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It looks increasingly likely that the Republican Party will take back control of the House of Representatives and officially dethrone House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
In celebration of his party’s impending success, President Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social Friday to share the news with his followers.
“WE WON!” Trump wrote. “Pelosi is gone, we take Congress and, if we can stop their very obvious CHEATING, will also take the Senate.”
Issuing a rebuke to those Republicans who have been less enthusiastic about the overall midterm results, he added: “Big Victory, don’t be stupid. Stand on the rooftops and shout it out loud!”
As of Monday morning, per the Fox News Decision Desk, the Republican Party had clinched 212 House seats of the 218 required for a majority, whereas the Democrats had claimed 204. Meanwhile, the balance of power in the Senate was nearly tied at 50 seats for the Democrats and 49 for the Republicans.
One House race that both parties have watched closely is the battle for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, in which Republican incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert had initially trailed her Democrat opponent Adam Frisch before taking a slight 400-vote lead Thursday morning, per CBS News.
By Monday morning, Boebert had expanded that lead to 1,122 votes, with 98.87 percent of the vote in.
One of the biggest surprises of the election was the Republican turnout in New York state, which flipped three Democrat districts red and ultimately delivered 11 House seats for the Republican Party.
In a Thursday interview with Fox News, Republican Congressman-elect Mike Lawler from New York’s 17th Congressional District noted, “We defeated the chair of the DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] for the first time in 42 years, and today, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and George Soros wake up with a Republican congressman-elect.”
However, the victories also raised questions as to how Republicans were able to deliver decisive wins in unexpected areas like New York but not in other areas where they were anticipated, like Arizona, where the gubernatorial race remains undecided and the Senate race was called for Democrat incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly on Friday.
On Twitter, Washington Examiner Executive Editor Seth Mandel noted, “[I]t continues to be weird that if you just looked at some of these spots in the blue northeast, you’d think the red wave happened. Not in Georgia or Arizona or Pennsylvania but in… New York and New Jersey? Weird night.”
For Republicans like President Trump, the results of an election in which they had expected to make significant gains around the country, simply did not add up.
“RIGGED ELECTIONS, OPEN BORDERS = Third World Countries,” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social. “The USA is a failing Nation!”
Cheating was a frequently cited concern for voters ahead of the midterms, given the many questions that remain as to alleged fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
Thus, while retaking control of the House is certainly something for Republicans to celebrate, many voters will undoubtedly continue to question whether they simply overestimated the “red wave” or it was deliberately obstructed by those of malicious intent.