Republicans Take the Senate With 100 House Races Yet to Be Called

Republicans have won control of the U.S. Senate, retaking the chamber for the first time in four years. It gives the GOP a major power center in Washington and a lead role in confirming the next president’s Cabinet, as well as any Supreme Court justice if there is a vacancy.

Early in the night, Republicans flipped one seat in West Virginia, with the election of Jim Justice, the state’s governor, who replaced retiring Sen. Joe Manchin, and then another in Ohio when Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown lost to wealthy newcomer Bernie Moreno.

It’s a political coda for outgoing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who has made a career charting the path to power and recruiting wealthy Republicans in races that topped $2 billion with outside spending.

The House races are in a state-by-state slog. For Republicans, it’s a chance to gain full control of Congress as they try to sweep into power. For Democrats, a House majority will give them an important check on the GOP’s power and force compromise in Washington..

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, the “blue dot” around Omaha, Nebraska, and in Alaska.

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

If the two chambers do in fact flip party control, it would be rare.Records show that 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.