WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate late Tuesday after flipping Democratic-held seats, retaining GOP incumbents and taking away the majority for the first time in four years.

The unlikely battleground state of Nebraska put Republicans over the top. Incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer held off a surprisingly strong challenge from independent newcomer Dan Osborn.

Democrats watched as their efforts to salvage their slim majority fell out of reach as numbers rolled out across a map favoring Republicans.

Earlier in the night, Republicans flipped a seat in West Virginia with the selection of Jim Justice, who would easily replace retiring Sen. Joe Manchin.

Democratic efforts to oust firebrand Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida have collapsed.

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

Cruz’s victory came after Democrats’ efforts to salvage their Senate majority evaporated when Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio lost re-election to Republican Bernie Moreno, a Trump-era nouveau riche.

Brown’s loss to Moreno, an immigrant from Bogota, Colombia who made a fortune as a luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur, puts Democrats on the brink of losing Senate control. A three-term senator, he is the first incumbent to lose re-election.

The Ohio race between Brown and Donald Trump-backed Moreno was the most expensive race of the cycle, at nearly $400 million.

With control of Congress at stake, contests for the House and Senate will determine which party has the majority and the authority to support or block a president’s agenda or whether the White House faces a divided Capitol Hill.

The focus now turns to Democratic “blue wall” states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Democrats are fighting to retain what seats remain from their tenuous hold in the Senate.

After all, just a handful or even one small seat can shift the balance in both compartments. The party in the White House determines the majority, with the 50-50 Senate because the vice president serves as the tiebreaker.

Many states will send history makers to the Senate anyway.

In a historic first, voters elected two Black women to the Senate: Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Democrat Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.

Blunt Rochester won the open seat in his home state, while Alsobrooks defeated Maryland’s popular former governor, Larry Hogan. Only three Black women have served in the Senate, and never before have two served simultaneously.

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

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

Major contests are playing out not only in the first presidential election since the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but also in unexpected corners of the country in the wake of one of the most chaotic congressional hearings in modern times.

Voters said the economy and immigration were the most important issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a primary motivation for many Americans to vote in the presidential election.

AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, revealed a country mired in negativity and desperate for change at a time when Americans face a stark choice between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Congress plays a role in continuing America’s tradition of peaceful transfers of 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 the election of President Joe Biden. Congress will be asked to certify the results of the 2025 presidential election.

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

The top House races focus on New York and California, where Democrats are trying to retake some of the roughly 10 seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years with star lawmakers who helped bring the party to power.

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

In some races, vote counting could extend into Tuesday.

“We’re within striking distance of taking back the House,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who would make history as the first black speaker if his party wins control, told The Associated Press during a recent campaign rally. Southern California.

However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who approached Trump, predicts that Republicans will maintain and expand their majority. He took over after Kevin McCarthy was fired 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 fighting for his political career against Trump-backed Tim Sheehy, a former NAVY Seal who has made derogatory comments about Native Americans, a key Western constituency. situation.

Outgoing Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has spent his career focused on seizing and preserving majority power, but other opportunities for Republicans are shifting toward long shots.

In the southwestern states, Arizona’s firebrand Republican Kari Lake ran against Democrat Ruben Gallego in the seat opened by the retirement of Sen. Krysten Sinema. In Nevada, Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen is holding out against newcomer Sam Brown.

Democrats have stepped up their challenges to a pair of Republican senators — Cruz of Texas and Scott of Florida — in states where reproductive rights are a focus following the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back access to abortion. Scott defeated former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat.

What started as a lackluster race for control of Congress instantly transformed as Harris replaced Biden in the top spot, energizing Democrats with massive fundraising and volunteers; lawmakers said 2008 reminded them of the Obama-era euphoria.

The consequences of redistricting also change the balance of power within the House of Representatives, as states redraw their maps for congressional districts; Republicans are poised to take several seats from Democrats in North Carolina, with Democrats picking up a second black-majority Republican-dominated seat. Alabama

While lawmakers in the House of Representatives appear before voters every two years, senators serve longer terms of six years.

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.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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