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Republicans moved closer to a majority in the House on Wednesday, as the Senate battle hinged on games in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
The slow vote with the West and Democrats doing better than expected in several competitive House districts means the composition of the next Congress may not be clear until next week.
Two days after Americans went to the polls, Republicans are within the 12 House seats of the 218 needed to win, while many West Coast contests are still tabulated.
The battle for the Senate could become clearer as Arizona and Nevada count their votes. Republicans currently have 49 seats and Democrats 48.
Democrats or Republicans could gain control of the Senate by winning two of the remaining three outstanding races.
But there is a good chance that the Senate majority will reach a second round in Georgia next month for the second time in two years. Neither Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock nor Republican candidate Herschel Walker made the 50 percent needed to be declared the winner.
In Arizona, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has a five-point lead over Republican Blake Masters, but the race could still go either way, with more than 600,000 votes yet to be counted, according to the Secretary of State’s office, though Kelly’s lead has reached 100,000 votes.
Republicans moved closer to a majority in the House, while control of the Senate hinges on contests in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. Republicans need 217 to win the House majority
Remaining Senate races to mention are Georgia, likely to go to a run-off, Arizona and Nevada
In the Nevada Senate contest, Republican Adam Laxalt (left) narrowly leads and in the Arizona Senate contest, Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly (right) takes the lead as the votes are counted
An election official stuffs ballots into the Maricopa County Recorders Office in Phoenix, Arizona
In Arizona, more than half of the outstanding votes, or about 340,000, come from Maricopa County, which Phoenix is a part of.
Early votes came in Kelly’s favour, as Election Day votes drew closer, AZCentral reported.
There are also about 17,000 outstanding ballots – about 7 percent of the ballots cast in person on Election Day – set aside because of a Tuesday printing problem at about a quarter of the polling stations in the province.
A judge turned down a Republicans request to keep the ballot box open, saying he saw no evidence that people weren’t allowed to vote, and officials said those votes would be counted throughout the week.
In the Nevada Senate race, Republican Adam Laxalt narrowly leads incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.
But election officials in Clark County — the seat of Las Vegas and home to three-quarters of the state’s population — will have to wait for the mail-in ballots to be stamped until Tuesday, meaning a final count won’t be announced until next week. .
The ballots are still rolling in. The province received nearly 15,000 ballots on Monday and Tuesday to be counted on Wednesday and another 12,700 in the mail on Wednesday that will not be counted until at least Thursday.
Officials have until Nov. 17 to complete the count and file a report with the Nevada Secretary of State, according to state law.
Meanwhile, the GOP is expected to be in the House majority next year – although the party didn’t get the red seat wave it expected.
On Thursday, Democrats took a seat in New Mexico, where Republican Representative Yvette Herrell was defeated by Democrat Gabe Vasquez.
The results are still being tabulated in Colorado, where Democrat Adam Frisch wants to oust Republican Representative Lauren Boebert, and in California, where a few competitive seats await the final counts.
One of those races is for Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, a rising star in the liberal wing of the party who spent more than $24 million to win a third term.
With about half the votes counted, she’s essentially tied to Republican Scott Baugh, who hammered her on the high cost of food and gas. Porter, in return, campaigned for the protection of women’s reproductive rights.
On the side of the GOP, Rep. Ken Calvert – the longest-serving Republican in the California congressional delegation – first elected in 1992, facing a tough reelection bid.
His support of Trump presented a challenge in a newly reformed district, split roughly evenly between Democrats and Republicans, including many transplant residents of Los Angeles and liberal Palm Springs, which has a large concentration of LGBTQ voters.
Nevada has two competitive House districts where votes are still counted by mail.
If the finishing margins in these races are close — in the Colorado race, for example, about a dozen votes separated Frisch and Boebert — there could be recounts.
In his campaign, Frisch argued that Boebert sacrificed working for her voters for frequent “angertainment” by accusing President Joe Biden and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of destroying the soul of the nation.
He vowed to join the bipartisan “Problem Solvers Caucus” in Congress, a sharp turn of Boebert’s rejection of aisle consensus building.
Frisch said he wasn’t surprised at the close result.
“I spent ten months trying to convince donors, journalists and political strategists everywhere that there was a way forward,” Frisch told the Associated Press. “I have the calm conviction that 40% of the Republican Party want their party back.”
In House races, Democrats try to beat Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado (left), while in California, Republicans try to beat Democratic Rep. Katie Porter (right).
There is a good chance that the Senate majority will reach a second round in Georgia next month for the second time in two years. Neither Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock nor Republican nominee Herschel Walker reached the 50% needed to be declared the winner
President Joe Biden said he was willing to work with Republican leaders. He spoke with GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy Wednesday night.
“Regardless of what the final outcome of this election reveals, and the counting continues, I am ready to work with my Republican colleagues,” Biden said at his Wednesday news conference.
The president was in a jovial mood for avoiding the huge losses in Congress that plagued Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
He joked with reporters about election predictions.
“Look, the predictions were and again, I’m not criticizing anyone who played the predictions. This should be a red wave. You mentioned we lost 30 to 50 seats. It’s not going to happen,” he noted.