WASHINGTON — The final doors are being knocked, ads are blaring and candidates are making a last pitch to voters. Even with the high-energy final push, the races for control of Congress are at a stalemate, essentially a toss-up for the House and fight to the finish for the Senate.
The outcome of Tuesday’s election will shape the country’s future, determining whether the new White House has allies or skeptics on Capitol Hill — or faces a divided Congress like this past session, which has been among the most tumultuous and unproductive in modern times.
As voters assess their presidential options between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, they also are sizing up who will represent them in Congress.
“This is why I’m an independent,” voter Gary Motta of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, who isn’t happy with either choice for president, said as he showed up at a Sunday morning event for Republican Kevin Coughlin, who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes.
The struggle for control of Congress has gone on for months. Candidates have tussled over the big issues — the economy, the border, reproductive health care and the future of democracy — but also over Congress itself, which had a chaotic session as the GOP-led House ousted its speaker and barely fended off government shutdowns.
This is the first presidential election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and many Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s White House win over Trump are up for reelection.
Republican candidates, many backed by the former president, are finding themselves having to answer for him on several fronts. Among them is the decision by the Supreme Court, with three justices who were nominated by Trump, that ended the right to abortion access.
Democrats face tough questions over the Biden-Harris record on the U.S.-Mexico border and on inflation during their time at the White House.
Most of the closely contested House campaigns are being waged beyond the presidential swing states, including in New York and California, where Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker and then left Congress, had made inroads in his home state. Democrats under New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s House leader, are now trying to win them back.
“There’s a lot of energy out there,” Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview from Omaha, Neb., a surprising battleground, after a swing through New York. “We’re just working hard to get out the vote.”
