While control of the next Congress still remains unknown, Republicans in Washington on Thursday began ramping up plans to take over the House of Representatives.
The GOP was denied being triumphantly swept into power on election night when the “red wave” that party leaders had forecast never materialized.
For the Senate, control will come down to three races. Officials continue to count ballots in Nevada and Arizona, where the early results show tight races. If Democrats are able to win both, they will keep control of the Senate.
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But a Republican victory in either state will mean Senate control won’t be settled until a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Neither Warnock nor Republican challenger Herschel Walker met the required majority needed to win the race.
The Senate contest in Arizona between Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican challenger Blake Masters remained too close to call Thursday morning. Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the country and home to Phoenix and Tempe, faced widespread technical difficulties for hours on Election Day that led officials to use secure ballot boxes.
A slew of races in Nevada — including for Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state — still remain too early to call.
Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is locked in a tight race against Republican challenger Adam Laxalt. Clark County election officials on Wednesday said they are still days from completing ballot counting in the state’s largest county.
Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said they were still sorting tens of thousands of ballots that came through the mail and were left in drop boxes. In Nevada, mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 8 can arrive through Saturday and still be counted.
Voters in Nevada voted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 per hour by July 1, 2024, NBC News projects. The ballot measure removes provisions that set different minimum wage rates for employees who are offered qualifying health insurance.
House control
In Washington, House Republicans have already begun maneuvering to determine who from their ranks will become the House speaker should they take control.
NBC News has not yet projected a winner for House control.
Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, now the minority leader, has long been viewed as the favorite to be House speaker should Republicans take charge. But now he will have to wrangle votes among his members, with little margin for error.
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“I am determined to ensure that this majority reaches its full potential,” McCarthy said in a letter to House Republicans on Wednesday. “I will be a listener every bit as much as a Speaker, striving to build consensus from the bottom-up rather than commanding the agenda from the top-down.”
McCarthy may have a difficult time winning the votes he needs, especially if his party holds a very thin majority.
Speaking to reporters as he left a House Freedom Caucus meeting Thursday, Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said McCarthy “has not done anything to earn my vote.”
“There’s many times where we have come to the leader, the minority leader, over the last two years and asked him to fight on various opportunities and various issues and I have not seen the demonstrated fight that we’re looking for,” Good told reporters.
Good said he expects a challenger to McCarthy for Speaker because he thinks there are “a number of members of the Republican conference who share the same concerns,” but stopped short of specifying who that would be.
The House Democratic Caucus is scheduled to hold its leadership elections Nov. 30, chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said in an email to colleagues.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left for the UN climate conference in Egypt, but her future as the top Democrat in the chamber will be in question once she returns.
Hakeem said leadership and committee elections will take place by “secret ballot.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
