Republicans ended Democratic control of Virginia’s House of Delegates in Tuesday’s elections, winning enough seats to achieve at least a 50-50 tie in the chamber and sitting on the verge of retaking the majority with several races still too close to call.

House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) declared around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday that the GOP had retaken control of the chamber.

“Virginia voters made an historic statement, delivering a clear rebuke of the failed policies of the last two years and electing Republicans up and down the ballot,” he said in a statement.

With all 100 House seats in play and all but nine races contested, Republicans needed to flip at least six seats to retake the majority, given that Democrats held only a 55-45 majority going into the elections.

House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) stressed in a statement Wednesday morning that Democrats were still waiting for all votes to be counted in several close races. In one, Del. Alex Askew (D-Virginia Beach) was trailing Republican challenger Karen Greenhalgh by 202 votes with all but one precinct reporting, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.

Earlier Wednesday, unofficial returns showed Republican Kim Taylor overtaking Del. Lashrecse Aird (D-Petersburg), leading Republicans to declare that they had taken control of the chamber. On Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press called the race for Taylor.

Taylor, co-owner of an auto repair shop, had gone after Aird, a vocal member of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, over her outspoken support for policing and criminal justice overhauls. As with much of Democrats’ agenda, Republicans seized on the policing changes — including the banning of chokeholds and no-knock warrants — to argue that Democrats had gone too far left for Virginia.

Without former president Donald Trump on the ballot to galvanize liberal voters, the election tested the endurance of the blue wave that had flipped more than a dozen House seats to Democrats in 2017 and ousted Republicans from power in 2019 for the first time in a generation. Instead, Democrats had to grapple with President Biden’s waning popularity and reduced enthusiasm among their voters.

Now, with Republican Glenn Youngkin projected to be the next Virginia governor, the GOP agenda could hinge on whether Republicans are able to eke out enough victories to win control of the House. Democrats retain only a slim majority in the Senate, creating the potential for political gridlock.

In pursuing control of the General Assembly, Republicans argued that Democrats had overplayed their hand since they took full control in 2019, insisting that Virginia was not as left-leaning as Democrats believed. Republicans drummed up voter enthusiasm by campaigning fervently against what Democrats considered some of their biggest legislative achievements, such as expanding gun-control restrictions and enacting major overhauls of criminal justice and police oversight.

Mark Rozell, the founding dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, said Republicans appear to have found success with that messaging. “The entirety of the Democratic agenda may have been just a bit too much for the overall voting public in Virginia,” he said. Democrats’ losses Tuesday indicate that they may have “misread” the four years of anti-Trump resistance as enthusiasm for liberal policies, he added.

“The Democrats took control of state government and they moved forward a boldly progressive agenda when the mandate of the previous four years was much more anti-Trump than it was pro-progressive policy,” Rozell said. “And I think that’s a critical point.”

This year’s House of Delegates campaign was marked by an unusually high amount of competition, with Democrats and Republicans contesting more seats than they had in over 15 years.

Republicans most aggressively targeted voters in the Richmond suburbs, the Northern Virginia exurbs and the Hampton Roads area, seeking to win back seats that flipped from red to blue in the past four years. They also pursued the few remaining rural districts still represented by Democrats, arguing that Democrats had pushed the state too far to the left and were out of touch with rural Virginians.

And, following Youngkin’s lead, Republican candidates sought to cajole centrist voters turned off by Trump back into their ranks, including energizing parents concerned about critical race theory or sexually explicit content in books used in schools.

They realized a number of notable gains, even as Democrats in many cases clobbered Republican candidates in fundraising.

In the Hampton Roads area, Del. Nancy D. Guy (D-Virginia Beach) lost narrowly to Republican Tim Anderson, a gun-shop owner and lawyer who activated Trump’s base with a law-and-order campaign coupled with provocative theatrics, such as taking a flamethrower to the Democratic policy agenda. Guy had raised more than $2 million — nearly three times as much as Anderson, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Nearby, Republican newcomer and cybersecurity professional A.C. Cordoza appeared on the brink of eking out a win over Del. Martha M. Mugler (D-Hampton), a longtime Hampton school board member, leading by 1.5 points with an estimated 99 percent of votes tallied.