“Republicans appear likely to hold at least 220 seats”.

NOVEMBER 16, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN 2022 ELECTION at Power Line:

LET THE HEADACHES BEGIN

An outlet called Decision Desk HQ has called two races bringing the GOP total in the House of Representatives to 219. Who is Decision Desk HQ and why are they calling these races?

RedState’s Mr. Bonchie (Republican Kevin Kiley in California’s Third CD) and Hot Air’s John Sexton (Republican Mike Garcia in California’s Twenty-Seventh CD) have followed DDHQ on these calls. Kiley’s putative victory would take the GOP to a majority of 218 in the House. Garcia’s would bring the majority to 219.

As of this moment, however, DDHQ is alone in its calls. The AP remains stuck at 217. Facts are better than dreams. I strive to adhere to the reality principle. Only 56 percent of the ballots have been counted in Kiley’s race. By contrast, some 72 percent of the votes have been counted in Garcia’s race and his opponent seems to think she has lost.

John McCormack takes my approach — the conservative approach — in looking at the outstanding races in this post at NRO’s Corner. After accounting for the races above and a few others, McCormack concludes (links omitted):

Republicans appear likely to hold at least 220 seats. “Right now, Republicans would be on track to win 221 seats if the latest trends continued, though several of these races remain so close that they could easily go the other way,” Nate Cohn reports at the New York Times. After the 2020 election, Democrats held a 222-seat majority — the narrowest majority since the 2000 election when Republicans controlled 221 seats.

The first headache is the lack of clarity regarding the outcome of the 2022 election a week after what we used to think of as election day. The headaches to come will follow from the narrow majority with which Republicans would have to work in the next Congress.