It all depends on remaining mail ballots in several key states.
Control of the House of Representatives remains unclear as of Saturday morning, as Republicans appear to have an edge but a path to a Democratic majority remains.
To win a majority, a party needs 218 seats. The totals for several close contests and races with many uncounted mail ballots remain in flux. But currently, Republican candidates lead in 221 districts and Democrats lead in 214.
So to hold their majority, Democrats need to gain the lead in four House races where Republicans are currently ahead — as well as holding on to their own leads, some of which are quite narrow.
A Democratic takeover is probably not the likely outcome at this point, but it is possible. One contest where a Republican previously led, in Maryland’s Sixth District, flipped to Democrats Friday, when Rep. David Trone (D) was called the winner. There are several other uncalled contests, particularly in California, where only about half the vote has been counted and tallies of the remaining mail ballots could change the leads.
The catch is that Democrats’ small leads in other close races are far from secure. In recent days, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who unexpectedly trailed her Democratic challenger, regained a small lead. And in four other uncalled contests, the Democrat is leading by less than 2 percentage points. So a lot would still have to go right for Democrats for the GOP’s takeover to be thwarted.
The key contests Democrats might hope to flip
There are 10 uncalled House contests where Republicans currently lead, so for a majority, Democrats would need to win four of those. And their hopes overwhelmingly hinge on whether slow tallies of mail-in ballots could shift outcomes in their favor.
- One possibility is Colorado’s Third District, the site of a potential shocking upset against Boebert. She is leading her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch by a little over a thousand votes, with more to tally — as well as potential “cures” for mail ballots that were initially rejected.
- In Oregon’s Fifth District, progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner (D), who defeated a moderate incumbent in the Democratic primary, is currently trailing Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) by 2.4 percentage points, with about one-quarter of the vote still uncounted.
- In New York’s 22nd District, an open seat contest to replace the retiring moderate Rep. John Katko (R), Republican Brandon Williams leads by 1.6 percentage points.
- Mail could also be a factor in Arizona’s Sixth District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani’s lead over Democrat Kristen Engel shrank to less than 1 percentage point Friday.
But their hopes will probably hinge on California, another heavily vote-by-mail state, where there are several uncalled races where Republicans currently lead, and only about half the vote has been counted.
- The California 13th District’s open seat contest looks promising for Democrats to flip since On Saturday morning, Republican John Duarte was leading by only a tiny margin over Democrat Adam Gray (less than 100 votes), and just over 60 percent of the vote is counted.
- Rep. David Valadao (R) represents California’s 22nd District, which Joe Biden won handily, and he has been through this before. In 2018, he led his Democratic challenger by 8 points on election night, but as the mail count slowly came in, that lead vanished, and he fell behind on November 26 and wouldn’t regain his lead. (He won the seat back in 2020.) This time his lead already shrank from 8 points to 5 points. Will history repeat itself?
- California’s Third District and California’s 41st District both narrowly went for Trump in 2020, and Republican candidates Kevin Kiley (CA-03) and Rep. Ken Calvert (CA-41) have single-digit leads, with about half of the vote uncounted.
- Finally, California’s 27th District and 45th District feature Republican incumbents — Mike Garcia (CA-27) and Michelle Steel (CA-45) — who represent districts Biden won but who currently lead handily. Their final margins are expected to get closer, though it’s not clear whether the untallied votes will be sufficient to change the outcome.
So those are Democrats’ hopes — to be saved by mail ballots and California’s slow counting process again. Still, it’s worth noting that though the conventional wisdom is that late-counted mail ballots benefit Democrats, that is not necessarily true in every state or district. (Washington and California have nonpartisan primaries, and in some of these, Republicans gained ground as mail ballots were counted this year.)
But Democrats would also need to hold on in their own tight races
Having five contests flip where Republicans currently lead isn’t exactly easy, but it is possible considering how close some of those races are and how many mail ballots haven’t been counted.
Yet the extra challenge Democrats face is that they need to hold on to their own leads, including in some very tight races. That isn’t a sure lead, and they already saw leads in two contests (CO-03 and CA-41) slip away midweek.
The other districts where Democratic leads may be a bit shaky include:
- Washington’s Third District, a Republican-leaning district where Trump-critical Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) failed to advance from the top-two primary. The general election pits Trump-endorsed Joe Kent (R) against Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez (D), and while Perez currently leads by about 1.8 percentage points, with 30 percent of the vote remaining uncounted.
- Arizona’s First District, where redistricting put Rep. David Schweikert (R) in narrowly Biden-leaning territory. His challenger, Jevin Hodge (D), leads by about 1.3 percentage points, but again, many uncounted mail ballots remain.
- Colorado’s Eighth District, which was newly created after redistricting. Yadira Caraveo (D) initially led the count, but the race since tightened dramatically, and she’s now ahead by just 0.73 percentage points.
- Oregon’s Sixth District, a new Democratic-leaning district that saw a bitter and expensive primary fight won by Andrea Salinas (D). Salinas leads her GOP opponent by about 1.7 percentage points, with about 40 percent of the vote uncounted.
In addition, Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) currently leads Alaska’s at-large district and Rep. Jared Golden leads Maine’s Second District, but their fates will be decided by ranked-choice voting, after lower-performing candidates in those races are eliminated and their ballots are reallocated to the voters’ second choice.
If some of these Democratic leads slip away in favor of Republicans, it’s possible the House will be called for the GOP relatively soon. But if Democrats hang on here and start gaining ground in contests where Republicans are up, House control could take weeks to determine, as California and other states deal with the slow process of processing and counting many thousands of mail ballots. Buckle up.
Update, November 12, 7:35 am: This story was originally published on November 10 and has been updated with election calls and race counts.
Here’s how to prepare for it.
Flu season is here — and early red flags suggest it’s on track to be very, very bad. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Flu View report show extraordinarily high numbers of positive flu tests reported to the agency from labs around the US. As of November 5, nearly 14,000 positive flu tests had been reported, as shown in the orange line on the below chart. That’s more than 12 times the number reported at the same time in 2019 (shown in the black line).
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This year’s early and meteoric rise in flu transmission is at least somewhat related to the fact that more people are being tested for the flu than during previous years. Over the past five weeks, nearly twice as many flu tests were done at clinical labs nationwide as during the same period last year (about 460,000 versus 254,000). More testing means more cases will get picked up.
But there are other signs that these numbers represent real and very scary trends.
For starters, a much higher proportion of flu tests are turning up positive than in previous years: During past bad flu seasons, test positivity has topped out around 3.6 percent, but last week, nearly 13 percent of flu tests were positive. When a higher proportion of tests are positive, that means more people who are feeling sick actually have the flu than in past years.
Concerning signals are also coming from doctors’ offices and hospitals. At this time of year, only 1 to 2 percent of patients in outpatient clinics generally report flu-like illnesses. But right now, that number is up to 5 and a half percent, according to CDC. Not all of those patients actually have the flu — many might have RSV or other infections — but in combination with the flu testing numbers, it’s worrisome.
Additionally, more than five times as many people have been hospitalized for the flu so far this season than at the same point in any of the last 10 years. And unlike RSV, which poses the biggest threat to the youngest and oldest, the severe disease flu causes is more evenly spread across age groups. About one-third of the people who’ve been hospitalized for flu this year were 65 or older, while another quarter were ages 18 to 49.
These are especially worrisome signs given the health care workforce strain we’ve already seen during the ongoing RSV surge. And this early start doesn’t suggest this flu wave will be a flash in the pan. The flu is currently worst in the southeastern US, but that will almost certainly change as the air gets colder and the virus migrates northward. Plus, cases haven’t peaked this early since 2009-10’s no good, very bad H1N1 flu pandemic.
The good news: There’s a lot you can do to protect yourself from the flu. This year’s flu vaccine is widely available and free with most insurance plans. And because both of the dominant flu strains currently circulating were included in this year’s vaccine formulation, there’s hope the shot will help prevent severe illness in people who get it.
There’s also medicine to treat the flu, so if you’re sick and at risk for flu complications, seek medical care early.
And all that masking, ventilating, and air-filtering we learned to do during the pandemic does a lot to prevent flu transmission (not to mention all the other respiratory nasties out there).
Flu transmission actually dropped dramatically during the pandemic. In the chart above, look at the blue lines, which represent cases reported over the last two years. You can see that there were very few positive tests in 2020, when mitigation measures — like widespread masking — were still in place and most kids weren’t in school buildings. Transmission picked up in 2021, but was on track with prior seasons — and was probably curbed beginning late in the year due to increased masking and social distancing in response to the omicron surge of Covid-19.
This year’s start to the flu season is scary. But we can still take steps to flatten this curve.
All the times Twitter’s Chief Flip-Flopper has gone back on his word.
Since Elon Musk first offered to buy Twitter this spring, it appears that the billionaire has had a very hard time deciding just what to do with it. It seems as though every time he makes a grand pronouncement about the social media platform, he ends up walking it back. He’s changed his mind on everything from buying Twitter in the first place to what color its signature check marks should be, and he’s done so in a spectacularly public way. Workers at the social media platform — those who are left after massive layoffs — are reportedly pulling 20-hour days to follow Musk’s ever-changing whims. He’s flip-flopped on so many things, it’s tough to keep track. Here’s a running list. Stay tuned for more.
Flip-flop: Buying Twitter
How long before he changed his mind: Three months (from bid to officially trying to get out of the bid)
What happened: After months of buying up Twitter stock, Musk put in an unsolicited bid to buy Twitter in April for $43 billion or $54.20 a share, which the company accepted later that month. However, right away, Musk began hemming and hawing about the deal. He officially tried to get out of it in July by saying the company misrepresented the number of bots on the platform. But faced with a potentially grueling trial, which would have exposed a lot of his personal communication and which he wasn’t guaranteed to win, Musk agreed to go through with the deal in October, three months after he tried to rescind it and six months after he sought to buy it in the first place.
Mini flip-flop: When Musk became its largest shareholder, Twitter asked him to join its board of directors, an offer he accepted then declined a few days later.
Flip-flop: Adding checkmarks to Twitter Blue
How long before he changed his mind: Two days (from launch to suspension)
What happened: Musk had been talking about upgrading Twitter Blue — a premium version of the app — since he bought Twitter in October, making it his first product priority after taking over. His idea was to let anyone who wants one buy a blue check mark, which is a badge on the Twitter profiles of public figures (like celebrities, journalists, and politicians) indicating that the person is who they say they are. This upset a lot of already blue-checked people, including author Stephen King of all people, who Musk publicly tried to negotiate with over price — going down from $20 to $8 a month. These new check marks, unlike the free ones that notable figures had pre-Musk, don’t verify identity, just that someone has $8 to spare each month, which means anyone paying could pretend to be someone else.
$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) October 31, 2022