Almost lost in the frenzy of a close and immensely consequential 2024 presidential election is the battle for control of Congress — which will determine how much actual power the president-elect will be able to wield. For some recent context, just compare the impressive legislative accomplishments of the first two years of the Biden administration, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate, with the bitter harvest of divided government in the past two years. Democrats obviously want to flip control of the House (now narrowly controlled by Republicans) while hanging onto the Senate. Thanks to this year’s extremely pro-GOP Senate landscape, the former goal is a lot more realistic than the latter, but there could be some surprises. Here’s how the fight to control Congress looks in the last few days of the election.
.
The Senate: Democrats will need an upset to keep control
Democrats currently control the Senate with 51 seats. But the retirement of Joe Manchin has virtually guaranteed Republicans a 50th seat in deep-red West Virginia. The crucial 51st seat (which wouldn’t be essential for control if Donald Trump wins and J.D. Vance wields the tie-breaking Senate vote) could come from any number of highly competitive races involving seats current held by Democrats. Most of those races have been tightening up in recent days: in Michigan, where Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin holds a narrow lead (3.9 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling averages) over former congressman Mike Rogers; and in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where incumbents Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin are locked into close races with wealthy challengers Dave McCormick and Eric Hovde, respectively. Casey currently leads by 2.8 percent in the polling averages, and Baldwin leads by 2.1 percent.
Unfortunately for Democrats, another incumbent in a tough race is not doing so well: Montana’s Jon Tester is now routinely trailing Republican Tim Sheehy (who leads by 5.4 percent in the polling averages) in a state Trump is expected to carry by double digits. In addition, another Democratic incumbent in a deep-red state, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, is trying to prevail in the most expensive Senate race in the country. Brown’s opponent, Bernie Moreno, is the beneficiary of vast spending by Senate Republicans who see this seat as a hedge against too much independence from moderate Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
It’s possible, of course, that Democrats can win all these races and hang onto the Senate if Tim Walz is the tie-breaking vote. But it’s a lot to ask. So Democrats are left praying for an upset in one of three races where Republican senators are in less-than-robust shape.
The perpetually underpopular Ted Cruz of Texas is in another tough contest, this time with Congressman Colin Allred. Cruz’s particular problem is the increasingly negative reaction to Texas’s draconian abortion ban, which, like nearly all Texas Republicans, Cruz has supported. Kamala Harris’s appearance in Houston last week with Beyoncé is a sign Democrats think a shocker is possible, or at least that fighting abortion extremism remains their ace-in-the-hole nationally. But Cruz, who leads Allred by 3.3 percent in the polling averages, remains the favorite. In Florida, another MAGA extremist, Rick Scott, has been in a relatively close race with former congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (he leads in the polling averages by 4.5 percent), but his vast wealth and the state’s increasingly Republican complexion make an upset here unlikely. It is notable that Scott felt compelled to harshly criticize the anti–Puerto Rican slur by a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally; Puerto Ricans are a large and Democratic-leaning presence in central Florida.
The final possible upset of a Republican senator is the most unlikely one. In Nebraska, centrist-populist independent Dan Osborn is running a remarkably strong campaign against staid Republican incumbent Deb Fischer (there’s no Democrat in the race). Since the contest was not expected to be competitive, the polling was a bit limited and of low quality until the gold standard New York Times–Siena outfit polled Nebraska in late October and found Osborn leading among registered voters and down just two points among likely voters. National Republicans have come to Fischer’s rescue with big bags of money, and historically, indie candidates like Osborn tend to fade in the stretch, but it’s worth watching. Unfortunately for Democrats, Osborn has vowed not to caucus with either party in the Senate, so even if he wins, he may not be willing to salvage Democratic control.
.
The House: Close to a toss-up
Here’s the bottom line from the authoritative source for House election ratings, the Cook Political Report:
The race for control of the U.S. House remains as close as it’s ever been. The battleground is confined to a few dozen seats, with neither party having a clear advantage in a majority of seats. And with several competitive races in West Coast states that take longer to count their ballots, it’s highly possible we won’t know which party has control on election night.
At the moment, Republicans hold 221 seats to Democrats’ 214. In our final House race ratings, Democrats are favored in 205 seats, while Republicans are favored in 208, leaving 22 seats in the Toss Up column. If the Toss Ups split down the middle, Republicans would maintain their majority by an even narrower 219 to 216 seat margin.
Though Republicans are favored in a few more seats, they also have a lower ceiling, since they’re defending more competitive territory. If Republicans sweep the Toss Ups, they’d pick up nine seats, while if Democrats sweep the Toss Ups they would pick up 13 seats.
The 22 toss-up contests Cook identifies overlap to some extent with presidential and Senate battlegrounds: There are three toss-ups in Pennsylvania, two in Arizona, and one each in Michigan and North Carolina. But what jumps off the page is how many toss-ups involve Republican-held seats in California: There are five — four in districts carried by Joe Biden in 2020. And it’s also worth noting that there are three Democratic-leaning races in which New York Republican incumbents are in great peril. So the outcome of the fight for the House may in part depend on whether Republicans in deep-blue California and New York can out-perform the top of the ticket, and/or whether Trump does better in such areas (there’s some evidence he will) than he did in 2016 and 2020.
Three New York races (Democrat Josh Riley versus Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro; Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi versus Republican Mike LiPetri; and Democrat Mondaire Jones versus Republican incumbent Mike Lawler) are among the ten most expensive House races in the country. So too are two California races (Democrat Derek Tan versus Republican incumbent Michelle Steele and Democrat George Whiteside versus Republican incumbent Mike Garcia). One of the most expensive and interesting House races is in off-the-grid Alaska, where Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin to win her seat in 2022 in the inaugural edition of the state’s top-four ranked-choice voting system. Now she’s facing a less controversial Republican in Nick Begich III but may benefit from a quasi-endorsement by Republican senator Lisa Murkowski.
There’s also a chance this election will end in historic flips. If Democrats indeed win control of the House while Republicans conquer the Senate, this would be the first time since the emergence of the two major parties that the two congressional chambers flip in the opposite direction in the same election. If this happens and Trump wins, moreover, you’d have the rare triple flip, which would send moving vans and packing boxes all over Washington.
