On Monday, nine incumbent Democratic House members who served in the military released a letter backing Pelosi’s bid to lead the chamber at the start of the next Congress, pointing to her past advocacy work on issues like expansion of GI Bill benefits, veterans transition assistance programs and anti-terrorism legislation.

“We need a Speaker who has a proven record of serving our veterans and advancing policies that enhance our national security interests,” the group wrote. “Nancy Pelosi has that record.”

The message came the same day that 16 other Democratic lawmakers and lawmakers-elect issued a similar letter calling for the party “to change the status quo” and vowing a vote for “new leadership” in next year’s Congress.

Among those signers were veterans Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Rep.-elect Max Rose of New York. In addition, four other newly elected veteran lawmakers — Colorado’s Jason Crow, California’s Gil Cisneros, Maine’s Jared Golen and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill — have publicly stated opposition or concerns about Pelosi returning to the leadership post.

House Democrats will enter 2019 with 26 veterans in their membership, a potentially powerful voting block and national security sounding board for the party. Together, they’ll amount to more than 10 percent of the House majority, and their separate decisions on the leadership race could shape the next two years in that chamber.

The six veterans who have voiced concerns with Pelosi, who has served as the House’s top Democrat since 2003, have focused on broader concerns about government reform and not on defense or veterans issues.

But Pelosi has made those topics part of her pitch to lead the House next year.

In recent months, she has spoken out against what she sees as President Donald Trump’s attempts to privatize large portions of VA health care. On Veterans Day, she released a statement promising oversight on issues of women’s care, benefits delivery and employee protections at the department.

Also on Monday, the former legislative directors of Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion all hailed Pelosi in a support letter for her “incredible legacy on behalf of our nation’s veterans and their families.”

To become speaker, Pelosi needs a majority of votes in the House. With 234 Democratic members right now, that means she can afford to lose only 16 members if every lawmaker in the chamber casts a vote.

However, if some of the Democrats opposed to her opt to record their vote as “present” rather than backing a specific candidate, Pelosi could claim the speaker’s seat with as few as 202 backers.

That makes each of the veterans’ votes critical in the race. In recent days, Pelosi has been meeting with a host of current and new lawmakers to discuss their concerns and goals, and to outline her plans for Democrats taking control of the chamber.

Democrats who served in the military will make up about one-third of all the veterans in the House in the 116th Congress. Fifty-five veteran Republicans — including 12 newly-elected lawmakers — are scheduled to be part of the chamber next year, with a few congressional races still undecided.

WASHINGTON — With Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones’ concession in the Texas 23rd district race earlier this week, all of the congressional elections involving veterans have now been decided.

The final results leave the total number of lawmakers with military experience for next year’s session at 96, down six from the start of the last congressional session. It’s another decrease in veteran representation in Congress, a figure that has declined steadily since the mid-1970s.

At that time, the years following the Vietnam War, nearly three-fourths of lawmakers had served in the military. The 116th session will open with less than 18 percent of Congress boasting first-hand familiarity with the military.

However, next year’s Congress will boast the largest number of female veterans in history (six) and the largest class of freshmen veteran lawmakers in a decade (19). Nearly half of the veterans caucus served in the ranks after 2000, while four members still boast service from the 1950s.

Here’s a look at the group, by the numbers:

• 96 total veterans in the 116th Congress.
• 30 are Democrats, 66 are Republicans.
• 19 will serve in the Senate, 77 will serve in the House.
• 48 served in the military after 2000.
• 21 served in the military in the 1960s or earlier.
• 19 are first-time lawmakers.
• 7 are women.
• 50 served in the Army, Army Reserve or Army National Guard.
• 17 served in the Marine Corps or Marine Corps Reserve.
• 17 served in the Air Force, Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard.
• 13 served in the Navy or Naval Reserve.
• 1 served in the Coast Guard.

Below is the full list of veterans who are set to serve in the next Congress, which convenes on Jan. 3, 2019:

WASHINGTON — Beyond GOP House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry handing the gavel to the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith, expect a major reshuffling in middle management on the panel and on its Senate counterpart.

Where Thornberry, R-Texas, has been a staunch advocate of defense spending increases, Smith has been a critic, particularly on nuclear weapons, who’s promised stricter oversight of overseas military operations. Tuesday’s Democratic victory in the House means leadership swaps will be happening in dozens of the chamber’s committees and subcommittees.

Within the HASC, chairmanships of the Tactical Air & Land and Readiness sub-panels are up for grabs. TAL’s ranking member, Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., is retiring, while Readiness ranking member Rep. Madeleine Bordallo, D-Guam, lost to a primary challenger.

It’s to be determined which Democrats will move up the ranks into those spots and who will take the spots those ascending lawmakers vacate, as panel leadership typically makes those announcements in December or in January, when the new Congress is seated.

Familiar leaders like TAL Chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, are expected to become the sub-panel’s ranking members. Likewise Readiness chairman Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.; Strategic Forces chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Seapower chairman Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va.

Who fills the shoes of Tsongas and Bordallo will be important for the portfolios they manage—but also as the Pentagon addresses a spate of aviation mishaps and pushes to fix aircraft mission-capable rates.

As roughly a dozen lawmakers from both parties who are departing the HASC, turnover on the committee will be amplified as members opt to leave for other committees, as is typical in a new Congress, and as the Democrats gain new seats on the panel.

Republicans will have to determine who will be their ranking member on the Military Personnel Subcommittee. Its chairman, Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman, lost in a district Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

On the Senate side, Democrats are expected to jockey for leadership positions with the departure of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

As of Wednesday, it was unclear whether Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, the SASC’s No. 2 Democrat and chairman of its cyber subcommittee, will keep his seat. Some 22,000 votes appear to separate the three-term incumbent from his GOP opponent, Gov. Rick Scott—and Nelson has asked for a recount.

Beyond Sen. Jon Kyl — who is expected to fill the late John McCain’s U.S. Senate seat only until January — there may be other arrivals and departures with the routine reshuffling between committees that’s typical in a new Congress.

Note: The margin of votes between Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and his challenger, Gov. Rick Scott, was updated.

In a contentious election which saw Democrats take over the House and Republicans add to their majority in the Senate, 77 veterans won elections across the country. Combined with 15 incumbent veterans in the Senate who did not face election, that guarantees at least 92 veterans will be part of the 116th session of Congress in January.

As of Wednesday morning, 10 races involving veteran candidates were still undecided. If all of those veterans were to win — an unlikely scenario, given the unofficial results at press time — that would still only match the 102 veterans who were in office at the start of the 115th session.

Still, Veterans Campaign Executive Director Seth Lynn said he sees plenty of positives in Tuesday’s midterm results for veteran candidates.

“We saw an uptick in the number of non-incumbent veterans who got major party nominations this cycle,” he said. “We had an uptick in the number of women veterans. And we have a huge cohort of incoming veterans now.

“We’re seeing more of the younger veterans taking their place in Congress.”

Of the 77 election-night winners, 17 of them are new candidates. Lynn said that’s the biggest class of freshman veteran lawmakers since 2010.

Almost half of the veterans in Congress in January will be individuals who served after Sept. 11, 2001. Of the 92, 25 are Democrats and 67 are Republicans.

Tuesday’s class of new veterans includes three Democratic female veterans. Mikie Sherrill, who won a New Jersey congressional seat, is a former Navy helicopter pilot.

Chrissy Houlahan, who won in Pennsylvania, is an Air Force vet whose family boasts multiple military members. New Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria narrowly defeated fellow Navy veteran Rep. Scott Taylor in a key swing race for her party.

They’ll join three incumbent female veterans — Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, and Republican Sen. Joni Ernst — and possibly one other incumbent. Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally’s race for her state’s Senate seat remains too close to declare a victor.

The new class of veterans includes several names who have already drawn national attention.

Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye while serving in Afghanistan, was lampooned last weekend on “Saturday Night Live” for his injury, prompting an outpouring of conservative anger against the comedy show. He had been leading in the polls prior to the controversy, but now enjoys even larger name recognition as he heads to Congress.

New Florida Republican Rep. Michael Waltz is a green beret and commentator for Fox News. Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, a prominent speaker at the party’s 2012 national convention, upset fellow Army veteran Mike Coffman, an incumbent representative.

The total number of veterans in Congress has been on a steady decline since the 1970s, when nearly three-fourths of lawmakers had served in the military.

Lynn said he is optimistic that Tuesday’s results show that decline isn’t guaranteed to persist, even if the number did not increase this cycle. But he also said a return to the previous highs of past decades is unlikely, given the much smaller percentage of veterans in America since the start of the all-volunteer Army.

With control of the lower chamber, Democrats will regain powerful oversight and subpoena powers they can use to investigate the Trump administration. For defense, Democrats will also assume leadership of the House Armed Services and House Appropriations committees, presenting a formidable challenge to Trump’s plans for defense spending.

“Today is about more than Democrats and Republicans. It’s about restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to become the new majority leader when the next Congress convenes in January.

“Tomorrow will be a new day in America.”

For Republicans, the loss of one chamber of Congress was somewhat blunted by a better-than-expected performance in the Senate. The party secured a majority of seats in the upper chamber before midnight, ensuring that Democrats will still have limited ability to slow Trump’s nominations and to override any potential vetoes.

But GOP defense hawks face a difficult road for defense spending increases next year because Democrats have promised they will prioritize domestic spending in the face of attacks from Trump and his supporters.

In addition, the White House has already outlined plans for a $33 billion reduction in anticipated defense spending levels for fiscal 2020.

But all of that assumes that Congress will be able to agree upon any defense budget at all. Lawmakers must reach a bipartisan, bicameral deal to ease statutory budget caps in fiscal 2020. With control of the House, Democrats are expected to press even harder to pursue equal increases between the defense and non-defense sides of the budget, raising the specter of lengthy impasses and government shutdowns.

And that’s if they can even broach the topic. Pelosi and other Democrats have vowed aggressive oversight of Trump’s past business dealings, his connection to Russian operatives, and a host of other potential Oval Office scandals that could upend any chance of regular order in the halls of Congress.

The House Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., is now poised to become the panel’s chairman. He has vowed tougher scrutiny of military personnel and planning matters, pointedly criticized the fiscal 2019 defense budget of $716 billion as too high and promised to oppose new nuclear weapons spending.

“The Trump White House, by and large, has let the Pentagon have a lot of free rein,” Smith said. “I think that’s inappropriate, and I think there is a real role for Congress to step in where the White House has stepped back to make sure our military is not engaged in ways” contrary to American values or interests.

Smith has said as chairman, he would push for Congress to reassert its oversight role, particularly in places like Niger and Yemen, where U.S. involvement is little understood by the American public. He wants the committee “actively engaged” in fighting for the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community to take part in military service however they desire.

Smith is a supporter of another base closure round, a smaller role for the U.S. military in the world, and a smaller nuclear weapons arsenal. He opposed Trump’s proposed 355-ship Navy and has touted his votes to end building Northrop Grumman’s B-2 bomber and Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter.

As Republicans in the House shift to the minority, they’ll do so without two current House Armed Services Committee members. Oklahoma Rep. Steve Russell was upset in his re-election bid, and Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman — who led the committee’s personnel policy panel ― lost his seat, as well. Russell, whose district went to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, had worked to distance himself from Trump — over immigration, gun laws and Space Force.

The Senate lost two senior Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee: Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., the top Democrat on the SASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Trump had campaigned for their challengers among other Republicans across the country in recent weeks.

Amid all the changes, Congress will see some old faces with national security backgrounds return to Capitol Hill.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won an open Utah Senate seat. As a GOP presidential candidate in 2012, Romney supported boosting the Navy’s shipbuilding rate from nine per year to 15 per year and “a robust, multi-layered national ballistic-missile defense system.”

Obama and Clinton-era State Department official Tom Malinosky, ousted a four-term GOP incumbent in New Jersey. Malinowksi served as advocacy director at Human Rights Watch and later assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor under Obama.

Individual congressional races will decide which voices guide national security debate and how many veterans-turned-lawmakers are participating. Together, the results will determine which party controls the House and Senate, and by extension, how the fiscal 2020 defense budget process unfolds.

Here are the defense topics to watch on election night:

Control of the House

Polling experts in recent weeks have been outlining the possibility of a Democratic takeover of the House. If the minority party can pick up 23 seats, they’ll break up the current Republican monopoly in the legislative and executive branches.

That has major implications for oversight and agenda setting. Democratic leaders have already promised if they win they’ll hold hearings on President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy active-duty troops to the southern U.S. border and his plans to establish a new military Space Force.

They have also promised to revisit Trump’s moves to ban transgender individuals from the military and provide intense scrutiny of his strategy in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe.

Republicans have warned that Democratic dissatisfaction with the president, coupled with control of Congress’ lower chamber, could translate into politically motivated impeachment hearings, which could snarl a host of other legislative priorities and raise the specter of more government shutdowns.

A surge of veterans

The number of veterans serving in Congress has been on a near steady decline since the 1970s, due largely to the decline in the overall veteran population in the country. But the number of lawmakers with military experience could go up after Tuesday.

This cycle, 172 veterans have won primaries and will appear on the ballot for the midterm elections. That figure is on par with the 2016 cycle, but more of those candidates are in winnable races and have significant financial backing.

Even a small rise in veterans number on Capitol Hill would represent a significant shift.

And prominent veterans like former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and former Sen. John McCain in recent years have extolled the need for more veterans in elected office, saying their common military bonds could help transcend some of the partisanship and animosity driving legislative work today.

The military influencers

Several prominent defense lawmakers are on the bubble this year, and the election will determine whether they remain at the center of crafting military policy or get replaced by a new generation of national security leaders.

Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., hold key posts on both the House Armed Services and House Veterans’ Affairs committees but also trails in recent polls of his district. Fellow HASC member Rep. Marth McSally, R-Ariz., is poised to become a key figure in the Senate on military issues, but only if she can win a tight race against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.

Similarly, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., could see his role as ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee amplified by additional Democratic power in Congress, but only if he can hold onto his Senate seat.

Among the newcomers, veterans-turned-politicians like Dan Crenshaw in Texas, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Chrissy Houlahan in Pennsylvania appear on their way to election night triumph and a defense policy platform when they arrive on Capitol Hill next year.

Defense budget questions

Even with one party in control of the White House, Senate and House, the fiscal 2018 defense budget was overdue by six months, forcing Pentagon officials to operate off continuing resolutions for an extended period. They lamented the spending constraints hurt long-term planning and short-term readiness.

Now the question becomes whether the election will help or hurt that problem next year.

Lawmakers and Trump will have to reach a deal to circumvent spending caps set to automatically trigger in fiscal 2020, and what newly elected members of Congress say in the aftermath of the election could have major consequences for that negotiation.

Already, a number of conservative candidates have stumped for continuing Trump’s promise of rapidly growing the military budget, while far-left hopefuls have campaigned on reining in the defense largess. After the votes are counted, those budget battle lines could form quickly.

This year’s midterm contests include 172 veterans who won primaries seeking congressional office and 59 members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees trying to hold onto their seats.

The first polls close at 6 p.m. Refresh this page throughout the night for the latest updates and insights from our politics reporters.

———————–

1:10 a.m. (JG) —

11:54 p.m. (JG) —

11:20 p.m. (LS) — In one of the biggest upsets of the night, Oklahoma Republican Rep. Steve Russell lost his re-election bid despite running in a district which President Donald Trump won easily two years ago.

Russell, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, was a vocal junior member of the House Armed Services Committee, often injecting his own military experience into policy debates.

11:14 p.m. (LS) — Afghan War veteran Dan Crenshaw, who found himself the subject of national headlines after his combat injury was mocked on Saturday Night Live, won his bid for the Texas 2nd District congressional seat on Tuesday.

Background on his candidacy and the comedy show controversy is here.

11:05 p.m. (LS) —

10:53 p.m. (LS) — Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., and the ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has won his race to be governor of Minnesota.

Walz, a retired Army command sergeant major who was the highest-ranking former enlisted member of Congress, now becomes only the second governor to have served in the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan War eras. Walz served in Europe in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

10:40 p.m. (JG) — CNN projects Democrat Elaine Luria, a former Navy commander, will unseat Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Va., and a former Navy SEAL.

10:33 p.m. (JG) — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a member of the SASC defeats HASC member Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas. It’s one of the most closely watched races of this cycle, and a tough beat for Democrats who came within striking distance of a Republican in reliably red Texas. With that, CNN projects GOP will hold the Senate, as expected.

10:03 p.m. (LS) — Former Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill becomes the first new female veteran to win a seat in Congress tonight, flipping New Jersey’s 11th district from Republican control.

Coming into tonight, only four women veterans were serving in the House or Senate: Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, Arizona Rep. Martha McSally and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. With Gabbard expected to win, Sherill’s election at least guarantees that number will not drop (McSally is in a close contest for the open Arizona Senate seat). But several other key races are still open, and could push that number even higher next year.

9:59 p.m. (JG) — Per CNN, Democratic challenger has defeated Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., the HASC Military Personnel Subcommittee chair, a Veterans Affairs Committee member and a key foe of Trump’s proposed Space Force. The challenger, Jason Crow, also opposes Space Force, but he’s not a senior HASC member.

9:42 p.m. (LS) — The Virginia 2nd District race, one of a handful of veteran-versus-veteran congressional contests, is coming down to the wire. Right now Democratic challenger (and Navy vet) Elaine Luria is leading Republican incumbent (and Navy vet) Scott Taylor by a few thousand votes. The district, which has a heavy veteran voting block and a significant military presence, has seen more national security discussion on the campaign trail than most.

9:36 p.m. (JG) — Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly loses his seat, per multiple outlets. It’s a big loss for Democrats, who look like they will lose a seat in the Senate. He is also the top Democrat on the SASC’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

9:22 p.m. (LS) — Greg Pence, Marine Corps vet and brother of Vice President Mike Pence, easily won election to Indiana’s 6th District tonight.

9:13 pm (JG) — A failed candidate for Army secretary, Mark Green, has won a House seat in Tennessee. Green, a Republican, was President Trump’s second nominee for the post, but he withdrew amid scrutiny of his remarks about homosexuality and transgender rights connected to his work as a Tennessee state senator.

8:59 pm (JG) — AP calls for New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, ranking Democrat on Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A key figure on oversight of US arms sales abroad, he has also become a central figure in Congress’s pressuring of the Trump administration on Saudi Arabia’s conduct in the Yemen civil war.

8:48 p.m. (LS) — Multiple news outlets are now calling the Kentucky 6th district race for Republican Andy Barr, a blow to Democratic hopes of grabbing a deep red district.

Democrat Amy McGrath, a former Marine Corps pilot who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, had drawn national attention and significant financial backing in the race. But in the end, her bid fell short by just a few thousand votes, and Republicans held onto the seat.

8:39 pm (JG) — No surprise that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, has won reelection. One big question is whether he will remain chairman or whether Democrats will win control of the House. Either way, another question is how Thornberry would approach Trump administration plans to lower the defense budget to $700 billion in fiscal 2020, which would require easing budget caps. It will all depend on the math of the next Congress.

8:31 p.m. (LS) — We have our first new veteran heading to Congress: Florida Republican Michael Waltz. The Army vet and Fox News contributor was just declared the winner in his 6th District contest.

8:08 pm (JG) — CNN has called for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and likely contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. She won, among other priorities in the 2019 defense policy bill, a requirement for a public version of the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review—and brought the panel’s top Democrat to visit the General Dynamics facility in Taunton, Mass.

7:40 pm (LS) —

7:08 pm (LS) —

7:05 pm (JG) — CNN calls Virginia for Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee’s readiness subpanel and a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

He and Republican challenger Corey Stewart took shots at each other over defense budgeting, while Kaine — who represents a defense heavy state — stressed his support for a 355-ship Navy.

6:50 pm (LS) — A reminder that the Kentucky 6th District race — a bellwether contest to see if Democrats will make big gains across the country — includes former Marine Corps pilot Amy McGrath. As you watch coverage tonight focused on those results, read up on how she could be part of a wave of female vets heading into Congress.

6:10 pm (LS) — The first polls are closed and we can report that … it’s going to be a long night. Counting for some one-sided races will only take a short time, but most of the hotly contested races across the country won’t have final results for several hours.

In the meantime, here’s a review of what changes could happen on the congressional armed services committees if Democrats win control of a chamber tonight.

12:20 pm (LS) — While we’re waiting for election results to start rolling in, our colleagues over a Fifth Domain have a live blog on cybersecurity issues related to voting today. Department of Homeland Security officials say they have been prepping for two years, and they’ll be providing updates as the day progresses.

Check out their work at the link below:

On the flip side, two key Space Force opponents on Capitol Hill are facing tough battles to hold onto their seats: Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado.

“I’m going to take the administration on for Space Force,” Coffman, chairman of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, told the newspaper Westworld last month.

“The president wants to create a whole new department of space, and if that requires authorizing language in the Armed Services Committee, I expect to lead the effort to kill that in committee,” he said.

Coffman had represented his suburban Denver district for a decade, but it went to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. And this year, he has worked to distance himself from the president — over immigration, gun laws and Space Force.

Coffman said he could support a “space corps” subordinate to the Air Force, but he told Defense News in September that Trump’s Space Force proposal is “a really bad idea” that would reverse gains in trimming Pentagon bureaucracy “for no real value.”

“I feel confident we can block this. The president will not have the votes,” he said.

But Coffman is in danger. He faces Democrat Jason Crow in a district that Clinton carried by 9 points in 2016. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC backed by House GOP leadership, cut its spending in September — an ominous sign.

In Florida, home to Air Force Space Command’s 45th Space Wing, Nelson has ripped Trump’s plan to shake up the status quo. Nelson is the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Cybersecurity Subcommittee, a former astronaut and a key voice on space policy.

“The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want,” Nelson wrote on Twitter, after Trump made an initial announcement in June. “Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake.”

In spite of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence campaigning for Nelson’s GOP challenger, Gov. Rick Scott, Nelson was holding onto a slim lead into Tuesday’s vote. In an NBC/Marist poll released Monday, Nelson would gets 50 percent of the vote and Scott would get 46 percent, a narrow 4-point lead for Nelson.

The administration is expected to seek approval from Congress, where Nelson and Coffman have not been alone in their skepticism. A major reorganization of the military would have to be authorized by the annual defense policy bill, which is hammered out each year by both chambers’ armed services panels, and funded through both chambers’ appropriations bills.

If the House falls under Democratic control, as is widely projected, it would make a vocal opponent of Space Force — Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. — the HASC chairman. Currently the ranking Democrat, Smith came out against Trump’s proposal in a statement in September.

“I am concerned that his proposal would create additional costly military bureaucracy at a time when we have limited resources for defense and critical domestic priorities, and I do not believe it is the best way to advance U.S. national security,” he said. “We must do a better job of dealing with space as a national security priority. I will continue to work toward a smarter, more effective approach.”

Smith’s counterpart on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in August that Space Force “is not the way to go.” While the GOP is expected to retain control of the Senate, Reed and Smith could join forces in defense policy bill negotiations.

Nelson led the opposition last year when a bipartisan proposal for a space corps that predated Trump’s proposal was cut from the 2018 defense policy bill, despite support from HASC leaders, including Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas. That proposal was for a new service subordinate to the Air Force.

Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee chairman who proposed the idea then, has argued that the Air Force was prioritizing its fighter jets over space, and the U.S. needs a dedicated service to stay ahead of China and Russia in what many see as the next frontier of warfare.

The proposal is aimed at protecting American satellites, Rogers said, and “not George Jetson getting on a rocket coming out of his suitcase.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Air Force leaders opposed the idea then, but they have publicly fallen in line behind the Trump administration, which unveiled plans in August to establish the service by 2020.

Capitol Hill skeptics, including Coffman, have found ammunition in an Air Force that estimates a new service would cost $13 billion over five years.

The strategic forces subpanel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper, expressed during a recent Aspen Institute event with Rogers skepticism of that estimate, which included a $1 billion headquarters.

A Space Force proponent, Cooper also expressed hope Trump’s support would not “ruin the debate” over what he sees as a common-sense proposal.

“The president’s unexpected intervention needlessly politicized it,” Cooper said, “because it’s never been political.”

Speaking at a rally for Democratic candidates in Miami five days ahead of midterm congressional elections, Obama criticized Trump, without mentioning his name.

“They’re telling you the existential threat to America is a bunch of poor refugees 1,000 miles away,” Obama said. “They’re even taking our brave troops away from their families for a political stunt at the border. And the men and women of our military deserve better than that.”

Obama was campaigning for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, and Andrew Gillum, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Obama spoke just minutes after Trump told reporters that if migrants throw rocks at U.S. troops or border patrol officers, they’re not going to be shot, but they’re “going to be arrested for a long period of time.”

Trump had previously said that he told the U.S. military mobilizing at the southwest border that if U.S. troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were “rifles.”

The widespread criticism of those remarks included more than 100 Democratic lawmakers and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. Typically an advocate for an apolitical military, Dempsey offered a tweet Thursday countering the remarks.

“Our men and women in uniform are better trained, better equipped, and better led so they meet any threat with confidence,” Dempsey’s tweet said. “A wasteful deployment of over-stretched Soldiers and Marines would be made much worse if they use force disproportional to the threat they face. They won’t.”

But Trump said at the White House on Friday the U.S. won’t be firing on the migrants. Then he added that he hopes shots won’t be fired.

He said what rock-throwing migrants did to the Mexican military was a “disgrace.” Trump says the U.S. is “not going to stand for” what they did to the Mexican military and police.

As caravans of migrants from Central America are slowly winding north, one group got into a violent confrontation with Mexican police at the border with Guatemala, throwing rocks. Trump appeared to refer to that conflict.

The Pentagon says more than 7,000 active-duty troops are being sent to the Southwest border; that number could increase to 15,000, according to Trump.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.