After months of campaigning, the midterm congressional and state elections concluded yesterday. At the federal level, all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats were up for grabs, with the outcome to determine who will control Congress for the next two years. At the time of this posting on Wednesday morning, the GOP remains on track to control the House chamber when the new 118^th Congress begins in January, but the Senate is still a toss-up, as votes continue to be counted in four key races.

As it currently stands, the House results so far suggest that the chamber will, as anticipated, shift to a Republican majority, but that majority is expected to be somewhat smaller than the GOP had hoped for and prognosticators had suggested. The GOP needs a total of 218 seats to control the chamber, and the outcome of over 60 seats is still undetermined. So far, the GOP has, as of this writing, accumulated 199 seats to the Democrats 174. Close margins between the parties can complicate the governing process, a struggle we have witnessed throughout the current House Democrats’ leadership. The expected House GOP leadership of the 118^th Congress may have to manage a comparable narrow majority for the next two years.

As of this writing, at least four Senate seats have yet to be called. Depending on how those final four toss-up races turn out, the Senate could potentially remain split 50-50, which would result in Democratic control, because the tiebreaking vote will rest with Vice President Kamala Harris. Wisconsin and Georgia remain too close to call, and the West Coast battlegrounds of Nevada and Arizona are just beginning to count their votes. It is also possible that the Georgia Senate race will continue with a runoff next month.

Irrespective of the final midterm results, PIA is ready to work with both parties in both chambers to advance PIA’s issues of focus when the 118^th Congress begins in January.