Projected, not certified: the House turns, and twelve Senate seats keep counting

At 04:08 Berlin time NBC News projected that the Democrats will win the House of Representatives, on an estimate of about 248 seats, “well beyond the 218 needed”¹. CBS and ABC made the same call^2,6. That is a projection, a statistical judgement made in a television studio. The other kind of call goes race by race. By 04:42 CET the Associated Press tally, as relayed by the Azerbaijani agency APA, stood at 111 House seats for the Democrats and 64 for the Republicans⁵. That tally is slower, and it is the one that grows into a certificate.

What changed hands is already concrete. In Pennsylvania three Republican incumbents lost: Ryan Mackenzie in the 7th District, Rob Bresnahan in the 8th and Scott Perry in the 10th^1,2. Elaine Luria won back Virginia’s 2nd, Manny Rutinel took Colorado’s 8th, and Jamie Ager won North Carolina’s 11th, a seat Trump carried by more than 9 points two years ago¹. Rebecca Bennett ousted Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey’s 7th². The mid-decade redistricting fight did not decide everything in advance. Democrats held Texas’s redrawn 34th District, two redrawn Florida seats and Alabama’s 2nd². The House the Democrats are winning takes office on 3 January¹.

The Senate is closer. The Republicans went into Tuesday with a 53–47 majority⁴. By 05:14 CET, NBC’s Decision Desk, working from AP data, had the Democrats at 49 seats and the Republicans at 39, with 12 races not yet projected³. The four Democratic gains are North Carolina (Roy Cooper), South Carolina (Annie Andrews), Texas (James Talarico) and Ohio (Sherrod Brown, 48.6% to 46.5%)^3,4. Democrats also held Georgia and New Hampshire⁴. On NBC’s count the Democrats need two more seats for a majority, and a 50–50 tie would be broken by the vice president³.

The counting is not finished, and the numbers are not settled. In Maine, Susan Collins had 50.3% to Troy Jackson’s 49.6%, with 39% of the vote in. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed had 51.0% to Mike Rogers’s 47.2%, with 31.7% in. Kansas was rated lean Democratic, and Alaska had reported nothing yet³. These are partial counts, and this desk does not turn them into results.

The most useful words of the night came from the people who lost. “The voters have spoken,” wrote John Cornyn, who lost his primary to Ken Paxton, as he congratulated Talarico and offered help with his transition⁴. Thom Tillis said he looked forward to “working with him during the transition” after Cooper won his seat⁴. In New Hampshire, John Sununu said simply that “it is not our night”⁴. The president wrote that Republicans would have won “IN A LANDSLIDE” had he been on the ballot⁶. Results are rarely changed by speeches. Transitions run on the dull work that comes after them.

Then there is the machinery, which is where trust is earned. In Westchester County, New York, which makes up part of the competitive 17th District, scanners rejected ballots all day. The cause was a software update for one municipal contest, made after the machines had been tested; machines elsewhere still ran the old programming⁷. Voters put their ballots into sealed bags. A judge allowed officials to move them to a secure warehouse under police escort, to be scanned under the eyes of party representatives, and the count is expected to take until at least Wednesday⁷. The Republican incumbent, Mike Lawler, put it plainly: “There’s no shenanigans going on here”⁷. In Leavenworth County, Kansas, a clerical error delivered about 100 ballots instead of 1,000 and one polling place stopped voting for about 90 minutes. Three precincts in Chester County, Pennsylvania, opened late and were allowed to stay open 30 minutes longer⁸. The fixes were small, written down and public. That is the system working.

On turnout, nobody has a final figure yet, and you should be wary of anyone who claims one. Before Tuesday, more than 57 million Americans had voted early, a midterm record according to University of Florida Election Lab figures. Its director, Michael McDonald, cautioned that an early-vote record is not the same as a turnout record⁹.

The rest is paperwork. States canvass, check and certify over the coming weeks, and only then is anything final. A night like this ends with a projection. The work of a democracy ends with a signature.