Incumbent Republican Sen. Roy Blunt officially staved off a surprisingly strong challenge from Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander when Kander conceded the race just before 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday. When Kander conceded, The New York Times had Blunt with 50.1 percent of the vote with 89 percent reporting.

After initially trailing Blunt by 5 points back in August, Kander succeeded in narrowing the gap between himself and the incumbent Missouri senator to bring them both within 1 point of each other. Though he never surpassed Blunt in the RealClearPolitics polling average, the charismatic 35-year-old Kander gave 66-year-old Blunt a run for his money when the polling average awarded a mere 1.5-point lead to Blunt the week before the election.

Close

The Show-Me State, which often has proved to be a purple state, has leaned significantly redder in recent elections. Nevertheless, the tight race Kander ran against Blunt gave Senate Republicans cause for alarm as they fought to hold onto their majority after a contentious election season.

But Blunt’s 20 years of experience holding public office in both the House and the Senate seemed to have won the day for Missouri voters. Although the incumbent senator will walk out of the 2016 election with another victory, the Missouri race truly was a close call. Neither of Blunt’s previous challengers have ever polled as closely to him as Kander did. The smallest percent of the vote he ever received was 65 percent when he first ran for the House in 1996.