Democrats' Hope of Controlling the House Are Likely Dead

Despite a disappointing midterm election for the Republican Party, Democrats are unlikely to hold both chambers of Congress as Republicans narrow in on flipping the House.

As of Monday afternoon, Republicans are just six seats shy of securing the 218 needed to control the chamber, while Democrats are still short 14.

With votes still be tabulated in a number of key battleground states, Dave Wasserman, the Cook Political Report's U.S. House editor, predicted that the "Dems' dreams of holding the House majority probably died" on Sunday night as Republicans picked up the leads in two districts in Arizona and one in California.

In Arizona's 1st District, GOP incumbent Representative David Schweikert holds a narrow edge just about a thousand votes ahead of Democratic candidate Jevin Hodge. While Democrats had initially led the count, the drop-off vote in Maricopa County swung the district for Republicans over the weekend.

Meanwhile in California's 41st District, GOP Representative Ken Calvert has an even larger advantage over his Democrat rival Will Rollins, leading with a margin of two percentage points. Nate Cohn, the New York Times' chief political analyst, noted that the district was "a near-must-win for Democrats if they couldn't come back and win California's 27th or 45th"—two districts where GOP gains currently look too large to catch up to.

If Republican can keep their leads and lock down these two districts, plus the non-competitive 3rd District in California and the state's 27th and 45th, they could reach 217 seats—needing only one more to get the majority in the House.

That seat could lie in Arizona's 6th District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani leads Democrat Kirsten Engel by almost 2,000 votes. Wasserman pointed to the district as another weak spot for the Democrats in his Sunday tweet.

Cohn noted that while this district remains highly competitive for the Democrats, it is also "the one that's starting to look most daunting for Democrats."

He continued, "While they've been steadily gaining, their momentum appeared to stall out on Sunday when ballots in Tucson's Pima County expanded the Republican lead for the first time."

Even though the House is still up for grabs, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has already announced plans to become the next speaker—an obvious move for the California congressman. But it has also been reported that he might see a challenge from some of his Republican colleagues.

On Monday, a spokesperson for GOP Representative Andy Biggs told The Wall Street Journal that, "All I'll say at the moment is McCarthy doesn't have 218, and there will be an alternative challenger."