Republicans gain more seats in the U.S. House

(The Center Square) – Political pundits and pollsters said Republicans would lose 15 to 20 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives during last week’s election, but voters proved them wrong, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, said.

More women were elected as Republican members of the House in the history of Congress, McCarthy said.

U.S. House Republicans are expecting to gain up to 13 new seats in the U.S. House.

McCarthy, who was reelected Tuesday, said that as of Friday, 10 races were still to close to call.

Republicans in Congress won every incumbent seat and 28 out of 29 competitive seats identified by the New York Times’ Nate Silver.

Republicans have so far held the U.S. Senate and kept control of all state legislatures in which they were the majority, McCarthy noted. Republicans also gained control of three new state legislatures.

McCarthy stressed that every legal vote needs to be counted and every recount in several states needs to be completed to determine the outcome of the presidential race and all races. And after every legal challenge is decided, only then will it be determined who won the 2020 Election, McCarthy said.

“We are less than 21,000 [votes to be counted] where the House, we could win the majority,” McCarthy told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “There are 10 seats that are still sitting out there where Republicans are leading in three, they haven’t called any of those, so why would you call the presidential race first?”

Preliminary numbers indicate that 26 percent of President Donald Trump’s voting share came from nonwhite voters, the highest percentage for a GOP presidential candidate since 1960. The Republican Party received more than 4 million new voters.

McCarthy also said it was possible that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- San Francisco, who also won reelection Tuesday, could lose her role if 10 of the 15 Democrats who voted against her bid for speaker in January 2019 did so again in January 2021.