PHOENIX, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Two days after Americans went to the polls, control of both houses of the U.S. Congress remained up in the air, with 31 seats in the House of Representatives too close to summon them and hundreds of thousands of ballots still. counting in the key battleground state of Arizona, officials said.
Republicans have captured at least 211 House seats, Edison Research projected, seven short of the 218 needed to wrest the House from Democrats and effectively stop President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
While Republicans remain favored to win the House majority, the 31 House contests yet to be decided include 19 of the most competitive, based on a Reuters analysis of leading nonpartisan prognosticators, likely ensuring that the final result will not be determined for some time. .
The fate of the Senate – where the two parties are neck and neck – was even less certain, with races too close in both Nevada and Arizona. A runoff for the Senate seat in Georgia is scheduled for next month.
In Arizona, Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told CNN that just over 400,000 votes were still uncounted in the state’s most populous county as of Thursday afternoon.
Even a slim House majority would allow Republicans to shape the rest of Biden’s term, blocking priorities like abortion rights and launching investigations into his administration and his family.
(Live election results from around the country are here)
BIDEN UPEBEAT
The ruling party historically suffers heavy losses in a president’s first midterm election, and Tuesday’s results suggested voters were, at least in part, punishing Biden for the strongest inflation in 40 years.
But Democrats were able to avoid the major defeat Republicans had anticipated as voters went to the polls in large numbers to protect abortion rights, which have been under threat since the Supreme Court struck down constitutional protections in June.
“Women in America made their voices heard, man,” President Joe Biden said at a political event in Washington.
The president had framed the election as a test of American democracy at a time when hundreds of Republican candidates bought into former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
At the political event, Biden noted that many of the so-called “election deniers” had accepted their own losses.
Biden, who travels to Egypt on Thursday for the COP27 UN climate change summit, has said he is ready to work with Republicans.
A White House official said Biden spoke by phone with Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy, who announced Wednesday his intention to run for House speaker if Republicans control the chamber.
If McCarthy is the next speaker of the House, it may be a challenge for him to hold together his fractious caucus, with a far right that has little interest in compromise.
Republicans are expected to demand spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit next year, a showdown that could spook financial markets.
Reporting by Jason Lange, Joseph Ax, Trevor Hunnicutt, Andy Sullivan, Makini Brice, Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu in Washington, Gabriella Borter in Birmingham, Michigan, Nathan Layne in Alpharetta, Georgia, Tim Reid in Phoenix and Ned Parker in Reno, Nevada; and Daniel Trotta; Written by Jeff Mason and Joseph Axe; edited by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O’Brien
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