OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez has defeated rival David Kim in a Los Angeles district. Republicans have a 219-212 majority in the House. There are currently 4 House races left to be called and it could make a huge difference for Republicans, who need to expand their majority.
“With nearly all the ballots counted, Gomez had 51.3% to 48.7% for Kim or a margin of about 3,000 votes. The race was a rematch from 2020 when Gomez defeated Kim, an immigration lawyer. Under California’s primary rules, only the top two finishers advance to the November election, which set up the fight between two Democrats,” the Associated Press reported.
“The heavily Democratic 34th District is a diverse, urban mishmash of neighborhoods that cuts across income, racial and ethnic groups. It includes downtown Los Angeles, Koreatown, and heavily Latino Boyle Heights. Fewer than 1 in 10 voters in the district are Republicans, over 60% are Democrats and most of the remainder are independents who lean Democratic,” the outlet added.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez defeated rival Democrat David Kim on Saturday in a Los Angeles district after a battle on the party’s progressive flank. https://t.co/UpJyKToFL9
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) November 20, 2022
Republicans have won control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In addition to winning a majority in the lower chamber, Republicans also won more votes nationwide, edging Democrats by around three or four percentage points.
“If they do ultimately win by around three or four points, it would mean Republicans improved on their margin from the 2020 election by around six or seven points, but they were only able to add about 2 percent of seats, as the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman notes,” the Washington Post reported.
“This has understandably led to some griping and head-scratching among Republicans who wonder how they’re struggling to win the House despite that swing. But it’s worth putting in context. The first thing to note is that we have incomplete results. The Cook Political Report’s national popular vote tracker currently shows Republicans winning 51.5 percent of House votes to the Democrats’ 47 percent — a gap of 4.5 points. It’s safe to assume Republicans will win the popular vote by a few points, but that margin will continue to narrow as we get more results from blue-leaning states out west, especially California,” the outlet added.
Despite Republicans winning the popular vote nationwide, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the GOP underperformed in many areas. He also said there should be a postmortem-type review of where the GOP could improve and what it got right in the midterm election.
“I look at this and there’s so many questions – in 2014 when we won, Reince Priebus who was the Republican National Committee chairman, asked me to develop a review – even though we had won – to try to figure it out. And I think that Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the RNC, ought to set up a similar review committee,” he said.
“There’s so many questions that we need to get answered,” Gingrich added. “We need to examine that. Apparently, some incumbents lost who shouldn’t have. We should examine that. No incumbent lost in 2020 with Kevin McCarthy’s leadership and no Republican lost in 1994 when we took the House.”
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“We had five or 6 million more votes and we don’t pick up a whole bunch of seats. We need to analyze that. I mean, there’s something going on out there that we don’t understand,” he said. “But, I can’t wait for the moment where Pelosi has to hand… Kevin McCarthy the gavel and the degree to which in committees and investigations and scheduling things, all of a sudden you’re in a totally different House.”
“And remember, the biggest change in Washington will be when Nancy Pelosi hands that gavel over to Kevin McCarthy. You go from a radical liberal to a solid conservative. That is the biggest single change,” Gingrich said, adding that President Joe Biden’s celebratory press conference on Wednesday showed the president “has no idea what’s going on” and is likely to continue his far-left governing position.
