Republicans gained control of the US Senate again on Tuesday night by sweeping up seats in West Virginia and Ohio with the help of an unexpected battleground win from Nebraska.

It is worth noting that it is the first time in four years for the Republican party to win a majority in the Senate.

Incumbent GOP Sen Deb Fischer brushed back a surprisingly strong challenge from independent newcomer Dan Osborn.

As tallies rolled in across a map that favoured Republicans, Democrats watched their efforts to salvage their slim majority slip out of reach.

In Ohio, multiple US media outlets projected that Republican Bernie Moreno would defeat incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Those two victories ensured Republicans will hold at least a 51-49 majority in the Senate, with further gains possible as results in other competitive races come in.

Republicans also posted gains as they sought to retain control of the House, which they currently control by a narrow 220-212 majority.

They picked up three seats from Democrats in North Carolina, where they had redrawn district lines to bake in their advantage, while Democrats won control of a Republican-held seat in Alabama that had been redrawn to comply with a US Supreme Court order to create a Black majority district.

Democrats now need to flip at least six seats to take control of the 435-seat chamber.

As in the presidential election, the outcome will likely be determined by a small slice of voters. Fewer than 40 House races are seen as truly competitive.

Republicans stand a chance to widen their Senate majority further if they win in Montana, where Democrat Jon Tester faces a tough reelection battle, and prevail in several competitive Midwestern states. However, they are unlikely to end up with the 60-vote majority needed to advance most legislation in the chamber.

Courts in US battleground states are taking steps to expedite lawsuits over the November 5 election, hoping to avoid drawn-out disputes that could delay the results.

Arizona’s court system on Tuesday became the latest to adopt special procedures governing election litigation to ensure such challenges are decided as swiftly as possible. The state’s supreme court issued an order directing trial court judges to prioritise any lawsuits concerning the outcome of the 2024 election.

“Giving judicial priority to such statutory proceedings is of heightened importance in a presidential election,” Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote.

She ordered that any election-related cases must be scheduled with sufficient time for appeals to be decided, including cases concerning vote recounts and related to presidential electors, before election results must be finalised.

Arizona is one of seven competitive states expected to decide the presidential race between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republicans and Democrats have filed a wave of election-related lawsuits across the country as they spar over ground rules ahead of the vote, and legal experts say Election Day will likely unleash a fresh flurry of court fights over counting and certifying totals.

After he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump and his allies unsuccessfully tried to change the outcome of the election with more than 60 lawsuits seeking to overturn the results based on false allegations of widespread voter fraud.

This cycle, Trump’s allies have already laid the groundwork to challenge the results with lawsuits raising concerns over mail-in ballot verification measures and possible illegal voting by non-citizens, amongst other issues.

The Arizona order follows similar actions to ensure speedy outcomes in post-election litigation in at least two of the other battleground states.

“These new measures seem clearly aimed at concluding litigation regarding the presidential election before the federal deadlines for certification of electors,” James Gardner, an election law expert at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said in an email.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in August temporarily modified its rules to ensure election-related appeals were addressed in three days, rather than the usual 10, and said parties would need to file briefs within 24 hours of launching an appeal of any election-related court ruling.

Michigan’s state court administrator last month in a memo advised court clerks and judges statewide to notify the clerk of the state’s supreme court and various state officials upon the filing of any election-related lawsuit.

The Michigan Court of Appeals plans to publish on its website information about contacting its clerk’s office after business hours and the steps required of a party who might wish to seek an emergency appellate ruling, the memo said.

Courts are also girding for potential Election Day security risks after a top US judiciary official warned in September that judges could face heightened threats “during times of increased national tension.”

Justin Levitt, an election law scholar at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said preemptive orders like Arizona’s reflect a recognition that litigation over the election’s outcome is likely following the 2020 election.

“I think it’s very smart and very sensible for the courts to get ahead of the logistics, to get ahead of the process, just to make sure to get it done smoothly,” said Levitt, who served as a White House adviser on democracy policy under Biden.

“I consider myself an original Republican. We used to refer to Biden and Kamala in our house as the ‘corpse and the cackler.’” “I am a lifelong Republican — of smaller government, lower taxes, not intervening in our lives.” “I grew up in the Reagan era, and Reagan was a hero in my home. So he was my hero.” “I think in this day and age, you really can’t say that if someone is pro-choice, they must be liberal.” Abortion is changing the Republican Party this election. Here in Arizona, almost one-third of Republicans say they’ll support Proposition 139, a state ballot measure that would make abortion legal until about 24 weeks. “I would say 20 years ago, that definitely would not have been the case.” We spoke to three longtime supporters of the Republican Party about how the end of Roe v. Wade is changing their vote. “I grew up very Catholic. I never knew anybody who had an abortion. I don’t think I said the word out loud until after I’d been married.” “When I heard about Roe being overturned, I was not terribly surprised. Our state law reverted back to the previous law, which was from 1864.” “No one could quite believe it. I mean, it really came so quickly.” Passed during the Civil War when Arizona was still a territory, the 1864 law was a near-total ban on abortion. “Even conservatives in Arizona thought that it didn’t make a lot of sense.” The law was overturned in May, and a ban after 15 weeks was put into place. But it made some Arizonans rethink their stance on abortion. “I had to stop and think: Well, how do I feel about it? What could the potential repercussions be? And the more I read, the more news stories I saw, the more afraid I got for women. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am a mother of 10 and a grandmother. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but I just don’t believe it’s my right to choose for someone else.” “I think when people go through this, it is probably the most painful decision they’ve ever made. I was a delegate to the 2016 convention, and the day that we had the vote in Arizona to go to the convention, I realized that I was bleeding. Turns out that I somehow was pregnant and it had released. I went to the doctor, and I had to have a D&C. Let’s say the 1864 law was in place. Would they have allowed me to have a D&C? Would they have investigated me? 2016, I voted for Trump; in 2020, voted for Trump, but I won’t vote for him again.” “President Trump prides himself in the fact that he dismantled Roe v. Wade. It doesn’t serve women well. It doesn’t serve the country well. And so I can’t support and would say to friends of mine, if Prop 139 is your issue, I don’t see how you could support candidate Trump.” “I will always be a Republican. I listen to NPR in the morning, it reminds me every day why I’m a Republican, but I can’t see myself voting for either of them, for either party at this point.” “I will be voting for Kamala Harris. I have done phone banking on one occasion and I’ll be doing it again. This time, I think that a lot of Arizonans feel, and I feel like our vote actually counts.”