Mike Rounds, the former governor of South Dakota, has won that seat’s Senate election. The heavily conservative state was expected to be one of the GOP’s easier pickups after Democratic senator Tim Johnson decided to retire. The Democratic candidate, businessman and former federal official Rick Weiland, didn’t appear to stand a chance.

The race was only thrown into doubt briefly a month or so ago when a couple polls suggested that independent candidate Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator, might be drawing enough votes to, and some Democratic support, to push Rounds into the 30s and make the race competitive (Andrew Johnson wrote up the story for NRO). Rounds, however, pulled away in the polls steadily.

With Democratic seats captured so far tonight in West Virginia and Arkansas too, the Republican party now has netted three Senate seats, and is just three seats away from holding a majority in the upper chamber.