Republicans will win control of House as Democrats keep Senate

House Republicans voted for Kevin McCarthy as their leader on Tuesday. But that victory contained a dangerous omen for the California Republican as he tries to become the next speaker of the House.

McCarthy won the leadership vote over Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs by a 188-31 margin. Which is the problem.

CNN projects that Republicans will win control of the House — but their majority will be a narrow one. As of Wednesday evening, CNN projected Republicans will control 218 seats compared to 208 for the Democrats. If the current leaders of the nine uncalled races wind up winning, that would leave Republicans with 221 seats.

Under that scenario, McCarthy would only be able to afford to lose three Republican votes in the new Congress to secure a majority and become speaker, presuming Democrats remain united in opposition.

That would mean McCarthy could only lose one out of every 10 members who cast a ballot for Biggs. Which is almost zero margin for error.

It’s worth noting here that voting against McCarthy in a secret-ballot election among the Republican conference isn’t the same thing as voting against him to be speaker on the House floor in January.

It’s possible that the members who voted against him — particularly the members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus — did so as a way of voicing their concerns and getting McCarthy’s attention.

McCarthy can also take some solace in fact that past House speakers initially received fewer than 218 votes in their intraparty elections. Democrats nominated Nancy Pelosi for speaker by a 203-32 vote in 2018, and Republicans nominated Paul Ryan by a 200-43 vote in 2015 – though both enjoyed larger majorities at the time than McCarthy will.

Democratic Rep. Karen Bass overcame more than $100 million in spending by her rival Rick Caruso to win the Los Angeles mayor’s race, CNN projects, making history as the first woman and the first Black woman to serve as mayor.

Bass, who currently represents a Los Angeles-area House seat, was on Joe Biden’s shortlist for a running mate in the 2020 campaign.

She’s no stranger to making history: She previously served in the California State Assembly, where in 2008 she became the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature.

In her campaign, Bass emphasized the depth of her policy experience and her reputation as a collaborative listener and legislator. She also highlighted her early work as a physician assistant in the emergency room and her experience bringing together Black and Latino community organizers in South LA in the early 1990s to address the root causes of crime and the crack epidemic. She did that work through the nonprofit she founded, Community Coalition. 

Bass also highlighted her role as a dealmaker when she led the California State Assembly after the 2008 financial crisis – making budget decisions that earned her a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2010. She also made history in that role – becoming the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature in 2008. 

She argued that her experience would give her a unique perspective and understanding of the problems with homelessness in Los Angeles. She said her experience in the emergency room had given her a depth of understanding of the problem that her primary rivals, including Caruso, did not have. 

“I have a background in the medical field. I’ve worked with these patients,” she told CNN in an interview earlier this year. “I spent several years in the emergency room at (LA) county. My patients were homeless. My patients were mentally ill. They had substance abuse. I know these systems.” 

She said she would declare a state of emergency on homelessness that would set a new tone on addressing homelessness citywide: “It should be dealt with like a natural disaster,” she told CNN. “I’m really hoping that we begin to build a new spirit in this city, where people understand that this problem is everyone’s problem.”

President Joe Biden congratulated House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Republicans winning the House majority and said he is “ready to work with House Republicans to deliver results for working families.”

“Last week’s elections demonstrated the strength and resilience of American democracy,” a statement from the president said. “There was a strong rejection of election deniers, political violence, and intimidation. There was an emphatic statement that, in America, the will of the people prevails.”

The statement continued:

Republicans will win control of the House, CNN projects, and with that majority comes the power of committees and influence to set the agenda, which will make things much harder for the Biden administration in the next two years.

The GOP has won the 218 seats necessary to claim the majority, according to CNN projections, and Democrats will have a narrow majority in the Senate.

CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju explained why winning control of the House is significant for Republicans. 

Additionally, Kevin McCarthy, who won his party’s nomination for speaker of the House, and the rest of GOP leadership will be able to set the exact schedule for what they want to bring to the floor. They can also refuse to bring measures up and set priorities that align with their party’s agenda, Raju added.

In the first two years of President Joe Biden’s term, Democrats held a narrow majority in both the House and Senate. This allowed them to pass some significant bills strictly along party lines, like the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, Raju explained.

“They will no longer be able to do that, because in order to move through the budget process, you need support within… essentially among your party, and Republicans and Democrats would not agree to move in such sweeping legislation like that,” Raju said in his analysis, adding that any legislation that passes now will have to be incremental.

WATCH: Manu Raju explains what the GOP taking control of the House means

Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives, CNN projects, reaching the threshold of 218 seats needed for a majority in the chamber after Republican Mike Garcia won in California's 27th Congressional District.

The victory will fall short of their hopes of a “red wave” but thwart President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and will likely subject his White House to relentless investigations.

The fact that the GOP finally passed the threshold of 218 seats needed for control of the chamber eight days after Election Day – and that it came down to the final districts to report results – underscores the party’s underwhelming midterm election performance, which history and political logic suggested should have delivered a heftier rebuke to Biden and Democrats.

In defiance of political gravity, Democrats held onto the Senate after an election dominated by concerns about high inflation and influenced, in some places, by the Supreme Court’s overturning of a constitutional right to abortion this summer. There’s still an outstanding Senate race in Georgia, which will be decided by a December runoff and will determine how large the Democrats’ majority will be.

Republicans’ victory in the House will end Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s second tenure as speaker in January. But its majority looks set to number a handful of seats, far short of initial expectations in a margin that will make managing a restive Republican conference a stiff task for party leaders.

And while less impressive than party leaders had hoped for, it still represents a return of Trump-style ideology and chaos politics to Washington, given the strong influence the ex-president is likely to wield over his acolytes in the GOP conference. The former president announced his 2024 presidential bid on Tuesday night.

Republican Rep. Mike Garcia will in California's 27 District, CNN projects, helping the GOP reach the 218 seats necessary to gain control of the House.

After Maine’s ranked-choice tabulation, Rep. Jared Golden will win in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, CNN projects, defeating Republican Bruce Poliquin in a rematch of their 2018 contest for the same seat. This is a Democratic hold.

Here's where things stand in the House:

Republicans need to win one more race to reach the 218 seats necessary to gain control of the House.

The $122 million-dollar Los Angeles mayor’s race between US Rep. Karen Bass and real estate magnate Rick Caruso is still too close to call, along with six House races in California that could determine the balance of power in Washington, raising a perennial question: Why does it take California so long to count its votes?

More than a week after Election Day��and as the nation awaits an official call on which party will control the US House of Representatives, attention is turning to some of the outstanding races in California that could tip the scales. Tuesday was the last day that county election officials could accept ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day — meaning the Golden State is just getting started counting some of those late-arriving ballots.

California now mails every registered voter a ballot, a practice that began in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic and ultimately became permanent in Sept. 2021 in an effort to increase voter access and participation. Under state law, ballots postmarked on or before Election Day must be accepted by county elections offices for seven days after polls close.

The sheer volume of ballots that election officials are now counting is enormous. In the 2020 election, more than 15 million mail ballots were cast in the general election – comprising about 87% of the total. This year, there were nearly 22 million registered California voters by mid-October, according to figures from the California secretary of state.

The official canvassing period — the process of tabulating votes — will continue up to Dec. 8, when county election officials must report their final official results to the secretary of state (though some counties have set earlier deadlines to certify their own election results). The California secretary of state will certify the state’s results by Dec. 16.

Keep reading here.

Former Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News that he is “closing the door” on testifying before the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6, putting an end to the question of whether he would agree to speak with the committee before it wraps its investigation. 

“I am closing the door on that, but I must say again, the partisan nature of the Jan. 6 committee has been a disappointment to me,” Pence said.  

Pence criticized the makeup of the committee, ignoring the fact that Republicans rejected earlier opportunities to form the panel in a more bipartisan fashion, but acknowledged that he did not stand in the way of members of his senior staff, including his chief of staff Marc Short, from testifying in front of the panel. 

“It's inconceivable to me that one party would appoint every member of a committee in Congress that's antithetical to the whole idea of the committee system,” Pence said. 

He continued, "We have a separation of powers under the Constitution of the United States. And I believe it would establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a Vice President of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”

Pence said even though he does not want to testify before the committee, he would continue to share his story about what happened on Jan. 6 in his book and he will “continue to speak openly about it.”

CNN has previously reported that Pence’s legal counsel had been in communication with the committee about whether he would testify. Over the summer, the panel dedicated an entire hearing to the pressure campaign Pence faced in the lead-up to Capitol attack, which included testimony from some of his top aides.

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the committee, was quick to criticize Pence’s decision not to testify.

“Hey Pence, do you like Democracy or nah? Did trump break the law or nah? Pick a lane and a position. You will fail to please everyone” Kinzinger tweeted.

Pence will participate in a CNN town hall airing at 9:00 p.m. ET tonight.

Committee's response: The House select committee also issued a statement pushing back on Pence's comments.

“The Select Committee has proceeded respectfully and responsibly in our engagement with Vice President Pence, so it is disappointing that he is misrepresenting the nature of our investigation while giving interviews to promote his new book” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who serve as chair and vice chair of the committee respectively, said in a joint statement.

“The Select Committee has consistently praised the former Vice President’s refusal to bow to former President Trump’s pressure to illegally refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. But his recent statements about the Select Committee are not accurate.”

The panel’s leaders also debunked Pence’s criticism of the makeup of the committee neglected to include Republican members, detailing how Republican pushback along the way led to the committee’s current formation.