Brookhart held the seat only until April 12, 1926 when the Senate voted by a margin of 45-41 to replace him with Steck, who then served out the remainder of the term. Because the Senate was then firmly in Republican control, his ouster was possible only because over a dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to unseat Brookhart. On other occasions, the Senate has settled election disputes before a senator took office, but that was the only time that the results were overturned after the senator had been seated. The biographer George William McDaniel concludes: