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To be clear, Decision Desk announced Monday that Republicans would win enough seats to control the House.

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Despite this, Alaska, Arizona and California have been slowly counting votes in a few remaining races that most outlets have not called yet. As of last night, NBC News had called 215 races for the GOP and the NY Times had called 214. This morning both sites have called 216 races for Republicans which means only two more are needed before GOP control is recognized. Politico published a rundown of some of the races that should be called soon.

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.)…

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.

Why has this been so slow? In general, California is always one of the slowest states to count votes. Also, I’m not certain but it appeared that the state wasn’t adding to their vote totals on Sunday or Monday (Veterans Day). In any case, six of the twelve outstanding races are in California. Right now it looks like those six will be evenly split by the two parties. In fact, it looks like the parties will split all 12 of the remaining seats if there are no more surprises. That would put the GOP at 222 seats. 

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However, there is a wrinkle. Trump selected Rep. Stefanik as his new UN ambassador and that means her seat will become an open seat which has to be filled by a special election.

Once Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., vacates her seat to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has 10 days to set the date for a special election to replace her in the House. 

The special election must be held within 70 to 80 days afterward, and there are already a number of possible contenders reportedly being considered to claim New York’s 21st Congressional District. 

Trump also picked Rep. Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser and once again Florida Gov. DeSantis will have to set up a special election to fill that seat. (DeSantis also gets to pick a replacement for Sen. Rubio who is leaving his seat to become Sec. of State. His replacement will serve until 2026 when there will be an election to fill the last two years of his term.) 

So that’s two House seats that will need to be filled before the GOP has those votes to pass anything. It’s going to be a very narrow majority for the next few months. I’ll update this post if there are any more race calls today.

Update: The AP just called CA-41 (mentioned above) for Ken Calvert. That brings the total to 217. 

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We just need one more but I’m not sure we’re going to see it today. If it happens though, I’ll add it below.

Update: Meanwhile, NBC is one race call ahead of the AP and has now called control of the House for the GOP.