▶ Watch Video: Republicans to vote on Senate leader Wednesday, GOP appears poised to retain House majority.
Washington — It’s one week after Election Day 2024, and while control of the White House and the Senate have been decided, in a handful of races for the U.S. House of Representatives, the results are still outstanding, and their outcomes will determine Republicans’ margins in the lower chamber.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race and Republicans poised to control at least 52 seats in the Senate, the GOP is heading toward full control of Washington. CBS News characterizes control of the House as lean Republican, with the party now just three seats shy of the 218 needed to win the majority.
Most of the undecided House races are in California, where state law requires mail ballots to be postmarked by Election Day and received by county elections offices up to seven days after the election, so many are still being counted.
As votes continue to be tallied in seven states where the winners of congressional races have not yet been projected, Congress has returned to Washington for the first time in weeks, and Republicans are moving forward with leadership elections. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise are expected to maintain their positions atop the Republican conference, but Trump’s selection of conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has created an open seat in GOP leadership.
Here are the outstanding House races as of Tuesday, Nov. 12:
Republican Nick Begich leads incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, by more than 10,000 votes, with 71% of the estimated vote total reported.
If Begich defeats Peltola, it would be a GOP pick-up in the House. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so voters select multiple candidates and rank them in order of preference.
Unless a candidate earns more than 50% of the first-choice vote, the one with the fewest first-choice votes will be eliminated, and voters’ second picks are reallocated to the remaining candidates.
