It’s a fight to the finish in races that will decide control of Congress

WASHINGTON – The last door knocks, the ads ring and the candidates cast their last vote before the voters. Even after a vigorous final push, the race for control of Congress is deadlocked, essentially meaning the House loses and it’s a fight to the finish for the Senate.

The outcome of Tuesday’s election will shape the future of the country and determine whether the new White House has allies or skeptics on Capitol Hill, or whether it will face a divided Congress like this last session, which was one of the most tumultuous and unproductive in modern times.

As voters weigh their presidential options between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, they are also considering who will represent them in Congress.

“This is why I’m an independent,” said voter Gary Motta of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, who is not happy with either president’s choice, as he showed up early Sunday morning at an event for Republican Kevin Coughlin, who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes.

The fight for control of Congress has been going on for months. The candidates argued about important issues – the economy, the border, reproductive health care and the future of democracy – but also about Congress itself, whose session was chaotic as the GOP-led House removed its speaker and narrowly avoided a government shutdown.

This is the first presidential election since the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and many Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the White House are up for re-election.

Republican Party candidates, many of whom have the former president’s support, must answer for him on several fronts. Among them is a Supreme Court decision with three Trump-nominated justices that struck down the right to access abortion

Democrats face tough questions during their tenure in the White House over Biden and Harris’ record on the U.S.-Mexico border and inflation.

Most of the closely contested House campaigns are taking place outside the presidential swing states, including New York and California, where Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker and then left Congress, has fought his way into his home state. Democrats, led by New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House of Representatives, are now trying to win them over.

Since Saturday, California Republican Pete Aguilar, chairman of the Democratic caucus, has been making nine stops through the Golden State to pick up backseat seats.

“There’s a lot of energy there,” Washington Republican Suzan DelBene, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview in Omaha, Nebraska, a surprising battleground state, after flying through New York. “We’re just working hard to get the vote out.”

She said there are “tons of volunteers on site, tons of energy, people very, very focused. They understand that the stakes are high.”

As campaign fundraising continues to climb, this election year stands out from any other: A whopping $2.5 billion was spent to win the Senate and nearly $1 billion to win the House.

The Senate is Republicans’ to lose, a coda to the long tenure of their party’s leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He recruited wealthy Republican candidates, many backed by Trump, to take on six Democratic incumbents facing tough re-elections.

In Montana, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in one of the nation’s tightest races that could hand control to Republicans. But the next six Senate races, including the blue wall races of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are as tight as the presidential race in those states.

But the landmark changes bring new uncertainty to other Senate races, forcing Sen. Ted Cruz to defend himself in Republican-overwhelmed Texas, where Democratic Rep. Colin Allred has seen a surge of energy, including after Harris’ star-studded rally in Houston with hometown hero Beyoncé. Nebraska Independent Dan Osborne surprised Nebraska Republicans when he tried to unseat GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.

Oher, Republican Senate candidates stumbled.

In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno, who is facing Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, has been critical of suburban women making access to abortion a priority. Republican Tim Sheehy made derogatory remarks about Native Americans, a key voting bloc in his race against Tester in Montana.

As Republicans have outsourced their get-out-the-vote efforts to new groups, including Elon Musk’s America PAC, campaign committees have had to face their own to ensure people vote.

Davide Cuigini, a member of the Young Republicans working on the Moreno vote recount last weekend in Ohio, said: “Republicans are finally voting early, so that will make a difference.”

But energy on the Democratic side quickly increased when Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket over the summer.

Democrat Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, who could make history with Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware as Black women in the Senate, hosted former President Barack Obama last week. Alsobrooks is running against Larry Hogan, a popular former governor.

Democrats have seen a shift in views in several races, according to nonpartisan analysts in the House of Representatives. But others, in Alaska and an open seat in Michigan, lean Republican. The House’s two longest-serving lawmakers are fighting for their political lives in Ohio and California.

Still, an internal DCCC memo showed that a week before the election, 21 of the 25 contested seats were still close.

There are also some unusual battlegrounds, including what Nebraskans call the “blue dot” around Omaha, where Republican Don Bacon faces a challenge from Democrat Tony Vargas.

The outcome of the races will be a test of House leadership under Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. During a recent stop near Akron, Ohio, he said he knew that with “compelling GOP warriors” as candidates, they would win.

Jeffries, who is expected to become House speaker if Democrats take control, said he has decided to “stay calm” even if the possibility of unexpected events keeps him up at night.

If both houses do reverse control of the party, as much as possible, it will be a rare occurrence.

The data shows that if Democrats take the House of Representatives and Republicans take the Senate, it will be the first time that both chambers of Congress have turned to opposing political parties.

“This election is a very important issue,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is campaigning for another Democrat in one of his state’s House elections.

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Associated Press writers Lea Skene in Baltimore and Stephen Groves and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.