The Republican party has won the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Jay Rockefeller in West Virginia, according to network projections. Capito, a U.S. representative, defeated Natalie Tennant, the state’s secretary of state.

As an open seat in a state with a strong Democratic history, it wasn’t necessarily an automatic win for the GOP. But Capito, a candidate the party was excited to land, easily outstripped Tennant in the polls for most of the year, holding a double-digit lead. The president’s announcement of new regulations on power plants that will harm the coal industry probably hurt the candidate from his own party this year, although Tennant opposed them to some extent.

Capito is the first Republican senator elected from West Virginia since 1956 and the first female senator in the state’s history; the GOP also took control of the state house for the first time since 1930.