no senate race in some states?

Question

why some states like Oklahoma did not have senate race in 2006 ?

Answer 1

This was a Mid-Term Election where only a part of the House and Senate are elected. We do it that way so government does not have a nonfunctional period.

Answer 2

Senators have six-year terms, so only a third of the U.S. Senate is up for re-election during any election. Oklahoma's senators are both currently in the middle of their terms (one should be up in 2008).

Answer 3

jerofjungle was partly wrong.

House of Representatives are two-year offices. They're all up for re-election every two years.

As the other answers pointed out, only 1/3 of the Senate (who have terms of 6 years) is up every two years.

The idea is that, that more serious and deliberative body (well, in theory) shouldn't risk being completely replace with newbies, but 2/3 of them (more or less) should be stable after any one election cycle.

The idea is that it would be too chaotic and unstable if they were all up all the time.

Answer 4

Senators serve six year terms, and they're set up so one third of the senate comes up for reelection every two years, about 33 people. Since every state has two senators, that means during each election year, about one third of the states don't have either of their senators up for reelection.