Control hangs on a couple of undecided races.
WASHINGTON >> Control of the Senate hung in the balance Thursday, a cliffhanger after Republicans trounced Democratic challengers in crucial states but failed to lock down the seats needed to retain their tenuous majority.
One race in Georgia is headed to a January runoff. A second contest in Georgia and races in North Carolina and Alaska remain undecided, leaving the chamber now deadlocked 48- 48. An outcome may not be known until the new year.
“We’re waiting — whether I’m going to be the majority leader or not,” Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., said Wednesday.
That was still the case Thursday.
The counting continued in Georgia, where GOP Sen. David Perdue was trying to hold off Democrat Jon Ossoff in a multicandidate race that could also go to a runoff if neither candidate clears the 50% threshold to win.
There already is a Jan. 5 runoff in the state’s other Senate race. GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler will face Democrat Raphael Warnock, a Black pastor at the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached, after they emerged as top vote-getters, but failed to clear the majority threshold.
In North Carolina, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis hoped to prevail
over Democrat Cal Cunningham, whose sexting affair with a public relations specialist has clouded the race.
Republicans were confident they would keep Alaska, where GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan was challenged by newcomer Al Gross, a doctor and Democratic-backed independent.
Democrats faced long but not fully impossible odds to take a slim majority after a disappointing election night when Republicans defeated multiple challengers.
In Michigan, Democrats were spared a loss when Sen. Gary Peters withstood a strong challenge from Republican John James, a Black Republican businessman. But Republicans held on to Susan Collins in Maine and other key seats.
McConnell, who secured a seventh term for himself in a costly campaign against Democrat Amy
McGrath, a former fighter pilot, has said he felt “pretty good” about the remaining contests.
But Democrats remained hopeful. Strategist Zac Petkanas said the 2020 election “was going to be an awful, ugly, dirty slog until the bitter end.”
Election night jarred Democrats and enthusiastic backers who were eager to counter Trump and his party’s grip on the Senate.
While Democrats picked up must-win seats in Colorado and Arizona, they suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in one race after another — in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Montana. That dramatically limited Democrats’ hopes to make inroads.