House on Cusp of GOP Control

At the rate that votes get counted in California, we may know the finalists for the NCAA college football championships sooner than the final count for control of the House of Representatives. Nearly every uncalled race comes out of the Golden State, with a handful of races in places like Arizona, New York, Oregon, Maine, and Alaska … where they only have one House seat.

Six days after the election, can we detect a red splash? Cook Report analyst Dave Wasserman looked at the probables and the leaners left to call and declared that it would take a “miracle” for Democrats to keep the lower chamber of Congress.

Or maybe better described, another in a series of miracles:

Another big blow to House Dems’ path to 218. #CA41 https://t.co/zyo3PnFrrn

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 14, 2022

New House math:

Dem called/probable (213), incl. #AKAL, #CA09, #CA21, #CA47, #CA49, #CO08, #ME02, #OR06
GOP called/probable (220): incl. #AZ01, #AZ06, #CA03, #CA27, #CA41, #CA45, #CO03, #NY22, #OR05
Toss Ups (2): #CA13, #CA22

Dems need a miracle now.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 14, 2022

Between #AZ01, #AZ06 and #CA41, Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 14, 2022

Wasserman has a good track record of analysis in House races, and is usually pretty data-based rather than sympathetic. He’s already offering some post-mortems to Democrats on what they screwed up, if that’s any further indication of how he sees this going at the moment. Democrats have blamed redistricting, but they lost five New York seats that went for Biden in 2020 even after redistricting. Wasserman does point out other redistricting opportunities that Democrats missed as well.

In the end, though, Republicans got more votes than Democrats. The Cook Report puts the gap at 4.9% as of this morning, but that’s a bit deceptive in a couple of ways. First, the vote counting isn’t complete and isn’t likely to finish for a couple of more weeks, even if races get called in the meantime. Second, it masks the fact that (a) Democrats in safe urban seats didn’t turn out as much as expected, and (b) independents swung to the Democrats in this midterm. Base turnout strategies and grievance politics have their limits and costs, and losing independents is potentially both of those.

Anyway, for the moment Wasserman scores the called and probable races 220-213 in favor of Republicans, with two seats still toss-ups. (The Cook Report itself only charts called races, with Republicans leading 212-206 this morning, and our partners DecisionDesk HQ still has it 212-201.) The likely Republican margin would be somewhere between five and nine seats if Wasserman has it correct.

Assuming that to be the case, it would be essentially the mirror image of the last two years for Democrats — a narrow majority that would be very susceptible to factionalism, a dynamic we saw play out over and over again in 2021-22. That might play into the fight over the House Speaker position, in which the entire chamber votes. If Republicans can’t unanimously support the caucus nominee, well, things may get very interesting for a while. After that gets settled, though, Kevin McCarthy (or whoever) will have an easier time than Nancy Pelosi, since a Republican Speaker won’t be carrying Joe Biden’s water on the House floor. The GOP’s status as opposition party will make it a bit easier to unite a fractious caucus.

Presumably we will see more calls in the next couple of days that will give us a clearer picture of House control. At the moment, though, it does seem that the GOP eked out a House majority after all and that Pelosi will soon take up her next post as US ambassador to Italy. Republicans should give credit to Lee Zeldin and the way his campaign helped flip five blue New York seats if it happens. However, with a high-water mark likely to be either 220 or 221, we could also call this the Mr. Mom Majority. Enjoy this fun clip (one of my favorites) and try not to think too hard about Republicans’ chances of holding those five New York seats next time around.

Update: Or, 219, whatever it takes:

NBC News projects the Republicans win the House, barely.
Republicans: 219 congressional seats
Democrats: 216 congressional seats

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) November 14, 2022

This is a projection rather than a call, but NBC sees the GOP winning the House too. I think 219 might be a little thin, but it still allows Republicans to force Joe Biden to the table — and into court, when necessary.

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