GOP Close to Claiming a Much Smaller House Majority Than It Anticipated Before the Election

The “Red Trickle” continues in the House with Republicans inching toward a majority. As of 7 a.m. CST on Sunday, Republicans are assured of winning 214 seats in the House with the Democrats winning 210, according to CBS News.

That leaves 11 seats still to be decided, most of them in California, where five days after the in-person voting ended, nine races remain to be called.

For Democrats to have any chance of holding the House, they’d have to win in the 22nd, 27th, and 41st, all districts where the Republican incumbent is in the lead.

“If Democrats won all three of those races in California, then think the odds go up that the Democrats can hold the House. But if Democrats lose one of those three, the odds go way down, they lose two of those three, the door slams shut,” said Sara Mitchell, a Democratic strategist.

Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership group which works with more moderate House Republicans, said she’s confident Republican Valadao and Calvert will hold their seats.

Republicans also lead in one other tight race: Colorado’s 3rd District, where GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert is in the lead by around 1,100 votes with 99 percent of results in.

Democratic incumbents were projected to win three Nevada seats. Maine’s 2nd District and Alaska’s At-Large District, two seats with ranked choice voting, were leaning Democrat.

“From the math that we’ve done — I think it’s a foregone conclusion [that Republicans take the House],” said Chamberlain. “But it’s gonna be very close. It’s gonna be just a couple of seats. And it shouldn’t be I mean, this should have been a landslide, frankly.”

One race of note is in Colorado, where GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert is up by about 1,100 votes over Democrat Adam Frisch. A recount is triggered automatically if the two candidates are separated by less than half a percentage point. Currently, Boebert leads by 0.4%.

The Republican post-mortems on this election are going to be brutal. There is no doubt that Republicans need to look at their candidate selection and the way they frame issues before 2024, or they’re going to repeat the same mistakes. Fealty to Donald Trump and his stolen election meme did not translate into a winning strategy for many Republicans. Less emphasis on the past would go a long way toward securing the future.

Fielding candidates with a little experience in politics helps as well. What we saw in Republican Senate candidates was that inexperience led to easily avoidable gaffes. Running for office is a different skill set than running a successful business or being a successful lawyer. There’s just no substitute for the experience of running for office — even unsuccessfully.