Congressional elections live updates: House control still undecided, Republicans win control of Senate

Slotkin led by about 18,700 votes when AP called the race after determining there weren't enough votes left to count that would allow Rogers to catch up.

Rogers had led before late-reporting votes from Wayne, home to Detroit, and other big Democratic-leaning counties lifted Slotkin ahead.

She joined Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin in holding two Blue Wall Senate seats for Democrats.

Republicans seem to have the upper-hand in the razor-thin race for House control.

There have been very few seat turnovers so far, and when one party gains a flipped seat, that advantage has almost instantly disappeared by a flipped seat in the opposite direction in another race.

It may still be days before enough races are called to determine who controls the House, but the dynamic means that Republicans have a slight advantage in keeping their thin majority.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is upbeat about the GOP's chances of sweeping into power, but House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has also said in a statement that "the House remains very much in play."

Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola was trailing her main challenger, Republican Nick Begich , in a four-person race in early returns.

Her campaign said it expected "less than favorable" initial results, with ballots from many Alaska Native villages not yet counted. Peltola, who is Yup'ik, is Alaska Native.

Elections officials will conduct ranked vote tabulations on Nov. 20.

Under the state's ranked voting system a candidate can win with over 50% of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice. Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins.

Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin's reelection win in Wisconsin won't change who controls the Senate, but it does give Democrats just a little breathing room.

With a handful of Senate races still undecided, Republicans on Wednesday have been anticipating just how much they could grow their majority. The Senate's filibuster rules prevent one party from passing most major pieces of legislation without at least 60 votes, so if Republicans gain more seats, it gives their conference more strength in cobbling together a filibuster-proof vote.

There are also a few Trump critics within the Republican conference who may be willing to vote against his nominees for Cabinet positions. Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday morning declined to go into whether he would support confirmation for potential Trump Cabinet picks like Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Republicans had a big night in South Texas, flipping predominately Hispanic counties along the U.S.-Mexico border that have been a backdrop of President-elect Donald Trump's promises for tougher border measures.

Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz won reelection and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was indicted earlier this year, survived his most competitive race in a decades-long career. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez also won reelection by a narrow margin.

The GOP has targeted South Texas to make headway among Latino voters since Democratic support began to erode in previous elections. The border districts made an even bigger rightward swing toward Trump this election compared to 2020. Hidalgo and Cameron, the two most populous border counties, flipped entirely to Trump.

The trends represent weakening Democratic support in a region formerly considered a stronghold for the party. De La Cruz ran on border security and immigration enforcement to appeal to the district's predominately Latino and working-class population.

Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright says he has congratulated his opponent, Republican Rob Bresnahan, and conceded in the race for a competitive, Pennsylvania battleground district, though The Associated Press has yet to call the race.

He thanked supporters in a statement sent out by his campaign, adding "congratulations to Rob on his win. I wish him the best as he steers northeastern Pennsylvania through the challenges ahead."

Cartwright was seeking a seventh term in Congress. The district supported Trump in 2020's presidential election, making it a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans. The district includes Scranton, the city where President Joe Biden was born and that played prominently in his campaigns.

Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell credited his party's Senate election success to "candidate quality," saying it was "absolutely essential."

In past election cycles, Republican Senate candidates have emerged from the populist, right-wing of the party but many struggled to win statewide votes. This year, Senate Republican leaders made a concerted effort to recruit mainstream candidates who offered broad appeal.

There has been intense friction within the GOP between the camps largely headed by Donald Trump and McConnell. A recent biography revealed that the longtime Senate leader has privately excoriated Trump, especially for his efforts to overturn 2020 election results.

While McConnell credited Trump's campaign operation for the victory, he also chalked up the election results to frustrations with the current Democratic administration.

"If you're looking for a simple answer, I think it was a referendum on the current administration, in part. People were just not happy with this administration and the Democratic nominee was a part of it," McConnell said.

For all of the heady talk of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, a presidential transition also involves things that are less conceptual — and more mundane.

That includes construction of all the temporary structures for the presidential inauguration, set to occur two months and two weeks from today. In front of the White House, workers had fenced a section of Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park as they constructed the Presidential Inaugural Parade Reviewing Stands. A longtime inauguration tradition, the temporary pavilion is where Trump and his family will take in the parade as it winds in front of the White House on Jan. 20.

On the National Mall, work had also begun on the inauguration platform , from where Trump will be sworn in to office and address the nation. Nearly four years ago, on Jan. 6, Trump supporters rushed the Capitol and used pieces of the half-built structure to attack police officers. Workers on the site had to flee.

This year, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle gathered in September to drive the first nails for the structures, symbolizing the unity they aspired to forge amidst a divisive presidential campaign.

It is, of course, a temporary structure. And it will come down as soon as Trump starts his term.

The nation's top election security official says there's "no evidence of any malicious activity" that affected the security or the integrity of election systems in the 2024 presidential election.

Jen Easterly is the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Easterly, in a statement Wednesday, praised the work of state and local election officials and the hundreds of thousands who served as poll workers on Election Day.

"As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people," Easterly said. "This is what we saw yesterday in the peaceful and secure exercise of democracy."

He told a group of supporters gathered in Bozeman, Montana, early Wednesday that he's been serving the country since he was 18 and was honored to continue that service in the Senate.

"We've got to make sure that the folks who go to work every day, work with their hands to pay for their own education and to put food on the table for their families, we've got to make sure the economy works for them again. That's going to be our top priority," Sheehy said.

The Republican president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump's team.

That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control .

Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race between three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick could help Republicans pad their newfound majority in the chamber in a battleground state contest that remained uncalled by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

McCormick led vote counting Wednesday morning by about 50,000 votes, or less than 1%, but a significant number of votes remained uncounted. In a statement Wednesday, Casey's campaign said, "There are more votes that need to be counted in areas like Philadelphia and it's important that every legal ballot will be counted. When that happens we are confident the senator will be reelected."

It's the first time Casey has shared the same ballot as Donald Trump, who won Pennsylvania for a second time in 2024 after winning it in 2016.

Casey, the son of a former two-term governor, is a stalwart of the state's Democratic Party, having won six statewide elections going back to 1996.

McCormick is making his second run for the Senate after losing narrowly in 2022's Republican primary. He left his job as CEO of the world's largest hedge fund to run.

Early, partial returns spotlighted tight races in a handful of districts stretching from Southern California to the Central Valley farm belt, where Democrats and Republicans have invested tens of millions of dollars to sway voters.

The spotlight was on half a dozen races widely seen a toss-ups. Much of the vote remained to be counted, but Republicans were holding a slight edge in all of them early Wednesday — in some cases by just a sliver of votes.

Two years ago the state played a pivotal role in securing the gavel for Republicans. Now only a handful of votes separate the rival parties in the House, with 220 Republicans, 212 Democrats and three vacancies.

Vote-counting can take weeks in California, where most voters use mail-in ballots — and sometimes longer.

Three-term Democratic Rep. Susan Wild has conceded in in her race against Republican Ryan Mackenzie in a hotly contested Pennsylvania congressional district, though The Associated Press still hasn't called the race.

Republicans had targeted the seat as a possible flip that would boost their prospects for keeping the House majority.

"I congratulate my opponent on winning this seat, and I am going to do everything to ensure a smooth transition, because the people of this district deserve nothing less," Wild said in her statement.

Lawmakers can object to a state's results during the congressional certification, as several Republicans did after the 2020 election. On Jan. 6, 2021, the House and Senate both voted to reject GOP objections to the Arizona and Pennsylvania results.

After Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden and Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Congress updated the 1800s-era Electoral Count Act to make it harder to object and to more clearly lay out the vice president's ceremonial role, among other changes. Trump had pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to try and object to the results — something the vice president has no legal standing to do.

Once Congress certifies the vote, the new or returning president will be inaugurated Jan. 20 on the steps of the Capitol.

Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro says Trump's presidential election victory was historic and will empower right-wing and conservative movements across the globe, and that he hoped it will inspire Brazil to "follow the same path."

He said on X that Trump's imminent return to the White House marked "the triumph of the people's will over the arrogant designs of an elite who disdain our values, beliefs, and traditions."

Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid in late 2022 and, a little over two months later, his supporters stormed the capital in a bid to restore him to power. It was widely seen as an echo of the U.S. Capitol insurrection two years earlier, and he's now the target of several investigations.

But if Democrats wrest control of the House, it would provide an almost certain backstop, with veto power over the White House.

Trump, speaking early Wednesday at his election night party in Florida, said the results delivered an "unprecedented and powerful mandate" for Republicans.

He called the Senate rout "incredible." And he praised House Speaker Mike Johnson , who dashed from his own party in Louisiana to join Trump. "He's doing a terrific job," Trump said.

Vote counting in some races could go on for days and control of the House is too early to call.

Republicans are set to take control of the Senate. Votes are still being counted in some races, but the GOP has already secured 51 seats to take the majority in the Senate. Democrats lost seats in Ohio and Montana, where Republican challengers bested incumbents.

It's still unclear which party will control the House. There are too many races that have yet to be called to determine which party will win a majority of seats.

Election Day was mostly smooth. Fears of violence or disruptions did not materialize in most places. But bomb threats — all of which turned out to be hoaxes — disrupted voting in at least five battleground states.

Voters in several states weighed in on abortion restrictionsAbortion measures were on the ballot in nine states . In three — Nebraska, Florida and South Dakota — efforts to write abortion rights in to state constitutions failed. Voters in Missouri, Arizona and Montana backed measures to expand abortion rights. In Nevada, New York and Colorado, voters reaffirmed abortion and reproductive health rights.

Futures markets in the U.S. surged early Wednesday, with the Dow climbing 2.85% and the S&P 500 rising nearly 2%.

Bitcoin, which many see as a winner under a Trump presidency, hit all-time highs above $75,000. Tesla, the company run by Trump surrogate Elon Musk, spiked 12% before the opening bell while other electric vehicle makers slumped.

Banking stocks also moved solidly higher, with expectations of a pullback by regulators overseeing markets under Trump.

With their victories, several candidates are set to be firsts.

New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, won his race to become the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

Delaware State Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat, won her race to become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress. The former Obama administration official was elected to the Delaware General Assembly in 2021.

Democrat Angela Alsobrooks won her race and is set to become Maryland's first Black senator. Alsobrooks is currently the county executive for Maryland's Prince George's County, one of the most prosperous Black-majority counties in the nation.

Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, broke barriers again, becoming the first woman and first Black person elected to the Senate from the state. Seven years ago, when she was elected to the House, she was the first woman and first Black person to represent Delaware in the House. It will be the first time that two Black women will serve simultaneously in the Senate.

North Dakota elected its first woman to Congress. Republican Julie Fedorchak, running for the House of Representatives, won her race handily in the deep red state. She's currently a member of the state's public service commission.

Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, defeated incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown to be the first Latino from the state elected to the Senate.

When the AP declared Republican Tim Sheehy the winner, every county in Montana had reported at least some results – and the margins were large enough that three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester didn't have a plausible path to make up the gap in the votes left to be counted. In every part of Montana, Tester simply didn't perform as well with voters in 2024 as he did during his 2018 reelection campaign.

Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Montana on Wednesday. Zinke will serve a second term in the western Montana district, which was drawn after the state received an additional congressional seat from the 2020 census. Zinke faced a rematch against Democrat Monica Tranel, who fell a few points short of winning the seat in 2022. Zinke was U.S. interior secretary in the Trump administration for nearly two years before resigning while facing several ethics investigations. Zinke served as Montana's lone U.S. House member from 2015 through early 2017, when he resigned to become interior secretary. The Associated Press declared Zinke the winner at 6:28 a.m. EST.