling from the bench following a two-hour hearing Monday afternoon.

“That just seems to be a drastic remedy,” he said of sequestering the ballots.

The judge also denied a request from state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who was represented by attorneys from the conservative Thomas More Society, to order the elections commission to withdraw its guidance to clerks about absentee ballots from members of the military. Brandtjen has pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The judge said the case did raise questions about whether the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission was adequately informing the state’s 1,800-plus election clerks about their duty to maintain a list of eligible military voters.

The lawsuit comes after a top Milwaukee County elections official was charged with fraudulently requesting three military ballots using fake names and having them sent to Brandtjen as way to expose vulnerabilities in Wisconsin elections. Kimberly Zapata, deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, was fired last week and now faces charges of felony misconduct in office and three misdemeanor counts of election fraud.

Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who was hired by Republicans to investigate the 2020 election, now works for the Thomas More Society and represented Brandtjen. He argued that legitimate military absentee voters could have their votes negated by fraudulent ones, and the only way to prevent that was to sequester all the ballots to ensure they’re valid.

“How else could we possibly ensure that only the authentic military ballots are counted?” Gableman said.

Lynn Lodahl, an assistant attorney general representing the elections commission, called that a “completely unworkable request” with no legal basis.

“There’s no process in the statutes for sequestration,” she said. “The plaintiffs don’t explain what this means. They don’t explain how this will work.”

Military ballots comprise a tiny fraction of all ballots cast in the state. On average, they represent about 0.07% of all absentee ballots requested, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In the 2018 election, 2,700 military ballots were requested and as of Thursday, 2,747 military ballots had been requested for the current election.

In Wisconsin, military voters are not required to register to vote, meaning they don’t need to provide a photo ID to request an absentee ballot.

All absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls at 8 p.m. Tuesday in order to be counted. As of Sunday, more than 715,000 absentee ballots had been returned.

The Union Veterans Council, a constituency group of the AFL-CIO, intervened in the lawsuit. The group’s executive director, Will Attig, called the lawsuit a pointless “attack on people who are actively serving this country.”

Chris Yatchak, chair of the group’s Milwaukee chapter, said during a virtual news conference Monday that the lawsuit was an “outrageous attempt by a single individual to try and cast doubt on a free and fair election process.”

“I’m just appalled at this,” Yatchak said. “It’s a disgusting act.”

The case is certain to increase the pressure on the bipartisan state elections commission, which Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels has said he wants to eliminate if he wins Tuesday’s election.

Gableman was fired from his investigatory job earlier this year by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos after his work was widely ridiculed and did not present any evidence to overcome President Joe Biden’s victory. He previously appeared in court representing Harry Wait, who was charged with election fraud and identity theft after requesting and receiving absentee ballots in the names of legislators and local officials in July.

“This is the first significant increase in congressional military service in half a century,” said Seth Lynn, a University of San Francisco adjunct professor and founder of the Veterans Campaign, which studies the participation and impact of veterans in public office.

However, the total is still likely to be fewer than 100 veterans in the House and Senate. In 1995, at the start of the 104th Congress, veterans held 213 seats. In 1973, the total was 401 — 75% of all the seats in both chambers.

Still, even a small increase in veterans in Congress is significant given the slow decline in the number of individuals with military service in America.

Since the all-volunteer force was instituted in 1973, the number of Americans to serve in the armed forces has decreased steadily. In 1980, about one in every eight American citizens had served in the military, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2020, that figure was closer to one in every 17 American citizens.

There are about 18 million veterans living in America today. Nearly 200 veterans won major-party primaries this year and will vie for a seat in Congress in the midterm elections, making it the largest field of candidates with military experience in a decade.

“We’ve tracked veteran candidates in every congressional election since 2000 and we’ve never seen this many veteran challengers secure a major party nomination,” Lynn said.

Looking at specific races, Veterans Campaign officials believe that 73 veterans are running in House districts they should win. Six more races that are toss-ups feature two veterans squaring off against each other.

Twelve veterans serving in the Senate are not up for election this cycle. And two more incumbent Senate veterans (Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal) are heavily favored in their reelection bids.

That’s a baseline of 90 veterans in the House and Senate at the start of the 118th Congress, one fewer than the total at the start of the 117th Congress two years ago.

Lynn said he expects between three and eight additional House races will feature veteran winners. Six Senate candidates who are veterans are also in toss-up races.

The number of members of Congress with military backgrounds increased from 2013 to 2015 (up four) and again in 2017 (up three), but the total hasn’t risen by more than 1% of the congressional seat total since 1967 (when it was up 12 veterans from the previous session of Congress).

Veterans running as Republican candidates outnumber Democratic ones by nearly a two-to-one margin.

Here is a look at a few of the more competitive matchups and what a win might mean for control of Congress next year:

Virginia 2nd Congressional District

The incumbent, Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, is a 20-year Navy veteran and two-term member of Congress. Her final assignment was commanding Assault Craft Unit Two, a unit of 400 sailors that provided support to Marine Corps operations.

Luria has been a key figure on the House Armed Services Committee for the last four years, in some cases sparring with her own party’s leadership to push for more defense funding and more resources for the Navy.

But Luria was also a member of the House’s special committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a politically-charged assignment that altered some views of her as a centrist lawmaker.

She’ll square off on election night against fellow Navy veteran Jennifer Kiggans, the Republican nominee. Kiggans served as a CH-46 and SH-3 helicopter pilot before leaving the service and using the GI Bill to become a nurse practitioner.

Each of Luria’s past two election victories have come by less than 6% of the total votes cast. Recent polls show this year’s contest as a toss-up.

Luria losing on election night would indicate that Democrats aren’t able to hold key swing districts, and will likely lose either the House or Senate, if not both chambers.

Indiana Senate seat

This Hoosier State election is the only Senate race in the country this year featuring two veterans competing head-to-head.

Incumbent Republican Sen. Todd Young is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served in the Marine Corps for a decade. He has served in Congress since 2011 and in the Senate since 2017.

His opponent, Thomas McDermott Jr., spent six years in the Navy as a nuclear submariner. He has served as mayor of Hammond, Ind., since 2004.

Young’s seat is a must win for Republicans if they have any hopes of taking control of the Senate. The chamber is currently divided 50-50, with Democrats controlling the agenda due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ role as the tiebreaker in all Senate votes.

Young was comfortably ahead in polling earlier this summer, but surveys over the last few weeks have shown that lead shrinking. The race result could point to either broader Republican momentum on election night or Democratic candidates outperforming pre-voting polls.

New York 18th Congressional District

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan is the incumbent here, but he has only been in Congress for a few weeks. Ryan won a special election in August to replace fellow Democrat Rep. Antonio Delgado, who stepped down in May to become the New York lieutenant governor.

Ryan’s win was viewed by Democrats as a hopeful sign for the midterms, since the 18th district is almost evenly split politically. But he’ll have to win his second election in four months in order to remain in the seat.

Ryan is a West Point graduate who served two tours in Iraq as an Army intelligence officer. His opponent, Colin Schmitt, is a New York State Assembly member who served in the New York Army National Guard.

The Cook Political Report has the race listed as a toss-up, and recent polls have shown no clear advantage for either candidate.

Georgia 6th Congressional District

There is no incumbent in this newly redrawn district, since Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath was shifted to the 7th congressional district. That leaves two newcomer veterans vying to step into the role.

Republican Rich McCormick is widely expected to win the contest, based on voting patterns for the constituency. He served 20 years in the Marine Corps and Navy, including time as a department head for emergency medicine in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Democrat Bob Christian spent 10 years in the Army, including a combat tour in Iraq. He has focused much of his campaign on countering what he calls “extremist” views by Republican leaders and McCormick.

McCormick is already viewed by some Republican caucus members as a potential key voice on military and foreign affairs issues. A landslide victory would give him strong footing to start that phase of his political career. A narrow victory or upset, however, could hint at more victories for Democratic candidates across the country.