WASHINGTON — The final knocks are on doors, ads are blaring, and candidates are making their final pitch to voters. Despite the high-energy latest push, the races for control of Congress remain deadlocked; There is a fight for the House of Representatives and a fight to the bitter end for the Senate.

The outcome of Tuesday’s elections will shape the future of the country, determining whether the new White House has allies or skeptics on Capitol Hill or faces a divided Congress like this past session, one of the most turbulent and unproductive in modern times.

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

“That’s why I’m an independent,” Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio voter Gary Motta, unhappy with both choices for president, said while attending an event for Republican Kevin Coughlin early Sunday morning. To unseat Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes.

The fight for control of Congress has been going on for months. The candidates sparred over big issues like the economy, the border, reproductive health and the future of democracy, as well as Congress itself, which had a chaotic session with the GOP-led House of Representatives impeaching its speaker and barely staving off a government shutdown.

This is the first presidential election since the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 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 candidates, many backed by the former president, find themselves having to answer for him on a variety of fronts. These include the Supreme Court’s decision, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, ending access to abortion.

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

Many of the closely contested House campaigns are fought outside of presidential swing states; This includes New York and California, where Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker in those states and then left Congress, made inroads in his home state. Democrats, led by the party’s House leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, are now trying to win them back.

As of Saturday, California Rep. Pete Aguilar, chairman of the Democratic caucus, is making a nine-stop push in the Golden State to win back the seat.

“There’s a lot of energy out there,” Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview in Omaha, Nebraska, a surprising battleground after a shift in New York. “We are working hard to get votes.”

“There are tons of volunteers on the field, there is a lot of energy, and people who are very, very focused. They know there is a lot at stake,” he said.

This election year is distinguished by the ever-increasing world of campaign fundraising: $2.5 billion is being spent to win the Senate and almost $1 billion to win the House.

The Senate is something Republicans will lose; a result of the long rule of party leaders Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He has recruited wealthy Republican candidates, many backed by Trump, to face a half-dozen incumbent Democrats facing a tough re-election.

In Montana, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in one of the most competitive races in the country that could hand control to Republicans. But a half-dozen other Senate races, including the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are as competitive as the presidential race in those states.

But the latest changes are causing new uncertainty in other Senate races and putting Sen. Ted Cruz on the defensive in Republican-dominated Texas; here Democratic Rep. Colin Allred is seeing a surge of energy, including from Harris’ star-studded rally in Houston. Beyoncé, her hometown hero. Nebraska independent Dan Osborne caught Republicans off guard in Nebraska as he tried to unseat GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.

Oher Republican Senate candidates stumbled.

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

Campaign committees have had to stand up on their own to get people to vote, as Republicans have handed over vote-winning efforts to new groups, including Elon Musk’s America PAC.

“Republicans are finally starting to vote early, so that will make a difference,” said Davide Cuigini, who was part of the Young Republicans working to vote for Moreno in Ohio last weekend.

However, when Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket in the summer, the energy on the Democratic side increased rapidly.

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

In the House, Democrats have seen many races change direction, according to nonpartisan analysts. But open seats in Alaska and Michigan are tilting toward Republicans. The House’s two longest-serving lawmakers are fighting for their political lives in Ohio and California.

Yet an internal DCCC memo showed that a week after the election, 21 of the 25 contested seats were still closed.

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

The outcome of the races will be a test under the leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. He said at a recent stop near Akron, Ohio, that when the GOP’s “handsome warriors” ran, he knew they would win.

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

If the two chambers do indeed engage in reverse party control, which is possible, it would be rare.

Records show that if Democrats take the House of Representatives and Republicans take the Senate, the halls of Congress will turn to opposing political parties for the first time.

“This election is a big deal,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is campaigning for a fellow Democrat in one of his state’s House races.

__

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