Election 2024 live updates: Who will win the house? The eyes of the GOP give Trump unified power

Who could be in Trump’s second term cabinet

The president-elect is already reportedly meeting with his transition team to discuss how to fill out his next administration.

Some of the names being floated for key positions, according to Fox News, include:

• Ben Carson – Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
• Betsy DeVos – Secretary of Education
• Mike Pompeo – Secretary of Defense
• Late. Marco Rubio – Secretary of State
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Secretary of Health
• North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum – Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Energy

Legal expert warns Democrats will have ‘very hard time’ passing legislation if GOP wins House

A legal expert has warned that “Democrats will have a very difficult time passing legislation” if Republicans win the US House.

The GOP sees a clean slate after Donald Trump won the presidency and Republicans took the Senate.

The House remains a hard-fought race as votes continue to be counted. Democrats hope to turn it blue as a last line of defense against the Trump administration’s second-term agenda. But if it remains red, legal expert Russell Morgan warned it wasn’t

“Democrats are going to have a very hard time passing legislation they’ve been pushing under the Biden-Harris administration,” he said on Fox News Thursday.

He added that Democrats “are going to have to concede to get things done.”

Defense secretary says US military will ‘stand ready’ to carry out Trump’s orders after ‘calm’ transition

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Pentagon will make “a calm, orderly” transition to the Trump administration in a letter to all U.S. military members.

Austin also reminded members of the armed forces that the US military would “continue to stand apart from the political arena” and “will stand ready to make the political choices of its next commander in chief.”

“Our fellow citizens have elected the next President of the United States,” he wrote.

“The department will make a calm, orderly and professional transition to the incoming Trump administration. As it always has, the U.S. military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next commander-in-chief, and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command,” Austin wrote.

When is the House of Representatives convened?

With closely contested US House races being fought across the country, it can take days to find a winner.

In the 2022 midterms, it took more than a week for the house to be determined. The election was held on November 8, 2022, and the AP called the race for the Republican 218th seat, securing their majority on November 17.

House races across the country are decided by less than one percentage point

Razor-thin margins in US House races across the country mean majority control will be too close to call for some time.

In Arizona, there is less than a single percentage point between the incumbent and the challenger in the state’s 6th District, where Republican incumbent Juan Ciscomani leads with 49.1, over Democrat Kirsten Engel’s 48.6, with 67% of the vote counted.

Maine’s 2nd Congressional District also has a razor-thin margin, as Republican challenger Austin Theriault has closed the gap between himself and Democratic incumbent Congressman Jared Golden. Golden now has just a 0.7 percentage point lead over Theriault with 93% of the vote.

Ohio 9th District Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who has served in Congress since 1983, has just a 0.3% point lead over Republican challenger Derek Merrin with 95% of the vote counted.

California House ran to see

As control of the US House remains in the balance, Democrats are focused on winning a handful of crucial California seats.

They hope to defeat five incumbent Republicans in the state, whose seats are needed to flip the House. But for now, GOP congressmen appear to be holding on to their districts by a narrow margin.

• California’s 13th – Incumbent Republican Congressman John Duarte has a narrowing two-point lead over Democratic challenger Adam Gray, with just over half the vote, 52%, remaining.
• California’s 22nd – It’s a different story in the 22nd District, where Republican Congressman David Valadao has pulled ahead with a ten-point lead over Democratic challenger Rudy Salas, with 56% of the ballots counted.
• California’s 27th – Republican Congressman Mike Garcia has a narrow two-point lead over Democratic challenger George Whitesides with 69%.
• California’s 41st: In another close race, incumbent Republican Congressman Ken Calvert has a two-point lead over Democrat Will Rollins with 76%.
• California’s 45th – Democrat Derek Tran has closed the gap between him and incumbent Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel, but she maintains a solid four-point lead with 70% of the vote counted.