It's a fight to the finish in races that will decide control of Congress

The final doors are knocked, advertisements light up and the candidates face voters once again. Even with the energetic final push, the races for control of Congress have stalled, essentially a back-and-forth for the House and a fight to the finish for the Senate.

The outcome of Tuesday's election will shape the future of the country and determine whether the new White House has allies or skeptics on Capitol Hill – or faces a divided Congress like this past session, one of the most turbulent and unproductive in modern times.

As voters weigh their presidential options between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, they are also considering who will represent them in Congress.

“That's why I'm an independent,” said voter Gary Motta of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, who is not happy with either of the presidential races, as he appeared early Sunday morning at an event for Republican Kevin Coughlin, who is trying to run for president to unseat Democratic MP Emilia Sykes.

The battle for control of Congress has been going on for months. The candidates have argued over the big issues — the economy, the border, reproductive health care and the future of democracy — but also over Congress itself, which was a chaotic session as the Republican-led House of Representatives ousted its speaker and government shutdowns only narrowly fended off.

This is the first presidential election since the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and many Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying Democrat Joe Biden's White House victory over Trump are up for re-election.

Republican candidates, many of whom are supported by the former president, will have to answer for him on multiple fronts. Among them is the Supreme Court decision with three justices nominated by Trump that ended the right to access abortion

Democrats face difficult questions during their time in the White House about Biden and Harris' record on the U.S.-Mexico border and inflation.

Most of the hard-fought House races are taking place outside swing states, including New York and California, where Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker and then left Congress, made inroads in his home state. Democrats under Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the party's leader in the House of Representatives, are now trying to win her back.

Starting Saturday, California Rep. Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chairman, is making a nine-stop march across the Golden State to win the back seats.

“There's a lot of energy out there,” Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview from Omaha, Nebraska, a surprising battleground, after a swing through New York. “We’re just working hard to get out the vote.”

She said there are “tons of volunteers on site, lots of energy, people are very, very focused. They understand that there is a lot at stake.”

This election year stands out in the ever-expanding world of campaign fundraising, with a whopping $2.5 billion being spent to win the Senate and nearly $1 billion for the House.

The Republicans must lose the Senate, a conclusion to the long term of office of their party leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky. He recruited wealthy Republican candidates, many of whom were endorsed by Trump, to take on half a dozen incumbent Democrats who faced difficult re-elections.

In Montana, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in one of the country's toughest races that could hand control to Republicans. But a half-dozen other Senate races, including in the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are just as close as the presidential elections in those states.

But landmark changes are adding new uncertainty to other Senate races and putting Sen. Ted Cruz on the defensive in Republican-heavy Texas, where Democratic Rep. Colin Allred has seen a surge of energy, including from Harris' star-studded rally in Houston hometown hero Beyoncé. Nebraska independent Dan Osborne has surprised Republicans in Nebraska as he tries to unseat Republican Sen. Deb Fischer.

Other Republican Senate candidates have stumbled.

In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno, who is running against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, was critical of suburban women who are making abortion access a priority issue. Republican Tim Sheehy made derogatory comments about Native Americans, a key voting bloc in his race against Tester in Montana.

As Republicans have outsourced their campaign efforts to new groups, including Elon Musk's America PAC, campaign committees have had to rely on their own efforts to get people to vote.

Davide Cuigini, part of the Young Republicans who campaigned in Ohio last weekend to get Moreno elected, said: “Republicans are finally voting early, so that will make a difference.”

But energy on the Democratic side quickly grew when Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket over the summer.

Maryland Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, who could make history alongside Delaware's Lisa Blunt Rochester as black women in the Senate, hosted former President Barack Obama last week. Alsobrooks is running against Larry Hogan, a popular former governor.

House Democrats have experienced several racial shifts, according to nonpartisan analysts. But others, in Alaska and an open seat in Michigan, are leaning Republican. Two of the longest-serving members of the House of Representatives are fighting for their political lives in Ohio and California.

Still, an internal DCCC memo showed that 21 of 25 contested seats were close a week before the election.

There are also unusual battlegrounds, including what Nebraskans call the “blue dot” around Omaha, where Republican Rep. Don Bacon faces a challenge from Democrat Tony Vargas.

The outcome of the races will be a test for House leadership under Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. At a recent stop near Akron, Ohio, he said that with the Republican Party's “winning warriors” as candidates, he knew they would win.

Jeffries, who is expected to become House speaker if Democrats take control, said he has decided to “stay calm” even if the possibility of unexpected events keeps him sleeping at night.

If the two chambers actually flipped party control, which is possible, it would be rare.

Records show it would be the first time that both chambers of Congress would be split between opposing political parties if Democrats took the House and Republicans took the Senate.

“This election is a very big deal,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who was running for a fellow Democrat in one of his state’s House races.

__

Associated Press writers Lea Skene in Baltimore and Stephen Groves and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.