ANO's candidates lost all thirteen of their contests in the second round of the Senate election. Between the first and second rounds they lost roughly a third of their votes, their opponents only a tenth. (The Czech Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, has 81 members elected in single-seat districts for six years; a third of the seats is renewed every two years, and if no candidate wins an outright majority in the first round, the top two meet in a run-off a week later.)
Fewer people vote in the second round, and the two finalists share the voters of the candidates who were knocked out. This year, those voters went mainly to ANO's opponents. The data do not support the other possible explanation, that it was mainly ANO's voters who stayed at home in the second round. Turnout fell to roughly half everywhere alike: both where ANO did well in the first round and where it received few votes. The data show only vote totals in polling districts, however, not the decisions of individual voters.
The governing parties ANO, SPD and the Motorists (Motoristé) thus failed to win a single one of the 27 seats, for the first time since the Senate was established in 1996. The worst results so far were those of the ČSSD (Social Democrat) minority government in 2000 and of the ANO and ČSSD government in 2020, each with a single seat. We went through the register of all Senate candidates 1996–2025 in the open data of ČSÚ, the Czech Statistical Office, this year's results by district and the polling-district data, and compared this year with all previous regular Senate elections.
The ANO movement fielded 24 candidates, more than any other party, and 13 of them advanced to the second round. None won. SPD had 17 candidates and none reached the second round; the Motorists did not nominate anyone. None of the 27 new senators ran even for a coalition that included one of the governing parties.
We count as governing parties those that were in government on polling day, and we assign each senator to the party that nominated them. The closest to this year's zero was 2004: Gross's ČSSD won not a single seat then, but its coalition partners KDU-ČSL and US-DEU added four. Governments rarely do well in Senate elections. The governing parties won a majority of the seats up for election, that is at least 14 of 27, only four times: in 2006, 2014, 2022 and 2024.
The result shifts the balance of power across the whole chamber. According to the expected composition, the ODS and TOP 09, KDU-ČSL and STAN clubs will have 61 senators, while the 14-member ANO club supports the government. Neither SPD nor the Motorists have anyone in the Senate.
Who won in the individual districts this year and how votes moved between the rounds is shown in our article on the second round (in Czech).
For the first time, the governing parties won no Senate seat
How many of the 27 districts were won by candidates nominated by the governing parties, regular elections 1998–2026; below the axis, the prime minister on polling day
ANO lost all 13 run-offs; two years ago it won six
As recently as 2024, when it was in opposition, ANO won eight Senate seats, the most in its history. It won two outright in the first round and six of 19 contests in the second. After the first round it was then leading in 11 districts. This year it led in only two, and lost both in the second round. In Česká Lípa, Jitka Volfová had 35.05% in the first round; in the second she was defeated by Martin Půta (Mayors for the Liberec Region) by 55.75 to 44.24. In Karviná, Lenka Brzyszkowská led with 33.62%; Petr Kazík (Personalities for the Region) had 14.31% in the first round and won the second with 52.93%. ANO thus also lost the Karviná seat, which it had held since 2020 with Ondřej Feber.
No party has ever lost so many run-offs without winning at least one. The previous record for such defeats was held by KSČM (the Communist Party) in 2000, with none won out of eight contests. Since 2016, when it began running for the Senate, SPD has not won a single seat and has reached the second round only twice.
In other years, too, ANO's opponents have won over the voters of eliminated candidates more easily than ANO's candidates. But this year ANO's candidates retained the smallest share of their first-round votes in the second round since the movement began running for the Senate.
ANO's candidates kept two thirds of their first-round votes in the second round
Finalists' votes in round 2 as a share of their votes in round 1 (%), districts where ANO was in round 2, regular elections 2014–2026
ANO reached the second round in 13 districts this year and did not win once
Candidates nominated by ANO in the second round and how many of them won, regular elections 2014–2026 (excluding those elected in round 1)
The anti-government bloc holds 65 of the Senate's 81 votes
We count as opposition all senatorial clubs except ANO: ODS and TOP 09 (31 senators), KDU-ČSL (12) and STAN (18). We add to them the unaffiliated senators whom we know do not support the current coalition. Václav Láska, Přemysl Rabas and Martin Krsek were elected for SEN 21 and until now sat in the SEN 21 and Pirates club. That club ceased to exist after the election, because only three of its senators remained and five are needed to form a club. The newly elected Petr Kazík ran in Karviná for the Personalities for the Region movement. It was founded in January 2024 by the former Moravian-Silesian regional governor Ivo Vondrák after his split with ANO (Personalities for the Region, Wikipedia), and ran in the 2024 regional elections in coalition with the Mayors (Polar, 2024). Together that makes 65 votes. Club numbers are based on their membership at senat.cz and, for the newly elected, on who nominated them; they will settle once the new senators join clubs.
Loading Senate composition…
For a constitutional act, the Senate needs a three-fifths majority of those present, which with full attendance means 49 votes (Constitution of the Czech Republic, Art. 39). The anti-government bloc has it with a margin of 16 votes. It would survive even the departure of the entire KDU-ČSL club, keeping 53 votes. Without STAN's eighteen senators, however, it would have 47, below the threshold.
On the other side stand the 14 senators of the ANO club. We count with them, as a pro-government senator, the unaffiliated Daniela Kovářová, elected in 2022 as an independent candidate. The only uncertain one is the newly elected Petr Korč, who defeated senator Helena Pešatová (STAN) in Frýdek-Místek. He was nominated by the local movement Naše Město F-M (Our Town F-M), and we cannot yet say whether he will lean towards ANO or against it.
A narrow three-fifths majority has decided matters in the Senate before. After the 1998 election, the ODS and ČSSD clubs, bound by the so-called opposition agreement, had exactly 49 senators between them. They lost it in 1999 when, after the death of senator Václav Benda (ODS), the by-election in Prague 1 was won by the independent Václav Fischer with 71% of the vote, while the candidate of the governing ČSSD received 1%. At the time, both parties were preparing a constitutional amendment intended to curb the president's powers, and without a three-fifths majority in the Senate they could no longer push it through (20 Years of the Senate, p. 14, senat.cz, in Czech).
Moreover, the Senate must approve every electoral law, and the Chamber of Deputies cannot override it here (Constitution of the Czech Republic, Art. 40). A simple majority of senators present is enough, so for every change to the electoral rules the government will need the consent of a chamber in which 15 of 81 senators are sympathetic to it.
The anti-government bloc has more Senate votes than a constitutional act requires
81 seats by expected clubs after the 2026 election; anti-government and pro-government senators as defined by DataTimes
Only one woman was elected; in the second round, women ran mainly for ANO
Of the 27 new senators, only one is a woman: Zuzana Ceralová Petrofová, nominated by ODS in Hradec Králové. Never since the Senate was established have so few women been elected; the lowest number so far was two women senators in 2018. The number of women in the Senate fell from 17 to 14 of 81, that is from 21 to 17%. Four women senators' terms ended this year: Miroslava Němcová (ODS) and Jitka Seitlová (KDU-ČSL) did not run again, while Adéla Sucharda Šípová and Helena Pešatová sought re-election and lost.
Yet more women stood than usual, 21.4% of all candidates; only in 2022 was the share higher. Eleven women advanced to the second round, all against a man, and only one won. In previous elections, women won roughly half of such contests. The strongest explanation, however, is party, not gender: seven of the eleven women in the second round ran for ANO, which won nowhere. Outside ANO, four women reached the second round and one of them won. We count women by their names, because ČSÚ does not record gender in the register. Our figures match the overview by Forum 50%.
Only one woman was elected to the Senate this year, the fewest since 1996
Number of women elected in regular elections to a third of the Senate (27 districts), 1998–2026
Incumbent senators held their seats more often than ever before
This year, 21 of the 27 senators whose terms were ending ran again in their own district, and 15 of them succeeded. The success rate of 71% is the highest since the Senate was established. The previous high was 61% in 1998; usually a third to a half of incumbents held their seats. Research on Senate elections from 1998 to 2012 did not confirm an incumbency advantage, so this year's result is an exception.
The most likely explanation is who the incumbents were. All 21 incumbents this year were nominated by parties that are not currently in government, and the anti-government mood helped them. Senators of the governing parties were not defending any seat this year. In years when Senate elections punished the government of ODS (2008) or of ANO and ČSSD (2020), incumbents from the governing parties fared the opposite way: in 2008 one of eight succeeded, in 2020 none of ten. We do not include senators who ran in a different district this year, such as Karel Zitterbart (STAN), who lost a contest between two senators in Brno to Zdeněk Papoušek (ODS).
This year, 15 of 21 senators held their seat in their own district
Senators whose terms ended in a given year: who held the seat, who lost and who did not run in their own district, 1998–2026
Second-round turnout was the highest since 2010
21% of voters took part in the second round, the most since 2010. From 2014 to 2024 it was always below 20%.
Compared with the first round, roughly half as many people turned out. The first round was held together with municipal elections, which bring more voters to the polls, while the second was held on its own. A drop this large is therefore usual. This year, however, it was smaller than in 2014, 2018 and 2022, when the first round was also held alongside municipal elections.
In places where the governing parties have strong support, fewer people vote already in the first round. In the second round, turnout then fell similarly everywhere. According to a study by Karel Kouba, voters drop off between rounds mainly because the first round coincides with other elections and because second-round contests tend to be of low intensity.
Second-round turnout was the highest since 2010
Turnout in the second round of Senate elections (envelopes issued / registered voters), regular elections 1998–2026
How we calculate
A senator's party is the party that nominated them, not their club. We count as governing parties those that were in government on polling day (in 2006 the ODS minority government that had resigned; in 2024 including the Pirates). Seeking re-election means that the district's incumbent senator ran in the same district. Turnout is the share of envelopes issued among registered voters, as calculated by ČSÚ. Gender is missing from the ČSÚ register; we determined it from first names and compared the results with Forum 50% and the IPU Parline database. All figures are calculated by a single script from ČSÚ open data; this year's results are from 17 October 2026 after all polling districts were counted, before the official announcement.
