Representative’s defeats left out on Senate resume (9)
I believe the answer is:
repossess
'senate resume' is the definition.
'repossess' can be an answer for 'resume' (thesaurus). I'm unsure of the 'senate' bit.
'representative's defeats left out on' is the wordplay.
'representative's' becomes 'rep's' (rep is a kind of representative).
'defeats left' becomes 'sess' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'out' is an insertion indicator.
'on' becomes 'o' (I've seen this in other clues).
'reps'+'sess'='repssess'
'repssess' enclosing 'o' is 'REPOSSESS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for repossess that I've seen before include "Get back" , "Retake ownership" , "Regain legal ownership" , "Seize assets" , "Claim back, for default of payment perhaps" .)