Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidates leave chamber control up for grabs

FILE PHOTO: Midterm elections night
at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump emerged from Tuesday's midterm elections with a tarnished reputation as a Republican kingmaker, after poor performances by some of his high-profile endorsements left the party struggling to gain control of the U.S. Senate.

Losses among candidates endorsed by the former president also hurt Republicans in the House of Representatives, where the party was expected to win control by only a slim margin, despite earlier hopes of picking up as many as 30 seats.

"It's not a question of whether it was a negative, it's a question of how negative it was," Rob Jesmer, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the party's Senate campaign arm, said of Trump's influence on the outcome.Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz lost a Senate race in Pennsylvania to the state's lieutenant governor John Fetterman, a key pickup for Democrats that increases their odds of holding their razor-thin majority. Former NFL football star Herschel Walker trailed Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia, as the two headed to a Dec. 6 run-off election.

Full story at Yahoo News.

By David Morgan, Gram Slattery and Jason Lange.