Nearly three weeks after election night, four House races have yet to be called. But in each case, the Republican candidate is favored to win.
Republicans hope to cap off their unexpected successful House campaign efforts in the next few days, with several more wins after already taking back nine seats that Democrats won in 2018. However, four of those races are mired in razor-thin absentee ballot counts or stuck in court.
Two of the races are in California. Former Republican Rep. David Valadao, who previously represented the Central Valley-based 21st District before being ousted by the current seat holder in 2018, Democratic Rep. TJ Cox, led Cox by over 1,618 votes on Friday.
Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties continued canvassing ballots, raising Valado’s lead by 178 votes. Nevertheless, Dave Wasserman, the House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said the numbers were a substantial-enough lead to call the race for the California Republican on Friday. The Associated Press, though, has not called the race, and Cox has not conceded. Cox, instead, invited supporters to help cure ballots Monday.
In 2018, the last time Cox and Valadao faced off, the race was similarly close, and the Associated Press called the race for Valadao, only to withdraw that call after Cox pulled ahead to win the race.
Another close California congressional race pits Republican Rep. Mike Garcia against Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith. Garcia previously defeated Smith in May during a special election to fill the seat vacated in October by former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill.
Garcia leads in the current ballot count and claimed victory on Friday. In a statement, Garcia said, “With only a few remaining ballots to be counted, victory is clear.” Smith, however, responded, “Patience is a virtue,” adding that Garcia’s declaration of victory was hasty and “dangerous to our democratic process.”
“This race remains too close to call,” Smith said in a statement.
New York is home to the most uncalled House races in the country, and it is mainly due to the state’s elections protocol, which enables all 62 counties to decide when it’s time to begin counting their absentee ballots.
This has led to the drawn-out absentee ballot count in New York’s 22nd Congressional District. Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, once considered the most vulnerable first-term member of Congress, was behind former Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney by 28,422 votes based on in-person ballots received during early voting and on Election Day.
However, almost 60,000 mail-in ballots were cast, which brought Tenney’s lead down to a mere 100 votes. Lawyers in both campaigns have fought over the legitimacy of the absentee ballots, with the Brindisi camp hiring high-powered Washington, D.C., election law attorneys from Perkins Coie to defend their interests in court.
New York lawmakers passed legislation earlier in the year that mandates a full manual recount when the margin of victory is 0.5% or less.
Although Brindisi and Tenney are separated by 0.1% as of Friday, whether a recount will happen will be decided by the judge, as New York’s recount law will not take effect until next year.
Tenney, who represented the district before Brindisi, previously faced off with the Democratic lawmaker in 2018, when Brindisi defeated her by just 4,473 votes.
Finally, Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District race between Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Rita Hart showed Miller-Meeks with an unofficial 47-vote lead over Hart after voters cast over 394,000 ballots. Miller-Meeks now holds a 38-vote lead, according to unofficial results posted on the Iowa secretary of state’s website as of Monday morning.
Although Miller-Meeks declared victory, Hart called for a recount of every county in the district on Nov. 12. One particular dispute is in Scott County, where the Miller-Meeks campaign claimed the recount is illegal because it is being performed by machine and by hand.
Iowa law requires a recount in every precinct to be conducted either by optical-scan ballot tabulating equipment or by a manual count. The open seat, previously occupied by Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack, who retired this cycle, is located in southeastern Iowa.
