Control of the US House of Representatives hung in the balance as vote counting entered a fourth day on Friday, with more than two dozen House races still uncalled and Republicans increasingly confident they were on track to win the speaker’s gavel.
Success in the chamber would pave the way for a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, after the party stormed into the Senate majority and Americans voted decisively to return Donald Trump to power.
Democrats are still hopeful that they could eke out a whisker-thin majority, as the sole check on Trump’s sprawling second-term agenda.
By Friday morning, House Republicans were leading, 211-199, according to the Associated Press, with 25 races outstanding. Many are in California and other western states, where counting can take many days, especially in tight races. It took more than a week to make the call in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.
On Thursday night, the Republican congresswoman Young Kim was declared the winner in a competitive California district. Earlier in the day, Republicans flipped two House seats in Pennsylvania, after Ryan Mackenzie defeated the incumbent Democratic congresswoman Susan Wild and Robert Bresnahan unseated the Democratic congressman Matt Cartwright.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, the Pennsylvania Republican David McCormick, according to an Associated Press call on Thursday, ousted the three-term Democratic senator Bob Casey. The victory brings Republicans’ majority in the chamber to 53, with two races outstanding.
All 435 members of the House faced re-election, with Republicans looking to expand their narrow majority after two chaotic years in power.
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, was re-elected to a fifth term and announced in a letter on Wednesday afternoon that he would be running for re-election as speaker. The House majority leader, Steve Scalise, is running for his position again, too.
Elise Stefanik, another loyal Trump ally and the highest-ranking woman among House Republicans, won a sixth term in New York, where Democrats have flipped three Republican-held seats.
Scalise outlined the priorities of the Trump administration’s first 100 days, including measures to “secure the border” and ending the pause on LNG exports. “[Trump] can begin to get our economy back on track by slashing certain regulations and making the administrative state more efficient,” he said in a separate letter canvassing support.
Scalise said House Republicans would “lock in” tax cuts, “unleash American energy”, increasing energy exploration and production, and repealing unspecified Democratic policies introduced through the Inflation Reduction Act. The new administration would also “surge resources” to the southern border to build the “Trump Border Wall”, he added, while boosting border patrols to “stop the flow of illegal immigration”.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, argued meanwhile that the “House remains very much in play”. The path to victory for Democrats was in seats in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa and California, he said.
“The party that will hold the majority in the House of Representatives in January 2025 has yet to be determined. We must count every vote,” Jeffries said.
In an election marked by Republicans’ intense anti-transgender rhetoric, Delaware voters elected the first out trans member of Congress, the Democrat Sarah McBride, 34.
So far, both Democrats and Republicans have picked up seats due to redistricting, the process of adjusting district lines to keep up with population changes, with the Alabama Democrat Shomari Figures winning a district that had been changed to ensure fair representation for Black voters, while Republicans in North Carolina flipped three districts that had been reshaped by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Democrats also flipped two seats in New York state, with the Democrat Josh Riley, an attorney, beating the incumbent Republican Marc Molinaro, and John Mannion, a Democratic state senator, defeating the incumbent Republican Brandon Williams in upstate New York.
Ten of the most hotly contested House races are in California, where Democrats need to flip at least one Republican seat in order to secure a majority, according to the Associated Press.
Without control of the House, Trump, the winner of the presidential race, will face significant hurdles in implementing his legislative agenda. Election forecasts suggest either party could end up with a majority of just a few seats, which could re-create some of the problems of the 118th Congress.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
