Republicans have come within striking distance of reclaiming a majority in the House of Representatives, based on the latest tally of votes from the Nov. 3 election.
If every seat Democrats are clearly leading goes their way in the final tally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would lose 14 seats — Republicans could pick up 15 seats including the Justin Amash seat — an outcome almost nobody was predicting.
With the results still coming in, that would bring the Democratic majority at a scant 219 to 216, if the current numbers hold.
During this cycle, this author had toyed with the notion that Trump could be the first sitting President since Harry Truman in 1948 to flip the House in an election bid for a second term as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held up coronavirus economic relief legislation.
Trump got close. Really, really close.
And the counting is not over yet. Republicans would potentially need to only flip two more seats, and they would get the majority. It may be unlikely, but it’s still out there.
In fact, Democrats have not picked up a single seat in the election on a net basis. They have picked up three seats, two in North Carolina, and one in Georgia. But that is being more than offset by 18 potential Republican gains elsewhere.
Elsewhere, one race to keep your eye on is Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District is within a point, with U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) slightly leading challenger Sean Parnell.
Iowa’s 2nd District is too close to call, too, in a dead heat with Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Rita Hart (D-Iowa). That would be a pickup for Republicans should it come through.
There’s a couple of races in Nevada that are somewhat close, but Democrats usually hold those seats. It’s hard to find any other seats that Republicans might claim, and it’s still possible Democrats hold on to a few of these seats.
California’s 25th District between U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), who won a special election earlier this year against his current opponent former U.S. Rep. Christy Smith (R-Calif.), is in a neck-and-neck battle, for example. If the Democrats stand a chance of picking up any seats, it’s this one.
So, I write potentially a net 15 seats could be picked up by the GOP. Maybe more, maybe less. We’ll see.
Still, this is an extraordinary outcome. President Donald Trump had major coattails in the House in this election, and that extended to the Senate, where control will be determined by two Senate runoffs in the state of Georgia and by the outcome of the race for president, which remains too close to call with lawsuits being filed all over the place by the Trump campaign alleging fraud.
And unquestionably, President Trump’s strategy for in-person voting on Election Day — combined with his historic airport rallies, akin to Truman’s whistle stop campaign 1948 — is to thank for the outcome.
All that was done as so-called experts were urging that the President cede his advantage in the election to stave off the pandemic. If he hadn’t done it, the election would not be as close as it is.
Congressional Republicans should write a giant thank you to President Trump. In terms of electoral strength, he is one of the most consequential presidents of this generation. Truly remarkably.
With such a narrow majority in the House, and Republicans poised to keep the Senate, even if Trump loses, Biden and Democrats have virtually no mandate to govern and will hardly get anything done. The radical left’s agenda will be stopped dead in its tracks:
No Green New Deal.
No statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico.
No bans on hydraulic fracturing.
No national, Congressionally imposed lockdown.
No tax hikes.
No public option socialized medicine.
None of it.
Republicans should do nothing to legitimize and broker no quarter to any new Democratic administration should it be seated. They get no help.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Correction: Democrats do appear to have picked up three seats, two in North Carolina, and one in Georgia.
