Congress

State of Congress: Republicans near formal House majority

Published

2 years ago

November 13, 2024

More than a week after Election Day, there are just a dozen House races left uncalled by The Associated Press. Republicans currently have 216 seats — just two away from formally clinching the majority — while Democrats have 207. In the remaining uncalled contests, Republicans currently lead in six, while Democrats have the advantage in six.

Iowa’s 1st: Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) leads by a razor-thin 731 votes over Democrat Christina Bohannan, but the AP has not yet called the race. (Miller-Meeks is no stranger to tight races, having won her first bid for Congress by just six votes.) The incumbent announced her bid for House Republican Conference secretary, a leadership post, on Tuesday citing in part her ability to win tight battleground races. A recount is possible in this contest.

Maine’s 2nd: The state kicked off its ranked-choice voting procedures on Tuesday, and officials projected the process could take three to five days. Democratic Rep. Jared Golden led by just 726 votes over GOP nominee Austin Theriault as the process kicked off.

Oregon’s 5th: Democrat Janelle Bynum has declared victory over incumbent GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. But the AP has not yet called the race, despite Bynum’s lead of more than 10,000 votes. If the margin holds, the Democrat would flip control of the seat and become the first Black member of Congress from Oregon.

California’s 21st: Despite being neck and neck on election night with his unheralded GOP challenger, Rep. Jim Costa (D) has settled into a more comfortable position as further Democratic-friendly ballot drops have emerged. He now leads by almost 4 percentage points — more than 5,000 votes — in his bid for reelection in this Central Valley seat.

California’s 9th: Incumbent Rep. Josh Harder (D) has claimed victory in his reelection bid over much-touted Stockton, California, Mayor Kevin Lincoln (R), though the AP has yet to formally call the contest. Harder’s lead stands at more than 7,000 votes — nearly four percentage points.

Alaska at-large: A large batch of ballots posted late Tuesday did little to benefit Rep. Mary Peltola (D), who still trails GOP challenger Nick Begich by nearly 10,000 votes with more than 90 percent of ballots in. However, Begich is currently short of the 50 percent threshold to win outright, potentially triggering the state’s ranked-choice voting procedures next week.

California’s 41st: Longtime Rep. Ken Calvert (R) saw his lead over Democrat Will Rollins grow to more than 8,000 votes on Tuesday. He’s claimed victory in his reelection bid, though Rollins has yet to concede.

California’s 13th: Incumbent Rep. John Duarte (R) got several friendly ballot drops on Tuesday, keeping his lead over Democrat Adam Gray at slightly more than 3,100 votes. There’s still about 30 percent of the vote left to count, so this one could come down to the wire depending on what ballots are still out there.

Arizona’s 6th: It’s not been formally called yet, but Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R) leads Democrat Kirsten Engel by nearly 6,900 votes — or 1.8 percentage points — in this purple Arizona seat.

California’s 45th: Democratic challenger Derek Tran keeps winning new batches of counted ballots handily and eating into the election night lead held by incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel (R). She lost another 1,600 votes from that lead on Tuesday from a batch of 9,160 votes — and Steel’s lead is now just 2,272 votes.

Ohio’s 9th: The longest-serving woman in congressional history, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D), appears to have held onto her right-leaning seat by a hair — 1,193 votes. Her race against GOP nominee Derek Merrin has not been called by the AP, with more outstanding absentee and provisional ballots to count, but Kaptur has claimed victory.

California’s 47th: This race has also not been called, but Democrat Dave Min claimed victory on Tuesday night over GOP nominee Scott Baugh as late batches of ballots have consistently broken his way. Baugh later conceded as well. Min’s lead is now nearly 6,000 votes in what would be a major hold of an open swing seat being vacated by Rep. Katie Porter (D).

Pennsylvania Senate: Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) trimmed Sen.-elect David McCormick’s advantage in the contest — called by the AP — to under 29,300 votes in the latest counting Tuesday and isn’t conceding. “I want to make sure that we can count the votes and make a determination about who won and who lost,” Casey said on Capitol Hill as he walked to vote Tuesday.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who headed the Senate Democratic campaign arm this cycle, said Casey “definitely” still had a path for victory. “There are a lot of votes to count,” Peters told reporters. “They have provisional ballots. They tend to break his way, so we’ll have to see how many there are and wait for every vote to be counted.”

Republicans, meanwhile, welcomed McCormick to Senate orientation Tuesday and argued Casey needed to concede.

Called races by the AP on Tuesday: Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Rep.-elect George Whitesides (D-Calif.), Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), Rep.-elect Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.)

Note: Valadao and Newhouse are the only remaining House GOP members who voted to impeach President-elect Donald Trump over his handling of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Both won reelection on Tuesday.

Congress

Senate Republicans want a say on Trump’s Iran deal

Published

6 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is touting a deal that would end the monthslong war with Iran — and potentially ease some of the political headwinds bearing down on Republicans.

GOP lawmakers still have lots of questions.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday left an information vacuum on Capitol Hill, where senators of both parties were left airing concerns about what the deal might entail.

Even most Republicans agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The bipartisan scrutiny of the long-brewing agreement is a legacy of the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Trump withdrew from the deal in his first term, and now he is back with an agreement that — pending release of the text and final negotiations yet to come — could end up looking like Obama’s deal. That has raised the hackles of both defense hawks who despised the original agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and Democrats who believe Trump never should have left it in the first place.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of those defense hawks, told reporters that he was “pulling for a deal,” while also making note of serious discrepancies in the terms that have emerged thus far.

“The MOU being described by us sounds really very good; the MOU being described by Iran sounds awful,” Graham said.

“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA. If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he continued, adding in a separate conversation that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there” to cease enrichment.

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The possibility that Congress would take any kind of vote on the agreement is also a legacy of the 2015 deal. Amid bipartisan concern about the Obama administration’s pursuit of nuclear talks, the GOP-controlled House and Senate that year passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

That law, however, does not require Congress to approve a deal — it rather gives it the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto. That means each chamber would have to effectively muster a two-thirds majority to block Trump, something it did not come close to doing in 2015.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

The lack of specificity was par for the course on Capitol Hill Monday, with many senators expressing exasperation that text of the signed agreement has not yet been released.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. Vance indicated in a series of interviews that the administration will attempt to ensure Iran does not develop or obtain a nuclear weapon but left details regarding civilian nuclear facilities and potential uranium enrichment unaddressed.

The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News. The administration also argued in the memo that the agreement “beats” the Obama-era agreement.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on the deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

“I don’t expect that to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said about a vote. “They’ll try to write it around the treaty requirements, so I don’t expect we’ll vote on it.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said the administration should send the deal to Congress “if they want it to be something other than a political agreement, like the JCPOA was.”

Most congressional Republicans have been eager for Trump to find a way out of the nearly four-month war, which has driven up energy prices ahead of the November elections. Thune predicted Monday that a deal would “have a very positive impact on the economic situation in the country and that obviously will translate into the political situation in the country.”

Some of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill praised the agreement Monday.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said has had conversations with senior White House officials and he was “very hopeful.” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is likely the next Senate GOP campaign chair, added on X: “President Trump deserves our trust and support as he works to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Democrats were largely keeping their powder dry Monday on how they would handle a vote on the agreement. Some could find it hard to oppose a deal that ends hostilities on negotiated terms roughly similar to what was secured under a Democratic president in 2015.

But plenty of Democrats questioned what was gained by the conflict.

“We still don’t know the details,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The American people need to know exactly what’s in the deal. … We know this for certain: We are worse off than before Trump began his foolish war of choice.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

Published

10 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

Published

12 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.