All The Outstanding Races Called In The 3+ Weeks Since The Presidential Election

We haven’t been actively tracking it, but one other late-breaking election result of note: This week, Democrats basically sewed up a supermajority in the New York state Senate. In addition to giving them the ability to override the vetoes of moderate Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, this also gives Democrats full control over passing new congressional and state legislative maps in New York, which is expected to have 26 House seats next decade. That means that Democrats will control the redrawing of 73 House seats in total, or 17 percent of the House. Republicans will control the redrawing of 188 seats (43 percent), while 167 seats (38 percent) will be drawn by independent commissions or both parties working together.

So far, Democrats have clinched 222 seats in the next House, and Republicans have clinched 209 (including Louisiana’s 5th District, which is going to a Republican-vs.-Republican runoff on Dec. 5). That leaves four House races that are still unresolved. Here’s a quick update on where those contests stand:

• California’s 21st District: Republican David Valadao now leads Democratic Rep. TJ Cox by 1,763 votes. Rob Pyers of California Target Book estimates that there are about 2,500 votes left to count in the district’s bluest corner (Kern County), but 1,012 ballots left in its reddest (Kings County). This is increasingly looking like a GOP pickup.

• California’s 25th District: Republican Rep. Mike Garcia holds a razor-thin 0.1-point edge (400 votes) over Democrat Christy Smith. Pyers estimates there could be up to 3,000 votes left to count here, but it is Garcia, not Smith, who has been gaining ground as more votes are counted. Garcia has declared victory as a result, but independent decision desks are so far withholding judgment.

• Iowa’s 2nd District: The race for this open Democratic-held seat — the closest House race in the country — has gone to a recount. Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks leads Democrat Rita Hart by 41 votes in the latest count, but unofficial reports from four counties that have yet to finish recounting suggest that Hart may actually lead by 2. (Iowa Starting Line has a helpful spreadsheet.) However, Miller-Meeks is disputing the recount procedures in two of these counties, plus there are a handful of counties where the recount is still a black box, so this is a long way from over. The state is supposed to certify results on Monday, but historically, races this close have dragged on for months amid legal challenges.

• New York’s 22nd District: The initial trajectory of the count favored Republican Claudia Tenney, who led Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi by 28,422 votes after Election Day, but absentee ballots have almost completely erased that lead. However, because of New York’s decentralized and disorganized absentee-ballot-counting process, no one knows exactly what the current margin is: Tenney likely leads by somewhere between 100 and 300 votes. With the initial count more or less complete, attention has turned to a court hearing this week over whether thousands of disputed absentee and provisional ballots will count.

Any election as close as Iowa’s 2nd District has the potential to wind up in a prolonged legal dispute, which could mean the winner doesn’t get seated for months. In New Hampshire’s 1974 U.S. Senate election, the final recount yielded a margin of just 2 votes, and the loser challenged the result in the Senate. The Senate eventually declared the seat vacant and a new election was held, so the winner wasn’t seated until September. And in the razor-close 1984 election for Indiana’s 8th District, the Republican secretary of state declared the Republican the winner, but the Democratic House refused to seat him and in May declared the Democrat the winner by just 4 votes.