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The '''1912–13 United States Senate elections''' were held on various dates in various states. They were the last [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] elections before the ratification of the [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Seventeenth Amendment]] in 1913, establishing direct elections for all Senate seats. Senators had been primarily chosen by [[State legislature (United States)|state legislatures]]. Senators were elected over a wide range of time throughout 1912 and 1913, and a seat may have been filled months late or remained vacant due to [[Gridlock (politics)|legislative deadlock]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/17th-amendment|title=17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913)|website=National Archives and Records Administration|date=February 8, 2022}}</ref> Some states elected their senators directly even before passage of Seventeenth Amendment. [[Oregon]] pioneered direct election and experimented with different measures over several years until it succeeded in 1907. Soon after, [[Nebraska]] followed suit and laid the foundation for other states to adopt measures reflecting the people's will. By 1912, as many as 29 states elected senators either as nominees of their party's [[Primary election|primary]] or in conjunction with a [[general election]].
In these elections, terms were up for the senators in [[Classes of United States senators|Class 2]]. The [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] gained control of the Senate for the first time in [[1892 United States Senate elections|20 years]]. Of the 32 seats up for election, 17 were won by Democrats, thereby gaining 4 seats from the Republicans. Two seats were unfilled by state legislators who failed to elect a new senator on time.
These elections coincided with Democrat [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s victory in the [[1912 United States presidential election|presidential election]] amid a divide in the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]]. In the Senate, [[Joseph M. Dixon]] and [[Miles Poindexter]] defected from the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] and joined [[Theodore Roosevelt]]'s new [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Progressive Party]]. Dixon, however, lost his seat during this election.
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