Republicans take Senate majority from Democrats

By Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick

Nov. 5, 2024 Updated 9:02 PM PT

WASHINGTON — Republicans seized control of the U.S. Senate late Tuesday after flipping Democratic-held seats, holding onto GOP incumbents and wresting away the majority.

The unexpected battleground of Nebraska pushed Republicans over the top. Incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer brushed back a surprisingly strong challenge from independent newcomer Dan Osborn.

Democrats watched their efforts to salvage their slim majority slip out of reach as tallies rolled in across a map that favored Republicans.

Early in the night, Republicans flipped one seat in West Virginia, with the election of Jim Justice, who easily won the race to replace retiring Sen. Joe Manchin III.

Democratic efforts to oust Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida collapsed.

While Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in almost 30 years, Colin Allred, a Dallas-area congressman and former NFL linebacker, positioned himself as a moderate and leaned into his support for reproductive rights amid Texas’ abortion ban, one of the strictest in the nation.

Cruz’s victory came after Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio lost his reelection to Republican Bernie Moreno, a wealthy Trump-era newcomer.

The race between Brown, a three-term senator, and Moreno, who was backed by former President Trump, was the most expensive of the cycle, at some $400 million. Moreno, an immigrant from Bogota, Colombia, built a fortune as a luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur.

With control of Congress at stake, the ever-tight contests for the House will determine which party holds the majority and the power to boost or block a president’s agenda, or if the White House confronts a divided Capitol Hill. In the end, a handful of seats, or even just one, could tip the balance.

Already several states will send history-makers to the Senate.

Voters elected two Black women to the Senate, Democrats Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, in a historic first.

Blunt Rochester won the open seat in her state while Alsobrooks defeated Maryland’s popular former governor, Larry Hogan. Just three Black women have served in the Senate, and never before have two served at the same time.

And in New Jersey, Andy Kim became the first Korean American elected to the Senate, defeating Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw. The seat opened when Democrat Robert Menendez resigned this year after his federal conviction on bribery charges.

Elsewhere, House candidate Sarah McBride, a Democratic state lawmaker from Delaware who is close to President Biden’s family, won her race, becoming the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.

The key contests are playing out alongside the first presidential election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but also in unexpected corners of the country after what has been one of the most chaotic congressional sessions in modern times.

Voters said the economy and immigration were the top issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting ballots in the presidential election.

AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity as Americans faced a stark choice between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Congress plays a role in upholding the American tradition of peacefully transferring presidential power. Four years ago, Trump sent his mob of supporters to “fight like hell” at the Capitol, and many Republicans in Congress voted to block Biden’s election. Congress will again be called upon to certify the results of the presidential election in 2025.

Billions of dollars have been spent by the parties, and outside groups on the narrow battleground for both the 435-member House and 100-member Senate.

Top House races are focused in New York and California, where Democrats are trying to claw back some of the 10 or so seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years with star lawmakers who helped deliver the party to power.

Other House races are scattered around the country in a sign of how narrow the field has become. Only a couple of dozen seats are being seriously challenged, with some of the most contentious in Maine; in Nebraska, the “blue dot” around Omaha; and in Alaska.

Vote counting in some races could extend well past Tuesday.

“We’re in striking distance in terms of taking back the House,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is in line to make history as the first Black speaker if his party wins control, told the Associated Press during a recent campaign swing through Southern California.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), drawing closer to Trump, predicts Republicans will “grow” their majority. He took over after Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield was booted from the speaker’s office.

One of the most-watched Senate races, in Montana, may be among the last to be decided. Democrat Jon Tester, a popular three-term senator and “dirt farmer,” is in the fight of his political career against Trump-backed Republican Tim Sheehy, a wealthy former Navy SEAL, who made derogatory comments about Native Americans, a key constituency in the Western state.

In the Southwestern states, Arizona firebrand Republican Kari Lake has struggled against Democrat Ruben Gallego in the seat opened by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s retirement. In Nevada, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen has been holding out against Republican newcomer Sam Brown.

What started as a lackluster race for control of Congress was instantly transformed once Harris stepped in for Biden at the top of the ticket, energizing Democrats with massive fundraising and volunteers that lawmakers said reminded them of the Obama-era enthusiasm of 2008.

Fallout from redistricting, when states redraw their maps for congressional districts, is also shifting the balance of power within the House, with Republicans set to gain several seats from Democrats in North Carolina and Democrats picking up a second Black-majority seat in Republican-heavy Alabama.

Lawmakers in the House face voters every two years, while senators serve six-year terms.

If Democrats take the House and Republicans take the Senate, it would be the first time that the chambers of Congress have both flipped to opposing political parties.

Mascaro and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.