Democrats pushed Wednesday to extend their control of the House for two more years, but with a potentially reduced majority, as they lost at least six incumbents and failed to oust any Republican lawmakers in the initial results.
As of 3 a.m. EST, the only gains for Democrats were two North Carolina seats left vacant for Republican rulers after a court-ordered remapping made the districts more Democratic. Although it seemed likely that they would retain control of the House, the results were turning out to be a disappointment for the party, which was hoping to make modest gains of perhaps 15 seats.
After decades of trying, Republicans defeated 15-term Rep. Collin Peterson from a rural Minnesota district who backed President Donald Trump in 2016 by 31 percentage points, Trump’s largest margin in any Democratic-controlled district. Peterson, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, opposed Trump’s impeachment and is one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. He was defeated by Republican Michelle Fischbach, the former lieutenant governor.
First-year Democrats Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala lost, falling into adjacent districts of South Florida in a state where Trump appeared to consolidate his support among Cuban voters. Also lost were first-year Democrats Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico and Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, who had surprising victories in 2018 in districts Trump led decisively in 2016.
Torres Small’s fight for the seat cost about $ 35 million, making it one of the most expensive races in the country, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. She was defeated by Yvette Herrell, a former state legislator.
Democrats were also disappointed in the Senate, where they fueled dwindling hopes of winning the majority. Democrat Joe Biden’s Trump defiance remained too close to call.
Before the votes were counted, operatives from both parties said the Republican Party would be lucky enough to limit Democratic gains to modest digits. Democrats control House 232-197, with five free seats and one independent. 218 seats are needed to control the camera.
A smaller Democratic majority would make it harder for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to rally her lawmakers as a handful of progressive freshmen arrive in the new Congress.
By retaining control of the House, Democrats would mark only the second time in a quarter century that they have led the House for two consecutive two-year Congresses. The first term was from 2007 to 2010, when Pelosi was serving her first four years in office.
“Our purpose in this race was to win in order to protect the Affordable Care Act and to crush the virus,” Pelosi told reporters, citing former President Barack Obama’s health law. He stated that the Democrats had won the majority of the House, which seemed highly probable but had not been officially declared by The Associated Press.
Hopes for Democrats to protect their majority and even expand it were based on public anxiety over the pandemic, Trump’s alienation from suburban voters and a huge fundraising lead. But those advantages didn’t get them as far as they hoped.
With Republican expectations of capturing the House of Representatives almost non-existent by election day, Republicans were happy with the results.
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“The Republicans in the House of Representatives have exceeded all expectations,” said Dan Conston, who heads the Congressional Leadership Fund, a committee aligned with Republican leaders in the House of Representatives that provides millions to Republican candidates.
The Democrats lost a series of what were considered to be coin toss races, without defeating the Republican rulers in Cincinnati, rural Illinois, central Virginia and the suburbs of St. Louis and two contests in Texas.
In a district between Austin and San Antonio, Republican first-year Rep. Chip Roy resisted a challenge from Democrat Wendy Davis. Davis gained fame as a state legislator by filing a filibuster in 2013 against an anti-abortion bill, then lost a gubernatorial race the following year. The conservative Growth Club made her their biggest target, spending more than $ 6 million against her this year.
As symbolically, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was in her own tight race in a tightly divided district that won by 24 percentage points in 2018.
Some endangered Democrats like Lizzie Fletcher of Texas and Tom Malinowski and Andy Kim of New Jersey resisted. But the party did not score early wins in long-shot runs that they hope would bolster its majority. The Republicans kept those districts in central North Carolina; Montana; Omaha, Nebraska; and around Little Rock, Arkansas.
Also read: ‘We won’, declares Trump, promises to move the Supreme Court to stop counting
As Wednesday morning progressed, other close races remained undecided in states like Georgia and Virginia.
Dozens of incumbents from both parties from safe districts were easily re-elected. These included the progressive star, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, and House No. 3 leaders from both parties, Democrat James Clyburn of South Carolina and Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Also coming to Washington are New York City-area Democrats Jamaal Bowman, a progressive who was endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez, and Ritchie Torres, who will be the first openly gay Hispanic in Congress.
In a remarkable but unsurprising result, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has endorsed unfounded QAnon conspiracy theories, won a vacant seat in Northwest Georgia. Trump has called Greene a “future Republican star.” QAnon claims that Trump is quietly waging a battle against pedophiles in government.
The coronavirus pandemic and the wounded economy, which voters ranked as top concerns, according to the AP VoteCast, a national poll of the electorate, loomed over the races. The virus has killed 232,000 people in the United States and cases are increasing in almost every state, while millions have lost their jobs.
Cheering for Democrats was a coast-to-coast advantage in campaign fundraising, even for the 29 Democrats from the districts Trump won in 2016 and the Republicans were targeting. As of early Wednesday, Peterson, Cunningham and Torres Small were the only Democrats to lose.
Nearly all Democratic incumbents in potentially vulnerable districts spent more than their Republican rivals, often by wide margins, according to an AP analysis of campaign reports from the Federal Election Commission.
As in 2018, when they took control of the House, Democratic announcements emphasized promises to make health care more accessible, preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions, and protect voters from Republicans to end those requirements. Many Republicans say they want to dismantle Obama’s health care law while maintaining coverage for pre-existing conditions, but have not come up with a detailed proposal to do so.
The pandemic has only amplified the Democrats’ focus on health care. Trump’s repeated false statements that downplay the severity of the virus have also given Democrats political thought.
AP VoteCast is a national poll of more than 127,000 voters and non-voters conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
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