Many of the last unclaimed races are in California, which has historically taken longer than most other states to count votes. Republicans lead in three of them: Rep. David Valadao, Rep. Mike Garcia and Kevin Kiley are all ahead. Republicans also hold a slim lead in Colorado’s 3rd District, with Rep. Lauren Boebert leading by just over 1,000 votes. Winning one more seat would allow Republicans to regain control of a chamber they ceded in the 2018 midterm elections after eight years in the majority. It’s a reality that Democratic Party leaders, including President Joe Biden, have recognized. “I think we’re going to get very close in the House,” Biden told reporters earlier in the day at the G20 summit in Indonesia on Monday. “I think it’s going to be very close, but I don’t think we’re going to make it.” That the Democrats have not been mathematically eliminated from being on track for a majority this late in the election is a stunning reversal from pre-election predictions. Confident Republicans had predicted a “red wave” even on election morning, and their theoretical majority in the House – if they prevail in the final count – will likely be a narrow one, no more than a handful of seats. There are significant leadership issues for three of the four congressional caucuses, with only Senate Democrats — under Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — seemingly landing on their party leader. On the House side, the right wing of the GOP is openly debating ways to muddy or completely block Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s path to the speaker’s gavel if the GOP locks down the chamber. And there are questions about the future of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her octogenarians in the Democratic leadership. The triumvirate was expected to step aside after this year’s midterm elections, though better-than-expected Democratic elections may have changed that calculus. Pelosi made no commitments about her political future in appearances on various Sunday shows this weekend, telling CNN’s Dana Bash that “members are asking me to consider” staying on as party leader. And in the Senate, a small but vocal cadre of Republicans pushed for a delay in their leadership election, a tacit rebuke from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell after he was relegated to the minority for at least another term. The publicly stated rationale for many of these Republicans is the impending senatorial runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia. While this Dec. 6 election will not determine the Senate majority, it could have significant implications for control of the chamber. A major difference from this year’s runoffs and those in January 2021 — when Warnock defeated then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated then-Sen. David Perdue to win Democrats a Senate majority — now is the time. After the pair of runoff losses, state Republicans changed the law to shorten the time frame. Instead of a nine-week campaign, this year’s second round is in early December — a short four-week sprint. One consequence of the short runoff campaign is a significantly shorter early voting period — including apparently no Saturday early voting in this election, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday. Voters will also have much less time to request and return mail-in ballots. Former President Donald Trump, who is widely expected to announce Tuesday afternoon his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election in the fast-approaching runoff, is at his Florida estate. That announcement, planned and planned ahead of last week’s midterms, has some in the GOP worried that the former president’s 2024 campaign could re-energize the same electorate that cost Republicans two Senate seats in 2021 . Monday afternoon also saw the conclusion of the biggest unimaginable race outside of Georgia: Arizona’s governor’s race, where Democrat Katie Hobbs narrowly beat Republican Carrie Lake. Hobbs — the state’s outgoing secretary of state — huddled next to Lake, a former TV host and Trump associate. Her victory was projected by most media outlets late Monday after the final major vote count was released from Maricopa County, the state’s largest county. Lake was unable to make up enough ground to beat Hobbs in these runoffs, making Hobbs the first Democratic governor in over a decade. The match between the two women was incredibly controversial. Lake was arguably the strongest statewide pro-Trump candidate running for office anywhere in the country this cycle, proudly repeating Trump’s lies about the “stolen” 2020 election that Hobbs, in part, oversaw in Arizona as Secretary of State. Brandon Williams has been declared the winner of New York’s 22nd Congressional District in an election to succeed retiring Republican Rep. John Katko. | Brandon for Congress via AP “To the people of Arizona who didn’t vote for me, I will work just as hard for you — because even in this divisive moment, I believe there is so much more that connects us,” Hobbs said in a statement shortly after her victory. There were significant fears before the election that Republican candidates such as Lake, who have parroted false claims of a rigged electoral system, would not concede their own losses. But largely, even those who clung to the mythology of a stolen election in 2020 quietly conceded their own contests this year. Lake didn’t immediately make a public concession to Hobbs late Monday, instead tweeting: “Arizona knows BS when they see it.”
