THE RESULTS (UPDATED): 10 Competitive Midterm Races for Federal Employees to Watch

This story was updated on Nov. 28.

Republicans will take control of the House in the 118th Congress, while Democrats will retain control of the Senate.

Republican victories were less widespread than many anticipated. A few key races helped determine who is leading the legislative branch's watchdog efforts of the Biden administration, as well as how fights over government spending and civil service reforms will play out over the next two years. A House victory for Republicans will usher in a new era of Republican oversight of the executive branch. A smaller-than-expected majority for Republicans, however, will make it more difficult for its caucus to govern and could require the party to lean on Democrats to pass key pieces of legislation. 

Government Executive previously identified key races in which candidates have a long track record on public sector workforce and agency management issues. Here is a look at how 10 of those races played out (the winners in those matchups are marked below in italics):

10) California’s 47th Congressional District

Rep. Katie Porter, D, declared winner

Rep. Katie Porter, D, has made a name for herself by grilling federal officials when they come before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, including through the use of her trademark whiteboard. She has been critical of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and has introduced legislation to task agencies with providing better services and to reform how they fill vacancies for top positions. She faced Republican party official and businessman Scott Baugh in a tight race that Cook Political Report has identified as a tossup. Baugh has spoken frequently of the need to reduce federal spending and has promised to end “bloated government programs that have outlived their usefulness.” Though it took weeks to declare a winner, Porter held on in a tight race. She will now move to the minority side of the aisle as she looks to maintain her presence as a tough overseer of the executive branch. 

9) Colorado Senate

Sen. Michael Bennet, D, declared winner

Joe O’Dea, the Republican challenger and a construction company owner, based much of his campaign around cutting federal spending. He called for “the entire federal bureaucracy to be trimmed” and said funding for new hiring at the Internal Revenue Service should be diverted to Border Patrol and local law enforcement agencies. The incumbent Democrat, Sen. Michael Bennet, took the opposite approach, proposing, for example, to create a federal “health force” made up of hundreds of thousands of medical workers to support understaffed facilities around the country. During his run for president in 2020, he also pitched a new federal agency called the Foreign Interference Threat Center. Bennet was a favorite to win reelection and he wound up winning the race comfortably. 

8) Iowa’s Third Congressional District

Zach Nunn, R, declared winner

Republican candidates across the country have hammered Democrats for passing legislation that will allow the Internal Revenue Service to hire tens of thousands of new employees. The race between Rep. Cindy Axne, D, and her Republican opponent, state Sen. Zach Nunn, was perhaps ground zero in that battle. Axne, who was considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country, heralded the Inflation Reduction Act both for its investments in the Agriculture Department to provide additional aid for farmers and for its IRS funding. At the Iowa State Fair earlier this year, Axne told attendees the hiring would "help all of you with our schools and with our roads and with our healthcare," according to the Des Moines Register, "because we don't actually have enough IRS auditors to actually address the issues that we're facing." Republican groups, meanwhile, targeted Axne for her support of the bill, saying in ads that new IRS hires “will come after you.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who would likely become speaker if Republicans take control of the chamber, has said repealing the new IRS funding would be his first priority in the new Congress. Nunn narrowly defeated the incumbent, perhaps demonstrating the resonance of those attacks.

7) Alaska Senate 

Lisa Murkowski, R, declared winner

Due to Alaska’s new, nonpartisan primary in which the top four candidates advanced to the general election, the two likeliest winners were both Republican. The challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, was a long-time federal employee who has work in various inspectors general offices, including the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and, most recently, the U.S. Postal Service. She said she helped draft legislation to create an Intelligence Community IG and told the Anchorage Daily News she spent her career “holding government insiders accountable.” Tshibaka was the more conservative choice in the race and called President Biden’s mandate that federal employees get vaccinated “the worst thing the government did” during the COVID-19 pandemic. The incumbent Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, has won her fourth full term. She is consistently among the most moderate members of her caucus and has occasionally broken ranks with her colleagues to support Biden’s nominees and larger pay raises for federal workers. Due to her committee assignments, Murkowski has played a key role in spending and oversight at agencies like the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Due to the ranked-choice voting system, it could take weeks for Murkowski to earn her victory. 

6) New Hampshire’s First Congressional District 

Rep. Chris Pappas, D, declared winner

Pappas has for years played a key role in overseeing one of the largest workforces in the federal government as chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee’s panel on Oversight and Investigations. He has led the charge to reform VA’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection, which has been mired in controversy since it came into existence under President Trump. He has come to champion whistleblowers and the VA workforce writ large, including by pushing the department to boost diversity within its ranks. His opponent, Karoline Leavitt, was a former Trump White House staffer who worked under Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She utilized the “MAGA” message in her campaign, such as through promises to “build the wall” and “drain the swamp.” Cook labeled the race a tossup and polling was remarkably tight, but Pappas wound up winning by a comfortable margin. Look for him for to continue his VA oversight in the House. 

5) Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R, declared winner

Fitzpatrick has frequently crossed party lines during his four years in office to stand up for federal workers and in the past was a rare Republican to win an endorsement from the American Federation of Government Employees. Fitzpatrick—himself a former federal employee as an FBI veteran—has been a consistent advocate for federal employee unions and a nonpartisan civil service. He has introduced legislation to block efforts to strip away union rights and to convert thousands of federal roles to at-will positions. He has also pushed for pay raise parity between civilian federal workers and military members, and criticized Trump when he proposed pay freezes for feds. Fitzpatrick was a slight favorite to win the race over his Democratic opponent Ashley Ehasz. His victory assures an advocate for feds on the Republican side of the aisle. 

4) New Hampshire Senate

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D, declared winner

The debate over U.S. border policy generally focuses on the southwestern state, but Hassan has cited her state’s border with Canada in spearheading related efforts. In a recent debate with her Republican opponent, Don Bolduc, Hassan said Customs and Border Protection needs funding for more staff. She has also led efforts to end government shutdowns forever, putting forward bipartisan legislation to automatically institute stopgap funding bills—with various incentives to pass more permanent spending bills—whenever appropriations lapse. Bolduc is a retired Army Special Forces brigadier general who also made upping resources to Border Patrol a key factor in his platform. Cook rated the race “lean Democrat,” but polls tightened in the closing weeks. Republicans had hoped Bolduc would boost their chances of taking the Senate, but Hassan will remain in the Senate and, likely, her seat on the key Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. 

3) Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D, declared winner. 

Spanberger’s district covers a large swath of exurban Washington, including a large concentration of federal employees. Spanberger, a former CIA employee, in 2019 used her first address from the House floor to highlight the plight of federal employees during the government shutdown. Her first bill was to ensure back pay for federal workers. She has called for reforms to make members of Congress have more restrictions on their stock trades and has led efforts to end the reductions some federal employees’ face in their Social Security benefits. She criticized her Republican opponent, Yesli Vega, for saying in an interview she would support shutting down the government—for months, if necessary—to stop the Biden administration from enforcing its priorities. Vega, a member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, and Spanberger were in one of the tightest races in the country. Spanberger’s narrow victory demonstrated Republican gains were not as widespread as the party had hoped. 

2) Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District 

Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D, declared winner

Wexton represents among the most federal employees of any district in the country, with about 35,000 calling the northern Virginia area home. She helped usher paid parental leave for feds into law and calls herself “a leader in fighting for pay raises for our tireless federal workers.” She has pushed for more oversight of agency relocations, for increased telework and for increased child care benefits. Republican Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, was considered an underdog in his challenge. The race was called fairly early on Tuesday, signaling an overwhelming, larger-than-expected Republican wave was unlikely and allowing feds to maintain one of their biggest advocates in Congress. 

1) Wisconsin Senate 

Sen. Ron Johnson, R, declared winner

Johnson spent six years as chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel with primary oversight of the federal workforce. He has positioned himself as a fiscal hawk constantly looking to slash federal spending and has pushed to cut federal employees' paid administrative leave and bonuses. He has used his perch on HSGAC to criticize the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling much of the actions unnecessary and falsely labeling the vaccines as unsafe. Johnson has called to shift Medicare and Social Security from the mandatory to the discretionary part of the federal budget, which could have major ramifications not just for those programs but also for spending at agencies throughout government. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic lieutenant governor in Wisconsin, trailed in most polls but ran a surprisingly close race that wound up as the perhaps the tightest of any Senate contest in the country. Johnson hung on however, giving him another term as a key voice in federal oversight issues.