GOP Still Seven Seats Shy of Majority in the House

As of Sunday morning, 211 Republicans have won House seats and Democrats have won 204 seats. If the current standings hold, the GOP is on track to win 221 seats, three more than the 218 they need for a majority in the body.

AP/Mariam Zuhaib
With the U.S Capitol in the background, people walk down steps on Election Day at Washington. AP/Mariam Zuhaib

With their hopes for control of the Senate now in the rear-view mirror, Republicans are holding out hope that they can prevail in at least seven of the more than 20 House races still undecided Sunday morning and regain control of the lower chamber.

As of Sunday morning, 211 Republicans have won House seats and Democrats have won 204 seats. If the current standings hold, the GOP is on track to win 221 seats, three more than the 218 they need for a majority in the body.

Indiana Republican congressman Jim Banks, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said he was confident his party would prevail when all the votes are counted. He described the expected House GOP majority to be “the last line of defense to block the Biden agenda.”

“This was a very disappointing outcome on election night, not the one that we expected,” Mr. Banks said. “There will be a lot of unpacking of the outcome for weeks to come. Did we have the wrong strategy? Why did our message not break through? Why did the voters not buy into the vision and the message that Republicans were selling?”

Most of the races where the votes are still being counted are in California, where 11 House seats are still up for grabs. Other states with undecided races include Oregon, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Alaska.

Republicans lead the raw vote counts in 10 of the races; Democrats lead in the remaining.

Among the marquis races that remain close is that of Republican Lauren Boebert in Colorado. The right-wing firebrand and Trump acolyte is up by 1,122 votes over her Democratic challenger, Adam Frisch, with more than 95 percent of the vote tallied.

Ballot processing in Colorado was halted for the Veterans Day holiday Friday and is expected to resume Monday, but many counties in the rural western district are not likely to report totals until later in the week. As many as 5,000 ballots have yet to be counted, so the race could go either way.

In California’s 13th congressional district, a central valley one that leans Democratic but is a perennial battleground, Republican businessman John Duarte is leading Democratic state assemblyman Adam Gray by only 84 votes with 61 percent of the ballots counted. The state mailed ballots to all active voters in the district, and those ballots that were postmarked by election day have a week to arrive at the processing center.

The closest race with a Democrat currently in the lead is a newly drawn suburban district outside Denver, Colorado, the 8th district, where Democratic state lawmaker Yadira Caraveo is leading her Republican challenger, Barbara Kirkmeyer, by 1,691 votes with more than 95 percent of the vote tallied.

The only East Coast vote still outstanding is that of Maine’s second congressional district, where incumbent Democrat Jared Golden was considered one of the House’s most endangered Democrats. He leads Republican challenger Bruce Poliquin by 10,545 votes with more than 95 percent of votes counted. Because neither candidate won with 50 percent of the vote, the race will be decided by a ranked choice runoff on Tuesday.

The other races with Republicans in the lead include the 27th, 45th, 3rd, 22nd, and 41st districts in California, Oregon’s 5th district, New York’s 22nd district, and the 6th district in Arizona. Districts in which Democrats are leading the vote count include the 47th, 49th, 21st, 6th, and 9th districts in California, Arizona’s first district, the 6th district in Oregon, and Alaska’s only congressional seat.


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