President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks to the nation in what will be his first appearance on camera in the aftermath of Donald Trump ’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris.
Control over the U.S. House of Representatives hangs in the balance, teetering between a Republican or Democratic majority with dozens of races left to be called.
The Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate early Wednesday.
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Trump’s impending return to the White House means he’ll want to stand up an entirely new administration from the one that served under President Joe Biden. His team is also pledging that the second won’t look much like the first one Trump established after his 2016 victory.
The president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives on Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump’s team.
That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part-time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.
▶ Read more about Trump’s transition
The House contests remain a tit-for-tat fight to the finish, with no dominant pathway to the majority for either party. Rarely, if ever, have the two chambers of Congress flipped in opposite directions.
Each side is gaining and losing a few seats, including through the redistricting process, which is the routine redrawing of House seat boundary lines. The process reset seats in North Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama.
Much of the outcome hinges on the West, particularly in California, where a handful of House seats are being fiercely contested, and mail-in ballots arriving a week after the election will still be counted. Hard-fought races around the “blue dot” in Omaha, Nebraska and in far-flung Alaska are among those being watched.
With a win in Wisconsin early Wednesday, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. But his exact margin of victory is still unclear — there are two presidential races that the AP has yet to call:
Arizona: Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said late Wednesday they’ve got more than 700,000 ballots left to count, which means the races for president and senate were too early to call. In all, AP estimates there are at least a million ballots to be added to the results in Arizona. County election officials are expected to firm up those numbers on Thursday.
Nevada: AP estimated late Wednesday evening that there are more than 200,000 ballots left to count in Nevada — including more than 130,000 in Clark County. Given the narrow margins in the races for president and U.S. Senate, both are too early to call. The AP will further review results released by Nevada election officials on Thursday.
Arizona: Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said late Wednesday they’ve got more than 700,000 ballots left to count, which means the races for president and senate were too early to call. In all, AP estimates there are at least a million ballots to be added to the results in Arizona. County election officials are expected to firm up those numbers on Thursday.
Nevada: AP estimated late Wednesday evening that there are more than 200,000 ballots left to count in Nevada — including more than 130,000 in Clark County. Given the narrow margins in the races for president and U.S. Senate, both are too early to call. The AP will further review results released by Nevada election officials on Thursday.
The U.S. House majority hung in the balance Wednesday, teetering between Republican control that would usher in a new era of unified GOP governance in Washington or a flip to Democrats as a last line of resistance to a Trump second-term White House agenda.
A few individual seats, or even a single one, will determine the outcome. Final tallies will take a while, likely pushing the decision into next week — or beyond.
After Republicans swept into the majority in the U.S. Senate by picking up seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted his chamber would fall in line next.
“Republicans are poised to have unified government in the White House, Senate and House,” Johnson said Wednesday.
▶ Read more about control of Congress
The remarks to the nation will be Biden’s first appearance on camera in the aftermath of Trump’s decisive victory over Harris.
Donald Trump spent his first day as president-elect receiving congratulatory phone calls from his defeated opponent, world leaders and President Joe Biden as he began the process of turning his election victory into a government.
Trump was keeping a low profile, staying out of the public eye after addressing supporters in Florida during the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Vice President Kamala Harris called Trump to concede the race and to congratulate him, while Biden invited the man he ousted from the White House four years ago to an Oval Office meeting to prepare to return the keys.
Biden’s chief of staff later Wednesday nudged the Trump team to sign the required federal agreements necessary to begin an orderly presidential transition, a White House official said.
▶ Revisit how the news unfolded with Wednesday’s live coverage
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