Georgia Senate race goes to runoff as fight for Congress continues

WASHINGTON — The promise of a red wave receding, Republicans slogged state by state in a determined fight to break the Democrats’ one-party hold on Washington, a breathtakingly close battle for control of Congress and the future of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

On Wednesday, the Democrats’ fragile grasp on power in the House and the Senate remained at risk. The party faced a new generation of Republican candidates — among them 2020 election deniers and some extremists inspired by Donald Trump handily winning some seats.

But races stayed tight, and Republicans ran into stiff competition in their march across the country, dashing hopes for the sweeping gains they had promised, particularly in the House. Instead, they inched toward what could be another narrowly split Congress.

“The RED WAVE did not happen,” defeated Republican Rep. Mayra Flores of Texas said in a tweet.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will meet in a Dec. 6 runoff after neither reached the general election majority required under state law.

The runoff campaign will be a four-week blitz that, depending on the outcomes in other Senate contests, could reprise the 2020 election cycle, when two Senate runoffs in Georgia doubled as a national winner-take-all battle for Senate control. Victories from Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., left the chamber divided 50-50 between the two major parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the tie-breaking vote.

This week’s election was the first major national vote since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and emotions were raw. The recent violent assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband has stunned many, and federal law enforcement warned of heightened threats nationwide. Biden’s party worked to hold on by the most tenuous of margins.

Even with a slim majority, the Republicans could bring a new intensity to Capitol Hill with promises to end Biden’s most ambitious plans, tighten congressional oversight and launch grueling investigations — even, potentially, impeachment of the president.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, in line to become speaker if his party takes control, vowed to win the majority as he addressed a crowd of supporters well past midnight in Washington.

“We are expanding this party,” McCarthy said, calling out the races won so far. “The American people are ready for a majority that will offer a new direction that will put America back on track.”

But the mood among Republicans was tense, as Democrats delivered a surprising run of the map in places Republicans expected to claim as their own.

“While many races remain too close to call, it is clear that House Democratic members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations,” Pelosi said in a statement. “As states continue to tabulate the final results, every vote must be counted as cast.”

All 435 seats in the House and one-third of the Senate were being decided. If Republican newcomers help the party seize control of the House, and possibly the Senate, the outcome will pose new challenges for Congress’ ability to govern — especially if margins are tight.

In the race for the House, battleground Virginia provided a snapshot. Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, defeated Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a former Navy commander who had touted her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

But elsewhere, Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger prevailed over Trump-backed Yesli Vega in a suburban Virginia district Republicans hoped to flip. And Democrats held House seats in Rhode Island, Ohio, Kansas and New Hampshire that Republicans wanted, and they flipped some including a suburban Illinois district from Republicans.

Still, Republicans were slowly amassing some of the five seats needed to reach a 218-seat House majority.

They picked up a Nashville, Tennessee-area seat long held by Democrats. And in a dramatic example of the difficult political environment for Democrats, the party’s House campaign chairman, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, lost his race against Republican state legislator Mike Lawler in New York’s Hudson Valley.

“I’m going to do this the right way, and the right thing to do is to say the other guy won, to wish him well and pledge my support, and that’s what I’m doing,” Maloney said in a press conference Wednesday shortly before The Associated Press called the race.

At the same time, Maloney expressed optimism about the Democratic results overall: “Last night, House Democrats stood our ground,” he said.

The Senate races remained in flux. Republican JD Vance, a venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio, denying Democrats a chance to pick up the open seat. In New Hampshire, Trump-styled Republican Don Bolduc failed to oust Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan.

In the evenly split Senate, the battleground was focused on the deeply contested states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, Democrat John Fetterman flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat that’s key to the party’s hopes of maintaining control of the chamber.

Divided government has historically offered the possibility of bipartisan deal-making. But Republican candidates campaigned instead on a platform to stop Democrats. They promised to cut federal spending, refuse to raise the nation’s debt limit and balk at supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia. It all pointed to potential gridlock.

McCarthy had recruited the most racially diverse class of House GOP candidates, with more women than ever. But it also included a new cadre of Trump loyalists, including election skeptics and deniers, some of whom were around the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump endorsed hundreds of candidates nationwide in this election cycle, though they were not always the first choices of McCarthy and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. In an interview, the former president said he backed McCarthy for speaker, and he derided his old foe McConnell as a “lousy leader,” according to Fox News Channel.

In a sign of the nation’s toxic political climate, Pelosi canceled most public appearances in the final week of campaigning after an intruder broke into her family’s San Francisco home in the middle of the night last month, demanding to know “Where is Nancy?” and bludgeoning her 82-year-old husband in the head with a hammer.

The election unfolded amid deep discontent. A majority of Americans, about 7 in 10, disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 90,000 voters nationally. About 4 in 10 strongly disapprove.

In the House, several new Republicans were elected in redrawn Florida districts. Joining them will be 25-year-old Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first member of Generation Z to win a seat in Congress.

Incumbents holding on included Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Dan Kildee of Michigan. Kaptur defeated J.R. Majewski, a Republican who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Kildee won a sixth term against Republican Paul Junge, a former prosecutor and Trump administration official. On the Republican side, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top Trump ally, won reelection in Georgia.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, was reelected in New York. Republican Sens. Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida prevailed over their Democratic opponents. In Colorado, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet also won reelection.

One of Trump’s biggest backers in the Senate, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, defeated Democrat Mandela Barnes, turning back Barnes’ attempt to make history as Wisconsin’s first Black senator.