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How Many Seats Do Republicans Hold In Congress

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Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

WASHINGTON – U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.

After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.


Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Who Are The Winners And Losers


Maine Democrats had high hopes of unseating Susan Collins, the 67-year-old moderate Republican who had been trailing her Democrat rival in the polls for months.

But Sara Gideon, 48, conceded in a call to Ms Collins on Wednesday afternoon.

So far, Democrats have managed a net gain of one seat in the Senate election.

Democratic former governor John Hickenlooper won a key Colorado seat from the Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

Mr Hickenlooper, who stood for the Democratic nomination for president, was governor of Colorado for two terms from 2011 until last year. His rival was considered particularly vulnerable because of his allegiance to President Trump.


In Arizona, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated Republican incumbent and former fighter pilot Martha McSally. Mr Kelly earlier said he was “confident that when the votes are counted, we’re going to be successful in this mission”.

However, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump ally Lindsey Graham have both been re-elected in their seats of Kentucky and South Carolina respectively.

And in Alabama, Republican candidate Tommy Tuberville took a seat from the Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.

Democrats Path To Senate Control Narrows As Republicans Hold Onto Critical Seats


Democrats path to seizing the Senate continued to narrow Wednesday as Republicans held onto a cluster of seats in critical states and the two parties continued to fight to control the upper chamber of Congress in close contests across the country.

Democrats won a crucial seat in Arizonaearly Wednesday, with Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, defeating Senator Martha McSally, after former Gov. John Hickenlooper defeated Senator Cory Gardner Tuesday night in the high-profile fight for Colorados Senate seat. Those victories were essential to Democrats push to take the Senate majority.

In Georgia, the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, a Democrat, advanced to a runoff election against Senator Kelly Loeffler, the Republican incumbent. The other race in the state, between Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challenger, and Senator David Perdue, a Republican, was too close to call.

And early returns showed Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, with a lead over his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, in a seat that strategists in both parties identified as a possible tipping point.

There were still several crucial Senate races that were not yet called that Democrats hope to win, including Maine,and Democrats remained bullish on their chances in Georgia.


The 2018 Congressional Retirement Tracker

Here’s a running list of all the lawmakers calling it quits this year.

If you want to see a political wave forming a year before an election, watch the retirements.


Theyre often a leading indicator for which direction a party is headed, and so far, 2018 is shaping up ominously for Republicans, who will be defending 40 open House seats this fall compared with the Democrats 20. By far the biggest and most consequential retirement announcement came in early April, as Speaker Paul Ryan told his colleagues he would not seek reelection to his House seat.

Far more Republicans are leaving Congress voluntarily than Democrats, putting the partys control of the chamber in jeopardy. Several veteran Republican lawmakers in competitive districts are calling it quits, depriving the GOP of the advantage of incumbency in races that could determine control of the House in 2019.

Mcconnell Not Troubled At All By Trump’s Suggestion Of Supreme Court Challenge

So Now What?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Mr. Trump for falsely claiming that he won reelection, although he acknowledged that the presidential race had not yet been decided.


“It’s not unusual for people to claim they have won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But, claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,” Mitch McConnell says, adding that Americans “should not be shocked” that Democrats and Republicans are both lawyering up for the close races https://t.co/fxHKy8hSEp

CBS News November 4, 2020

He also said he was “not troubled at all” by the president suggesting that the outcome of the election might be determined by the Supreme Court. The president cannot unilaterally bring a case to the Supreme Court, what it’s unclear what case the Trump campaign would have if it challenged the counting of legally cast absentee ballots.

McConnell, who won his own closely watched reelection race on Tuesday evening, expressed measured confidence about Republicans maintaining their majority in the Senate. He said he believed there is a “chance we will know by the end of the day” if Republicans won races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Could Flip Under The Right Conditions: Michigan Iowa Montana Kansas And Georgia Special Election


Michigan: Michigan is one of the most hotly contested states in the presidential race, and the reelection bid of Sen. Gary Peters will get caught up in that. Democrats say the fact that the coronavirus has hit Michigan hard makes it more likely Biden can win this state, which was crucial to Trumps 2016 victory. In the Senate race, Republicans have made a big deal out of John James, an Iraq War veteran and conservative media darling. James has outraised Peters for three straight quarters and is close to having as much money as Peters in the bank. Democrats argue Republicans are too bullish on a candidate who also lost a Senate race against a Democrat in 2018. Polls have shown this race close between the two.

Montana: Can a popular Democratic governor who won in Trump country unseat a sitting Republican senator? Term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock , a former 2020 presidential candidate, is running against Sen. Steve Daines . Bullock is the Democrat with the best shot, given hes won three times statewide, including when Trump swept the state in 2016. And in 2018, Sen. Jon Tester won a tough reelection fight. But can Bullock unseat a sitting Republican senator in a state that some strategists estimate could vote for Trump by as many as 20 points?

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.


Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election, 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020, but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the state’s 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New York’s 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

Collins Says Gideon Called To Concede

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told supporters on Wednesday that her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, had called her to concede the race. Without taking Collins’ seat, Democrats have little change of claiming the Senate majority. 

“I have news for everyone. I just received a very gracious call from Sara Gideon conceding the race,” Collins told supporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Collins, one of the more moderate members of Senate, was considered particularly vulnerable this year. If she had received under 50% of the vote, the race would have proceeded to a runoff, under Maine’s system of ranked-choice voting.

Gideon significantly outraised Collins, and hit the senator repeatedly for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

Republicans Are Well Positioned To Take The House In 2022

Although we dont yet know the winners of some House races, we can already look ahead to the 2022 midterms and see a fairly straightforward path for the GOP to capture the House. Midterm elections historically go well for the party thats not in the White House, and the out-of-power party is especially likely to do well in the House, since every seat is up for election .

Since the end of World War II, the presidential party has lost an average of 27 House seats in midterm elections, as the chart below shows. No matter how many seats Democrats end up with after 2020s election at this point, they will probably end up somewhere in the low 220s a loss of that magnitude would easily be enough for Republicans to retake the House.

The recent history of midterms in a Democratic presidents first term seems especially promising for the GOP, too. Following Bill Clintons election in 1992, Democrats lost more than 50 seats in 1994, and after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, Democrats lost more than 60 seats.

If Democrats had added five to 10 seats this year, they could have survived a 20-seat loss in the midterms. Instead, Republicans will probably need to win fewer than 10 seats to gain a slender majority in 2022.

The Number Of People Each House Member Represents Will Change

The number of residents represented by each House member will mostly grow in 2022, though it will decrease per representative in some states. 

Since Montana gained a representative, its two House members will now split the state’s population currently represented by Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican. The addition of another House seat means Montana’s House members will represent the least amount of people compared to House members in other states.

Delaware’s sole House district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, will be the largest in terms of population.

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New Yorkers Become First Black And Openly Gay Members Of Congress

Experts weigh in on 2020 races for Texas House of ...

 Tuesday night will be historic in part because of the diversity of candidates elected to the House. Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, are the first Black and openly gay members of Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is leading in North Carolina’s 11th district, a safe Republican seat. Cawthorn, 25, won the June primary against a Trump-backed candidate for the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows . He has come under fire for visiting Hitler’s retreat and for his campaign launching a website which included a racist broadside against his Democratic opponent.

Maine Senate Race A Toss

 With polls closing at 8 p.m., the hotly contested Maine Senate race remains a toss-up. Senator Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, is considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, but she is facing considerable skepticism from Democrats and independents who previously supported her. State Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic candidate, and has posted record fundraising.

CBS News projects that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts have both won reelection. Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also won reelection.

The Alabama Senate race is leaning toward Republican Tommy Tuberville, who is taking on incumbent Senator Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. 

The Tennessee Senate race is also leaning Republican. The Mississippi Senate race is likely Republican. The Senate races in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Rhode Island are lean Democratic, and New Jersey is likely Democratic.

Cori Bush Becomes Missouri’s First Black Congresswoman Cbs News Projects

Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat and activist, has become Missouri’s first Black congresswoman, according to CBS News projections. With 88% of votes reported, Bush is leading Republican Anthony Rogers 78.9% to 19% to represent the state’s first congressional district, which includes St. Louis and Ferguson.

Bush, 44, claimed victory on Tuesday, promising to bring change to the district. “As the first Black woman and also the first nurse and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me say this: To the Black women, the Black girls, the nurses, the essential workers, the single mothers, this is our moment,” she told supporters in St. Louis.

Read more here

Republicans Are Expected To Gain Seats In Redrawn 2022 Congressional Maps But Democrats Could Be Worse Off

U.S. Census data released Monday will shift political power in Congress, reapportioning two House seats to Texas and one each to Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana and stripping a seat from California , New York , Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. Florida, Texas, and Arizona each controlled entirely by Republicans had been expecting to pick up an additional seat.

“On balance, I think this reapportionment offers a small boost for Republicans, but the bigger boost is likely to come from how Republicans draw these seats in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia,” the Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman tells Axios. “Reapportionment itself means little compared to the redistricting fights to come.” It won’t exactly be a level playing field.

“Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of GOP dominance in down-ballot elections,”The New York Times reports. “Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted redistricting decisions in states where they have controlled the government such as California, Colorado, and Virginia to independent commissions intended to create fair maps.”

House seats broken down by final redistricting authority :

– Republican: 187

Dave Wasserman April 26, 2021

More stories from theweek.com

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What Is The New Balance Of Power In The House

House Democrats held onto their majority but lost seats to Republican challengers.

More than a dozen incumbent Democrats lost re-election bids, despite earlier projections they could gain up to 15 seats.

Democrats took the chamber after they netted 41 seats in the 2018 midterm elections, their largest single-year pickup since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974. But some of those new Democrats were among the partys losers in 2020.

Just How Bad Was The 2018 Election For House Republicans

On Thursday, Democrat Jared Golden beat Maine Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, marking the 33rd seat pickup for Democrats in the 2018 election.

There are seven races in the House left uncalled all are Republican-held seats; Democrats lead in five of the seven. If they win all the races where their candidates are winning at the moment, Democrats will net 38 seats. If they lose them all which is very unlikely they will hold at a 33-seat gain.

In an interview Wednesday with the conservative Daily Caller website,  President Donald Trump insisted that by his aggressive last-minute campaigning across the country he had saved House Republicans from seat losses that could have numbered into the 70s. I think I did very well, he concluded.

So did he? As compared to history?

Not really, is the answer.

Theres no question that Trump did not suffer the massive seat loss that his immediate predecessor Barack Obama did in his first midterm election in 2010. In that election, Republicans netted an astounding 63-seat gain, the largest since Democrats lost 72 House seats in the 1938 midterms.

But more broadly, the 33 seat loss by Republicans in 2018 places this election firmly in the upper echelon of House-seat losses by a presidents party in modern midterms.

Read Thursdays full edition of The Point newsletter, and sign up to get future editions delivered to your inbox.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer. 

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

Th Congress 2007 And 2008

U.S. election explained: Americans vote for a lot more ...

The 110th Congress is noteworthy because its members were elected by voters frustrated by the protracted war in Iraq and the continued loss of American soldiers. Democrats were swept into power in Congress, leaving Republican President George W. Bush and his party with diminished authority.

University of California political scientist G. William Domhoff wrote:

“The unexpected Democratic victory hobbled the right wing of the power elite and returned moderate conservatives to the central position they had held on policy issues for decades until the Republicans took control of the White House in 2000 and then both houses of Congress in 2002.”

Said Bush after the results became clear in 2006:

“I’m obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election, and as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility. I told my party’s leaders that it is now our duty to put the elections behind us and work together with the Democrats and independents on the great issues facing this country.”

  • White House: Republican
  • House: Democrats held 233 seats, Republicans held 202 seats
  • Senate: Democrats held 49 seats, Republicans held 49 seats; there was one independent and one independent Democrat

*Notes: U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was reelected in 2006 as an independent candidate and became an Independent Democrat. U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont was elected in 2006 as an independent.

About The House Of Representatives

The United States is also divided into 435 congressional districts with a population of about 750,000 each. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives for a two-year term.

As in the Senate, the day-to-day activities of the House are controlled by the majority party. Here is a count of representatives by party:

How Are The Results Reported

The election results on this page are reported by the Associated Press . AP call the winner in a state when they determine that the trailing candidate has no path to victory. This can happen before 100% of votes in a state have been counted.

Estimates for the total vote in each state are also provided by AP. The numbers update throughout election night, as more data on voter turnout becomes available.

Th Congress 2015 And 2016

The 114th Congress was notable because Republicans won their largest majorities in the House and Senate in decades after voters used the midterm election in 2014 to express dissatisfaction with a Democratic president, Barack Obama. Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Said Obama after the results became clear:

“Obviously, Republicans had a good night. And they deserve credit for running good campaigns. Beyond that, I’ll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterday’s results.”

  • White House: Democrat
  • House: Republicans held 246 seats, Democrats held 187 seats; there were two vacancies.
  • Senate: Republicans held 54 seats, Democrats held 44 seats; there were two independents, both of whom caucused with the Democrats.

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