The path to victory for a Democratic majority in the House is narrowing
The race for the majority in the House of Representatives is on with each party vying for power and key races yet to be called.
As of Saturday, Republicans held 212 seats and Democrats held 200. A party needs 218 seats for a majority.
The path to victory for a Democratic majority in the House is narrowing, with the party needing to sweep the most contested races to win power.
Many undeclared seats are in the western U.S. or in swing districts, including Arizona, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland, New York, Maine and Alaska.
ALL EYES ON CALIFORNIA AS HOUSE MAJORITY STILL HINGES ON TIGHT RACES
Key House of Representative Races:
Alaska’s at-large congressional district:
Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola is in a tight race in Alaska’s at-large congressional district, where she is trailing Republican entrepreneur Nick Begich.
As of Saturday evening, Begich was leading Peltola 49.49% to 45.42% with 76.5% of the vote counted.
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District:
The race in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District is tight, with the Republican candidate barely leading.
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a first-term lawmaker, was leading former Democratic state lawmaker Kirsten Engel by just 1,795 votes as of Saturday evening. According to Fox News’ Decision Desk, 75.64% of the vote has been counted.
California’s 13th Congressional District:
Republican Rep. John Duarte is leading former Democratic state Assembly member Adam Gray in California’s 13th Congressional District, but the highly contested race remains uncalled as of Saturday.
With 61.7% of the vote, Duarte, a first-term lawmaker, was ahead of Gray. Duarte took the lead with 52% of the vote, and Gray trailed with 48.75% with 61.73% of the vote counted.
SHUTDOWN STANDOFF LOOMS IN CONGRESS’ FINAL WEEKS BEFORE TRUMP’S RETURN TO WHITE HOUSE
California’s 47th Congressional District:
The race to succeed outgoing Democratic Rep. Katie Porter in California’s 47th Congressional District is also razor-thin.
Republican Scott Baugh, a former Assembly member, and state Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat, are vying for the open seat.
Min has 50% of the vote to Baugh’s 49.8% with 79% of the votes counted.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District
Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat, is trailing Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.
With 86% of the votes counted, Evans was ahead of Caraveo. The lead, if sustained, would be a flip for Republicans.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said the House is poised to remain in GOP hands, and he has launched his bid to retain the gavel.
Democrats are holding out hope they could win by a razor-thin majority.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on X Thursday it “has yet to be decided who will control” the House next year, pointing to ongoing ballot counting in Oregon, Arizona and California.
Nikki Haley responds after President-elect Trump says he will not be offering her a job
Nikki Haley, a Republican who ran against President-elect Trump months ago, responded after he publicly announced that she would not be joining his administration.
Responding in an equally public format, Haley wrote that she wishes him “great success.”
“I was proud to work with President Trump defending America at the United Nations,” she wrote in a X post Saturday.
“I wish him, and all who serve, great success in moving us forward to a stronger, safer America over the next four years,” she said.
TRUMP RULES OUT TWO GOP STALWARTS FROM JOINING HIS ADMINISTRATION: ‘WILL NOT BE INVITING’
Haley’s gracious response came after Trump took to Truth Social to frankly state that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as well as former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo would not be participating in his new cabinet.
The announcement came after rumors have swirled regarding President-elect Trump’s cabinet members.
NIKKI HALEY PENS SUPPORTIVE OP-ED IN FAVOR OF TRUMP AHEAD OF ELECTION DAY: ‘EASY CALL’
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” the president-elect posted on Truth Social early Saturday evening.
“I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country,” he continued. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Haley during her run for the Republican candidate attempted to cast herself as an alternative to Trump, but eventually penned a supportive op-ed about the presidential candidate two days before Election Day.
The former South Carolina governor wrote the recently-published opinion piece, which is titled “Trump Isn’t Perfect, but He’s the Better Choice.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time,” Haley conceded. “But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call.”
Fox News Digital’s Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
Newsom faces reckoning as voters prove they’re not what he once claimed
More than 40% of Californians voted for President-elect Trump this year, making it the most votes for a GOP presidential candidate in the blue state since George W. Bush re-election in 2004.
Experts say Californians aren’t as far left “as Newsom thinks,” citing several state ballot measures that swung conservative, followed by the ousting of progressive Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.
Though Trump lost California to Vice President Kamala Harris, his electoral showing in the Golden State increased significantly; he got 31% of the vote in 2016 and 34% in 2020. Even with something of a conservative exodus driving many residents to red states like Florida and Texas, Trump increased his percentage of the state vote by six points.
In absolute terms, Trump’s vote numbers from California come in third behind his showings in Texas and Florida.
“Trump built a cross party, multi party coalition,” Susan Shelley, VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “He’s built a movement that crosses party lines, and it’s reaching people who have not benefited from the policies that have been put forward.”
PROPOSITION 36 OVERWHELMINGLY PASSES IN CALIFORNIA, REVERSING SOME SOROS-BACKED SOFT-ON-CRIME POLICIES
Regarding California’s clean-energy mandates, Shelley said, “People have paid dearly for this, and that’s what crosses party lines.”
“Everybody’s electricity bill is higher because of the climate policies,” Shelley said. “And Trump is promising to do more domestic energy production to bring down the cost of energy, and he has a track record now of having done this as president for four years.”
“The legislature is much, much more liberal, much more much further to the left than the voters are. And you can see that in the results in the propositions,” Shelley, who is also a columnist, said.
Proposition 36, which would reverse some soft-on-crime policies authored by L.A. DA George Gascon and re-establish felony offenses for certain drug and theft crimes, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters.
Another tax-related measure, Proposition 5, also failed. Critics of the measure said it would likely have led to higher property taxes, because it would have lowered the threshold to local bond issues, which are backed by tax dollars.
Gascon, L.A. County’s district attorney since 2020, was also voted out. Independent candidate Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, will replace him.
“I think he knows that California is shifting and needs help,” Shelley said. “And he has spoken many times about California’s election process, mailing out 22 million ballots. He has concerns about that. He’s spoken about voter ID laws. Whether he’ll do anything about that as President, I don’t know, but he certainly has indicated that he knows Californians are not as liberal as Gavin Newsom presents them to be.”
DONALD TRUMP WINS 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
California was also ground zero for several culture wars in children’s education and transgender issues, such as sex change surgeries for incarcerated people on the taxpayer dollar.
Lance Christensen, a California Policy Center political expert, told Fox News Digital these issues also played a role in earning Trump more votes in the Golden State.
“I think people got tired of the rope-a-dope stuff that Governor Newsom was doing over the last several years,” Christensen said. “And they saw him doing that because of an enabling power from the Biden-Harris administration. And when they realized that the insane progressive policies that were happening in California were being amplified in D.C., I don’t think they felt like there was a good backstop.”
BLUE STATE GOVERNOR SUMMONS LEGISLATURE IN RESPONSE TO TRUMP WIN: ‘READY TO FIGHT’
In July, Newsom signed a new law banning school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a gender that is different from what’s on their school record.
The law created significant pushback from California parents who spent months protesting the new law at local school district meetings, and one school district went so far as to sue Newsom over the law.
“A lot of the social and cultural issues, the ethnic studies, the gender stuff, the hyper-sexuality that was happening in a lot of our schools, and they just didn’t want that nationwide, especially with issues like Title Nine, where more and more women feel disenfranchised by the Biden administration,” Christensen said.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I think that you’re seeing a shift in the partisan landscape of California, and it won’t be dramatic, and it won’t necessarily be consistent across the board, but I think there’s a march towards some sort of sanity when it comes to politics that won’t necessarily be a red-blue divide,” he said.
On Thursday, Newsom called a special emergency session for December with the state’s legislature in response to Trump’s victory and bolster the blue state’s legal response to any future attacks.
“California is ready to fight,” Newsom said on X. “Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action – we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.”
His action comes just a day after Newsom said he “will seek to work with the incoming president.”
How Trump taking office puts the dream of imitating America on back-burner
Contrary to popular belief, Europeans have long wanted to imitate America; a combined set of states with freedom of movement, a single currency and a united government. That was the unspoken goal when the European Union was born after World War II. But so far, the dream has failed to materialize.
Recently, it got another blow, which pushed the vision of a fully politically and economically integrated bloc even farther into the future than it already was.
“They’ve woken up to the idea that borders are to protect those inside the border,” said Ben Habib, former deputy leader of the right-leaning British political party Reform UK and CEO of First Property Group PLC. “We wouldn’t have had an immigration problem in Europe if we had borders.”
The bloc has grown in size and complexity in the decades since its creation. However, that growth has also come with friction and a lack of cohesion, which has prevented a complete political merger of the member countries. In short, it has been a work in progress, with some stalwarts believing the goal will manifest soon.
Now with president-elect Donald Trump coming back to power, the EU may see more pressure, as he prepares to do the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in history.
PRO-PUTIN PARTY WINS CONTESTED ELECTION AS GEORGIA DRIFTS FURTHER FROM US, EUROPE
In perhaps a lesson for the U.S., the political goal took a step backward in freedom of movement across the bloc recently as some EU member states reintroduced border controls, effectively ending free movement within key parts of the bloc for a while. The states involved are France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Denmark and Sweden.
Worries over terrorism, illegal immigration and foreign interference seem to be a big part of this change.
Late last month, France announced that it would extend its current temporary border checks through April 20, 2025, citing serious threats to public policy, public order and internal security. The country suffered terrorism going back nearly a decade to 2015 with the attacks on the Bataclan theater, Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and others.
Another key reason is the faltering economy and labor market across the EU, especially the two largest economies, Germany and France, respectively. In the 15 months through June, the former has seen zero positive quarterly growth, and a rise in unemployment from 5% in 2022 to 6% in September. France had modestly positive growth, but unemployment rose to 7.3% in the second quarter, up from 7.1% at the beginning of 2022.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN DISMISSES ENERGY SPAT WITH GERMANY FOREIGN MINISTRY: ‘NOBODY CARES’
France has overtaken Italy as top of the fiscal budget-busting league. Its self-projected budget deficit for 2025 of 5% is seen as overly optimistic, meaning it will likely be higher, and far above the mandated 3% limit.
“When Germany needed labor, they opened the gates, and had an influx of workers,” says Konstantinos Venetis, director of global macro, at GlobalData TSLombard in London. “Now the economy isn’t doing so well, and the unemployment is up, there is a tendency by politicians to clamp down.” In particular, government looks to expel or deter undocumented immigrants from working without papers or even entering the country.
However, there are problems with introducing border checks. It comes down to loss of time, and therefore money, for traveling business executives, tourists and cargo truckers, Venetis says. “Anything that takes more time is not good for the economy,” he says. “Delays mean higher costs.” Anyone in doubt about this should consider how long it takes to get through immigration when flying to another country. It can be hours more.
Now, it seems that traveling through Europe, from Spain to Germany, will mean border stops at the French and German borders. Imagine how much costs will increase for haulage companies; eventually, consumers will pay more.
Some are skeptical that the border stops will do anything to quash terrorist activities. “We tend to forget that terrorism comes from people who are already based in the country,” says Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at Madrid-based investment company Tressis. “It is basically trying to fix a problem by creating another one.”
Lacalle says that what is needed to combat terrorism is not more border checks but rather an integrated pan-European union policing system focused on anti-terrorism. While that was possible in the U.S. it is far harder for the EU, which is in many ways a family of national states all wanting to keep their sovereignty. That means keeping their own hold on domestic policing.
Complicating the matter is that these temporary border checks may not be so temporary. Echoing Ronald Reagan, Lacalle says “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary action from government.” In other words, these border stops are likely to last.
EUROPEAN LEADERS WEIGH IN ON ‘LEGITIMATE’ ISSUE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: ‘MUST BE STOPPED’
It seems the European Union knows that it needs to change if it ever wants to emulate the United States. Indeed, just last week, European Council President Charles Michel invited members of the EC to a dinner meeting on November 8. The invitation focused on the need to get the EU working competitively as soon as possible.
“The situation is very worrying,” the invite stated. “Over the past 20 years, the EU’s share of world GDP has halved. We need to act now. The Union’s competitive survival is at stake.”
Other topics to be discussed included strengthening the relationship with the U.S., which the invite described as “essential.” It also mentioned bilateral relations, security/geopolitics, including Ukraine, and global challenges.
Not everyone is as gloomy or pessimistic. “It is possible that this seventy-year EU project is coming near to an end,” says New York-based Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at currency specialist Bannockburn Global Forex. “I am more optimistic.” He sees the recent fiscal crunch in some the bloc’s major economies, such as France and Italy.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
All the way back to the 1950s, crises have been the power-driver to further EU integration, Chandler says. “Seventy years into the EU project and the union remains a work in progress,” Chandler says. “Fiscal union, that’s what the EU is missing.” In other words, to push further into integration, government tax and spending must be joined across the bloc rather than being limited to sovereign member states.
Still, the border checks are sending a message, Lacalle says. “That doesn’t mean the end of EU, but it does mean the impossibility of a United States of Europe,” he says.
Harris’ stepdaughter addresses rumors of a mental breakdown after the election
Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff took to Instagram to clear her name following her stepmother’s loss to President-elect Donald Trump.
Emhoff was photographed sobbing while Harris delivered her concession speech at her alma mater, Howard University, on Wednesday.
In Emhoff’s post one day later she reposted one of the photos as she addressed the images with a caption explaining her emotional outburst.
“Truly no words. We are all going to get through this. It just [f—ing] hurts like a [b—-] right now and that’s ok,” the post read.
HARRIS FORMALLY CONCEDES ONE DAY AFTER TRUMP’S SWEEPING VICTORY
Emhoff reassured followers that she was not having a mental breakdown to clear up the rumors floating around that she had checked into an institution following the results of the election.
“There’s a rumor about me having a mental breakdown and getting checked into a hospital. Not true. Also f–k you if you’re out there spreading that. There’s nothing wrong with showing emotion and crying. Anyone who says there is probably needs a good cry,” Emhoff said in an Instagram post.
TEARY-EYED NANCY PELOSI ARRIVES TO SEE KAMALA HARRIS CONCEDE PRESIDENTIAL RACE AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY
“I’ve struggled with my mental health my whole life, and I’m not ashamed of it,” she added, noting all she had done since Election Day was play fetch with her dog Jerry.
She also took to her Substack to express her feelings about her mental well-being.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
This is not her first brush with controversy, as she made headlines for promoting a Palestinian fundraiser for humanitarian aid via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The Biden Administration cut off funding to the program in January over alleged participation in the Oct. 7 attack.
‘SNL’ reverses course on anti-Trump stance in first cold open since historic re-election
“Saturday Night Live” sent up its clear opposition to Donald Trump in the first cold open after his election victory this week, with the show’s actors pretending they supported him all along.
The show started out deadly serious, with cast member Ego Nwodim saying that Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris was “shocking and even horrifying” to many people. As the cast solemnly noted there were no protections now for those who are “brave enough to speak out against him,” the punchline came as cast member Kenan Thompson said, “We at SNL would like to say to Donald Trump, we have been with you all along.”
“We have never wavered in our support of you, even when others doubted you,” cast member Bowen Yang said.
The skit went on to joke that the entire liberal cast voted for Trump and wanted their children to emulate him, and they would rat out anyone at SNL who voted for Harris.
KAMALA HARRIS APPEARS ON ‘SNL’ IN FINAL EPISODE BEFORE ELECTION
James Austin Johnson, who portrays Trump, appeared donning a muscular bodysuit for SNL’s new impression of “hot, jacked Trump,” rolling his eyes. Dana Carvey also made a cameo to parody billionaire Elon Musk, who the cast also said they support.
“Hail Trump,” Thompson said at one point.
Comedian Bill Burr hosted the episode on Saturday and addressed the election in his monologue, telling the “ladies” to quit with the pantsuits.
“Ladies, you’re 0-2 against this guy,” Burr said. “Enough with the pantsuits. It’s not working. Stop trying to have respect for yourselves. You don’t win the office like on policy, you know? You’ve got to whore it up a little. I’m not saying go full Hooters. Find the happy medium between Applebee’s and your dad didn’t stick around.”
DONALD TRUMP’S TOP THREE ‘SNL’ MOMENTS
Burr went on to poke fun at undecided voters in the race and also suggest Trump survived his first assassination attempt because of his “herky jerky movements” on the stage.
“The guy is a lunatic,” Burr said of Trump. “I mean, he literally got shot and immediately jumped back up and started yelling in the direction the bullets were coming from, unarmed. That’s not a sane human being. I would have been on the ground in the fetal position like, ‘I don’t want the job! Tell her she won! Tell her she won!'”
Burr memorably appeared on “Conan” after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and surprised the liberal audience by blasting Hillary Clinton for blowing the election.
SNL has done little to hide its derision for Trump over the years, who hosted the show twice, including during his first presidential run in 2015. Trump quickly fell out of favor at SNL, which openly celebrated his defeat at Joe Biden’s hands in 2020.
It also did its best to boost Harris, giving her a guest spot on the final show before the election last week. She appeared as the “mirror image” on Saturday night of herself, portrayed by Maya Rudolph, at the end of the cold open in front of a cheering audience.
SNL GRILLED AS ‘PR ARM’ OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AFTER HOSTING HARRIS DAYS BEFORE ELECTION
Trump easily defeated Harris on Tuesday, completing a remarkable political comeback and becoming only the second president ever to win non-consecutive terms.
This time, the show attempted some laughs in its cold open after grappling with a disappointing election result.
SNL mourned Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016, with actress Kate McKinnon as Clinton playing “Hallelujah” on the piano and tearfully telling the audience she wasn’t “giving up, and neither should you.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The show later parodied liberals who had confidently predicted a Republican would never get the White House again and were sure Clinton would win.