What’s going on with Congressional Results?

All the outlets are saying the Republicans are close, but have not yet clinched.

Except Decision Desk. They say the Republicans already won. And NBC, which is reporting a projection instead of a count.

Quick rundown on what the outlets say. And a quick rundown of the seats that are still, or might be still, in play.

Outlet	Dem	GOP	Remaining	Note
ABC	209	217	9	10 left on the map
Bloomberg	209	217	9	10 left on the map
Decision Desk	206	219	10
Fox News	209	217	9	10 left open. They put their circles in a grid. It looks like they have 208-217, not 209-217.
NBC News	209	216	10	That’s what their map shows. They give a projection 215-220
Politico	208	217	10
Real Clear Politics	208	217	10
Washington Post	209	217	9

It’s annoying that so many are making some shared counting error – maps show 10 seats left to count, but their counts show 9 left.

But aside from the one seat error, and Decision Desk declaring a few extra seats, the counts are very similar. No one is making crazy claims.

Lets look at the specific seats that have not been called:

Seats Not Yet Called

	Note	Which way
AK at large	Waiting for Ranked Choice	Very Likely D	🔵🔵🔵
CO-03	1,112 R vote margin, still counting, recount(s) likely	Likely R	🔴🔴
ME-02	Waiting for Ranked Choice	Likely D	🔵🔵
CA-03	Slow count, but not much drama	Likely R	🔴🔴
CA-13	Central Valley – toss up	Lean D	🔵
CA-22	Valadao, Trump-impeacher R, holds lead of 3,280	Lean R	🔴
CA-27	Not called, but R Mike Garcia has claimed victory	Very Likely R	🔴🔴🔴
CA-34	Gomez (D) leads Kim (D)	Solid D	🔵🔵🔵
CA-47	Porter leads by 3,772 with 84% counted.	Lean D	🔵
CA-49	D holds 12,000 vote lead	Likely D	🔵🔵
All others	208 – 217

AK at large. It’s ranked choice – in this case one candidate will need 50%. The democrat, Peltola, has 47% to 26% for Palin and 24% for Begich. The rules will make it take a while to get to the count, but in a very similar race this summer Peltola needed more votes from Begich, and easily got them. Many Begich voters will just not support Palin. This is a Democratic win, just a matter of time.

ME-02. Also a ranked choice situation. Golden, the Democrat, leads Poliquin, the Republican, 151,504 to 141,006, or 48.2% to 44.9%. A third candidate has 21,555 votes, which will be redistributed between the two major candidates. That third candidate, Tiffany Bond, ran on a socially liberal old-fashioned Republican platform, with a tinge of Libertarianism to it. I bet her votes split fairly evenly. And Poliquin, to win, would need 3/4s of her votes. Does not look likely.

CO-03. Lauren Boebert took a very Republican district (+15R partisan lean) and turned it into a nail-biter. Too crazy for Trump voters. She leads 162,040 to 160,918 (50.2% to 49.8%) with only a few votes outstanding. Counting will wrap up Friday, after which there may be a recount (or recounts).

CA-03. District runs a long stretch of the Nevada border. It’s on the right side of the state, and leans to the right side of the political spectrum. It’s got a +8 Republic partisan lean. The Republican leads by 5.6%. Why has this district not been called? Because less than 60% of the vote is in. Is there a reason to think this one might be close? Nah. Kevin Kiley should win.

CA-13. Democratic Adam Gray leads this Central Valley district 56,521 to 55,921, a razor-thin margin (50.3% to 49.7%) with 2/3rds counted. The district has a D Partisan lean of +7, but that my be offset by lower turnout among agricultural workers.

CA-22. David Valadao was one of the few Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. His San Joaquin Valley district, including Bakersfield, is pretty evenly divided. And he maintains a small lead. over Rudy Salas, 35,421 to 32,141. That may be enough to hang on, but only 2/3rds of the vote is in.

CA-27. Likely Republican hold. Decision Desk called it. Incumbent Mike Garcia claimed victory. But race not officially called.

CA-34. California has open primaries (every party) and the top two face off in the general election. Does that mean the top two could both be Democrats? That’s what happened in CD34. Rematch of 2020, Jimmy Gomez (incumbent) beating David Kim in this Los Angeles seat, this time 52%-48%, last time 53%-47%.

CA-47. Katie Porter leads by 3,772 or 1.6% with 84% counted. The district is in Orange County, and has a +6D partisan lean, but elections here have been tight. This may take a while to be finalized.

CA-49. Incumbent Levin (D) leads by over 12,000 votes with 89% of the vote in. Almost a 5% lead. This is approaching a safe margin.

Summary

Today we are at 208 – 217.

Including the most likely remaining: 210 – 218 (Republicans control the house)

Including most of the rest, except CA-13, CA-22 and CA-47: 212-220

Including all: 214 – 221.

212-223, 213-222, 214-221, and 215-220 all seem reasonable picks at this point. Republican margin would be 5, 7, 9, or 11. All small. But all with Republicans in control.