The November election is almost a week behind us, but as of Monday morning, 18 races for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives have not been called.
While it looks like Republicans will take the majority in the House — in addition to their majority in the Senate — neither party has reached a majority in the lower chamber yet.
Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said one of the main reasons we have so many uncalled races is simple: California.
“California takes a lot longer to count their ballots than anyone else because they allow ballots that are postmarked as of Election Day to arrive up to seven days later. That is tomorrow. And everyone in California receives a mail ballot before the election starts,” he said. “If you’re trying to count the ballots, you really have no idea how many are going to come in, because every registered voter who’s still outstanding could have their vote arrive, say, today.
“So people like the Associated Press are very reluctant to call elections even when candidates start to have a lead that looks pretty good. You still don’t know until all those ballots have arrived.”
» MORE: Could John Cornyn take the role of Senate majority leader?
The other category of states that takes longer to count their ballots are states with ranked choice voting.
“Two of those are Maine and Alaska,” Jones said. “If no candidate gets 50% plus one of the votes, you eliminate the lower candidates until one is left with 50%. … Now, in both Maine and Alaska, it’s pretty clear that once that process is completed that a Democrat, Jared Golden, will win in Maine. And in Alaska, a Republican, Nick Begich, will win.
“But you still have to go through the entire process. And in Alaska, they give mail ballots from abroad and from the military until Nov. 20 to arrive.”
Republicans have already secured 214 seats in the House; Democrats only have 203. That gives Republicans a clearer path to the 218 seats needed to control the chamber.
“Republicans are likely on track to get at least 218 seats and potentially as many as 222. Right now, in the current Congress, they hold 221. It’s always possible that things go haywire for Republicans in a few of the races where they’re looking good right now. But the most likely scenario is they’re going to have at least that narrow majority of 218.”
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Jones said we will likely know the outcome in the outstanding California races – as well as races in a few other states with high numbers of mail-in ballots – by the end of the week.
“Ten of the 18 undecided races are in California. California sends a mail ballot to everyone. You don’t know how many votes are going to arrive until the actual deadline occurs,” he said. “In a state like Texas, where you have to request a mail ballot, we know that at the most outstanding mail ballots are, say, 10,000. And if a candidate’s up by 10,005, you just do the math.
“In California today in the mail, 5,000 ballots could arrive for some of these races, but it could also be 15,000.”
Jones said he expects most of the outstanding races – outside of the one in Alaska with the longer ballot deadline – to be called by Thursday.
“By the end of the week, we will know definitively who’s going to control the House,” he said. “But looking at the data now, it’s a virtual certainty that Republicans are going to win.”
