That and the fact that there was a 3rd party to take enough votes to let the ‘rats win with 49%.
And it was the wildest stroke of luck for the Dems to have knocked off so many of ours (6) in Senate races last November. Even in the much vaunted 1994 elections, we only knocked off a paltry 2 Dem incumbents (in PA with a weak 3-year incumbent & my state of TN, where we sacked a horrible 18-year incumbent — I nearly broke the bed in my motel room in Bangor, Maine jumping up and down when CNN read the results that we took out Sasser ! My vote had finally mattered). We regained the Senate in ‘94 solely on the backs of retirements in 6 Dem seats (of which we swept them all).