The Republicans will control the Senate for the next Congress, after flipping the minimum two seats required to strip Democrats from the majority.

Democrats control the Senate, with a split of 51-49. The Republicans won the West Virginia Senate seat and the Ohio Senate seat over the Democratic incumbent.

Two Republican incumbents in New York lost their seats, but the House control was still not decided by late Tuesday. Both incumbents and challengers were in the lead of other races which had not yet been called on Wednesday morning.

The GOP easily picked up the Senate seat in West Virginia that was open due to Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin III retiring. West Virginia Republican Governor. Jim Justice won the Senate seat easily over Democrat Glenn Elliott. As soon as the polls in the Mountain State closed at 7:30 p.m., the Associated Press declared the race to be his.

Bernie Moreno, a Republican candidate in Ohio, defeated Democratic Senator Sherrod by almost four percentage points. Mr. Moreno is a car dealer and will be the country’s first Colombian born senator.

Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott easily won reelection by defeating former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell by double-digits.

The Democrats’ last hope to win another seat in Texas was dashed when Republican Senator Ted Cruz defeated Democratic Rep. Colin Allred for a third term.

With 94% of precincts reporting results, Mr. Cruz led by almost 10 points, which shows that Texas is moving away from Democrats and not closer, as Democrats had hoped. The party hasn’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994, despite the fact that it is a state with a majority of minorities.

Deb Fischer, a Republican senator from Nebraska, defeated independent Dan Osborn. Osborn had been close in the polls to Deb but was still 7 points behind her with 92% results.

Republicans viewed the Democratic-held Senate seat in red states Montana and Ohio as the best pickup opportunity, especially since former President Donald Trump was on the ballot for help driving GOP turnout.

Montana Senator Jon Tester was defeated by his Republican opponent Tim Sheehy on Wednesday morning. Sheehy is a retired Navy SEAL, aerospace millionaire and former Navy SEAL.

The Republicans have the opportunity to expand their majority in the Senate by gaining seats in blue-wall states.

Early Wednesday, Bob Casey, a three-term Democratic senator from Pennsylvania was trailing Republican David McCormick.

In Michigan, Democratic Rep. Elissa slotkin and Republican ex-Rep. Mike Rogers fought for the open seat left by retiring Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. Early returns showed Mr. Rogers ahead.

In Wisconsin, incumbent Senator Tammy Baldwin, a two-term incumbent senator, was in the rear of Republican Eric Hovde.

Arizona and Nevada Senate elections are also competitive but political analysts consider them to be more reachable for Republicans.

Early Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Ruben Galego led Republican Kari Lake in Arizona, as was expected. Gallego’s victory will only be counted as a “hold”, since the winner would succeed Kyrsten Sinema (an independent who caucused with Democrats).

Nevada was a close race, with Republican Sam Brown narrowly leading Democratic Sen. Jacky Rose, in a win for the GOP.

The President-elect Donald Trump declared preemptively GOP wins in many of these Senate races during his victory speech on Wednesday, calling the number seats Republicans are poised for to flip “incredible”.

Maryland was the only bright spot for Democrats on the Senate map. The Republicans hoped that the former governor would help them to win over Maryland, a reliably blue state. Larry Hogan was the Republican candidate but did not come close to Angela Alsobrooks (the Prince George’s County Executive, a Democrat).

Media outlets declared the race when Ms. Alsobrooks was 11 points ahead of her opponent, retiring Democratic Senator Benjamin L. Cardin.

Conventional wisdom in Washington predicted that Democrats would win the House by a small margin. House Republicans are confident that they will not just hold on to their razor-thin margin of victory, but also expand it.

In his victory speech, Mr. Trump said that he expected the Republicans to retain control of the House.

Democrats needed a net gain in seats of only four to take the majority. There were about two dozen races throughout the country that were seriously contested.

The majority of the races that will determine which party controls Congress are located in New York and California. Here, vulnerable Republican incumbents try to hold off well-funded Democratic challenges. The turnout of Vice President Kamala Harris during the presidential election could help Democrats. Most of the competitive House district are those that President Biden won in 2020.

The Democrats were able to win two seats in New York and are leading in the third.

In New York’s 22nd District Democrat state senator John Mannion defeated Republican Rep. Brandon Williams. In the 19th district, Democrat Josh Riley defeated Rep. Marcus Molinaro.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito was in the lead early Wednesday morning, trailing Democrat Laura Gillen, also a first-term New York GOP legislator.

The GOP is now on the defensive in California after a pickup in 2022 helped them secure their majority. Seven Republican incumbents are considered to be in play in California, some of which are tossups. Democrats want to sweep the state.

The polls in California closed at 11 pm EST, and mail-in votes can be counted later if postmarked on Election Day. Therefore, definitive results for the key races were not available early Wednesday.

Democrats are salivating about two races in California. In the 13th Congressional District where Republican Rep. John Duarte faces Democrat Adam Gray in a close rematch after narrowly beating him by 600 votes in 2022. And in California’s 27th District where Republican Rep. Mike Garcia represents a newly redrawn area that now has more Democratic voters than Republicans.