Jack Reed wins sixth term in US Senate

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed has secured a sixth term after easily beating Republican Ray McKay and independent first-time candidate Michael Bahry, the Associated Press reported Tuesday night.

Polls in Rhode Island closed at 8 p.m. The AP called the race at 8:01 p.m., even with zero percent votes counted.

But ten minutes later, with less than 1% votes counted, the AP had Reed at 58% of the vote with McKay at 38% and Bahry at 4%

The Cook Political Report’s Senate Race Ratings predicted the outcome for Rhode Island’s Senate seat in Tuesday’s election as “solid Democrat.”

Reed will turn 77 on Nov. 12. U.S. senators serve six-year terms.

He is the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and served as its chairman between 2021 and 2025. He also serves on the Appropriations committee, the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee and the Intelligence committee. 

Reed, a West Point graduate and Army veteran first elected to the Senate in 1996, went into Tuesday’s election with a sizable lead. A University of New Hampshire (UNH) poll published Sunday found his support had grown to 63% while Republican McKay had been stuck at 32%.

Only 3% of voters in the UNH poll said they supported Bahry, of East Providence, a former visiting lecturer at Salve Regina University.

McKay, 65, of Warwick, a former city administrator and network and telecommunications manager,  lost the 2024 Republican primary to Patricia Morgan who was then defeated by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in the November general election. A Warwick city ordinance prohibiting municipal employees from running for office derailed his plan for a 2014 run against Reed.

Reed will begin his next term in January 2027.