Republicans near clinching continued control of Congress

WASHINGTON - Republicans were poised to keep control of the House on Tuesday and well-positioned to hang on to the Senate as the fight narrowed to toss up contests in fewer than half a dozen states.

After losing control two years ago, Democrats needed a net gain of five seats to take back the Senate if Donald Trump won the White House and four if Democrat Hillary Clinton prevailed and her running mate, Tim Kaine, became the tie breaking vote as vice president.

Although the House majority was never seriously in doubt, the outcome in the Senate was less certain, hinging on close contests in Nevada, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

But as the election returns rolled in, Democrats faced an increasingly narrow path to a majority.

Republicans, who currently hold 54 of 100 seats, prevailed in two states once considered by Democrats to be solid takeover prospects and hung on in one of the hardest-fought contests.

In Florida, Marco Rubio coasted to a second term after he reversed himself and decided to seek another term. In Ohio, Rob Portman also won easy re-election.

In Indiana, former Sen. Evan Bayh disappointed Democrats by failing in his comeback attempt, losing the state's open-seat contest to Rep. Todd Young. In North Carolina, Democrats faced another setback when incumbent Republican Richard Burr beat back a strong challenge to win re-election despite a lackluster campaign.

As expected, Democrats picked up a seat in Illinois, where Rep. Tammy Duckworth defeated Republican Mark Kirk, long seen as one of the most vulnerable GOP incumbents in the country.

In Arizona, Sen. John McCain battled for a sixth term. A strong Latino turnout was fueled by deep antipathy toward the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Louisiana's open Senate seat was likely to remain Republican, but it may require a December runoff if no candidate tops 50 percent. The field included former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, but he was considered more a curiosity than a contender.

Apart from the presidential contest, nothing on Tuesday would do as much to shape the political outlook for the next two years as the fight for control of the Senate.

If elected, Democrat Hillary Clinton could count on a smoother path with her party in control, especially because Republicans seemed virtually certain to keep their majority in the House.

The same held true for Trump, who - despite his many differences with party leaders - would face a much more difficult time with a Senate in the hands of opposition Democrats.

Whatever the outcome, Tuesday's results were not expected to ease the partisan infighting or persistent gridlock that has defined Congress in recent years.

'I'm hard-pressed to think that Congress will be able to muster much more agreement with themselves or the incoming president,” said Sarah Binder, a political-science professor at George Washington University and an expert on Congress.

Republicans have signaled they see little to gain by working with Clinton should she win, if that entails compromises that would rile the party's conservative base. At the same time, their differences with Trump - who broke with party orthodoxy on several issues, including trade and foreign policy - could leave congressional Republicans sharply divided among themselves.

'Most of the ingredients that have created this low-functioning Congress are still in place,” Binder said.

Part of the dysfunction in Congress could be eased if the new president played a more actively bipartisan role, reaching across the aisle much the way President Bill Clinton did when he faced a Republican-held Congress, some analysts said.

Politically, however, there may be little incentive for the new president to court votes across the aisle after such a deeply polarizing election.

Voters seemed equally skeptical of change.

Republicans began the election cycle with a built-in disadvantage.

The GOP was forced to defend 24 seats versus 10 for the Democrats, and the party's difficulties were compounded when voters picked Trump as the Republican nominee.

His many controversial and insulting statements forced Republican candidates to either defend or condemn their presidential standard-bearer, antagonizing voters whatever they chose. Some repudiated Trump. Others contorted themselves by saying they would vote for the nominee but not endorse his candidacy.

More significant, Trump failed to invest in the kind of political infrastructure - such as voter identification and turnout operations - that are typically led by a party's presidential candidate.

'Since Trump hasn't been running a campaign as much as a concert tour complete with merchandise, many of the programs that usually help down-ballot candidates are bare bones or missing entirely,” Jennifer Duffy, a nonpartisan campaign analyst, wrote in the Cook Political Report.

That left Senate candidates fending for themselves or relying on the national party and state and local Republican operations of varied skill and sophistication.

Polls waxed and waned through the fall, with Democrats gaining momentum in Senate and House contests as Clinton opened a substantial lead over Trump after his widely panned performance in three presidential debates.

But races tightened again after FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress Oct. 28 saying investigators would review a newly discovered trove of emails connected to Clinton's private email server as secretary of State. By the time Comey released an all-clear letter Sunday, Democrats said several Senate seats had slipped beyond their grasp.

'He became the leading Republican political operative in the country, wittingly or unwittingly,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-S. F.) told reporters during a brief stop Tuesday at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.

In the House, Republicans held a 247-188 majority, the largest for either party since the 1930s.

To regain control, which they lost in 2010, Democrats needed a gain of 30 seats, a number that seemed far beyond their reach given district lines that favor sitting lawmakers and shelter most incumbents from serious challenge.