Votes are still being counted in Colorado’s closely contested 3rd Congressional District race, where the outcome between Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman, could determine which party controls the U.S. House.
Colorado has a new congressional map this year so the district changed somewhat but Boebert performed significantly worse than former President Donald Trump fared there when he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Defying pollsters and political strategists, Arizona voters backed candidates who promised to preserve the guardrails of democracy.
Democrats won eight of the nine US Senate seats rated competitive by Cook Political Report. The only remaining race will be decided in Georgia in a Dec. 6 runoff.
However, President Joe Biden’s unpopularity dragged his party’s candidates into defeat in a number of typically strong Democratic areas, such as New York State, where dysfunctional corporate candidates lost five winnable seats in the House of Representatives—although the party establishment is now trying to blame progressives for it.
“Governor Kathy Hochul wound up defeating crime-baiting, Trump-hugging former GOP representative Lee Zeldin, but only by five points,” wrote Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and a CNN political contributor. “Hochul lacked much of a visible ground game, and in winning, she had no coattails.”
Republicans need to gain five seats to win control of the House. Of the 64 House races rated competitive by the Cook Political Report, only a handful remain undecided but control of the chamber is still up in the air.
Republicans in both chambers of Congress mounted challenges to their leaders Tuesday as disappointment over their lackluster performance in the midterm elections manifested in infighting and instability at the Capitol.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy won his party’s nomination for speaker Tuesday afternoon with 188 votes from the GOP caucus — well past the simple majority needed for victory.
Significantly, 31 lawmakers voted for challenger, Rep. Andy Biggs, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, presenting a steep obstacle for McCarthy come January, when he will need 218 votes to win the speakership when the 118th Congress convenes. McCarthy had announced his intention to run only one day before the vote.
So far, the GOP has been declared victorious in 217 House elections, while Democrats have won 209 of the 435 seats at stake in last week’s balloting.
Sen. Rick Scott announced he would challenge Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during an hours-long airing of grievances among party members frustrated over their failure to win back the chamber.
Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sought to oust McConnell, arguing that Republicans needed to put forward a clear policy agenda. The vote was by secret ballot, and McConnell won.
It’s unlikely the outcome of the race between Boebert and Frisch will be known until Thursday or Friday — at the earliest. States with slow ballot counts are not indicators of anything unusual, and some jurisdictions may be subject to recounts and other legal actions before a winner is determined.