CBS News
These 14 House seats are still undecided, with 2024 results outstanding a week after Election Day
Washington — It’s one week after Election Day 2024, and while control of the White House and the Senate have been decided, in a handful of races for the U.S. House of Representatives, the results are still outstanding, and their outcomes will determine Republicans’ margins in the lower chamber.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race and Republicans poised to control at least 52 seats in the Senate, the GOP is heading toward full control of Washington. CBS News characterizes control of the House as lean Republican, with the party now just three seats shy of the 218 needed to win the majority.
Most of the undecided House races are in California, where state law requires mail ballots to be postmarked by Election Day and received by county elections offices up to seven days after the election, so many are still being counted.
As votes continue to be tallied in seven states where the winners of congressional races have not yet been projected, Congress has returned to Washington for the first time in weeks, and Republicans are moving forward with leadership elections. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise are expected to maintain their positions atop the Republican conference, but Trump’s selection of conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has created an open seat in GOP leadership.
Here are the outstanding House races as of Tuesday, Nov. 12:
Alaska at-large
Republican Nick Begich leads incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, by more than 10,000 votes, with 71% of the estimated vote total reported.
If Begich defeats Peltola, it would be a GOP pick-up in the House. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so voters select multiple candidates and rank them in order of preference.
Unless a candidate earns more than 50% of the first-choice vote, the one with the fewest first-choice votes will be eliminated, and voters’ second picks are reallocated to the remaining candidates. In the third round, the candidate who receives the next fewest votes is eliminated and their votes reallocated to the remaining contenders. The process continues until a candidate reaches 50%.
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District
Incumbent Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, is leading Democratic opponent Kirsten Engel by 4,900 votes, with 86% of votes in. CBS News estimates the race is a toss-up.
California’s 9th Congressional District
CBS News characterizes the race as lean Democrat, with incumbent Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat, ahead of his Republican opponent Kevin Lincoln by more than 7,000 votes, with 71% of the estimated vote total reported so far.
California’s 13th Congressional District
Freshman GOP Rep. John Duarte leads Democratic challenger Adam Gray by nearly 3,000 votes, with 57% of votes in.
The two faced off in 2022, when Gray lost by less than 600 votes.
California’s 21st Congressional District
CBS News characterizes the race between Rep. Jim Costa, the Democrat incumbent, and Republican Michael Maher as lean Costa. The congressman leads by just over 1,300 votes, and 64% of the estimated vote total has been reported so far.
California’s 22nd Congressional District
Republican Rep. David Valadao is leading Democrat challenger Rudy Salas by 9,500 votes, with 71% of the vote in. Valadao is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Of those 10 lawmakers, only Valadao and Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington are still in Congress. Newhouse is projected to win reelection.
California’s 41st Congressional District
CBS News characterizes the race as lean Republican incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert, who has served in the House for more than 30 years. Calvert leads his Democratic opponent, Will Rollins, by more than 7,500 votes, with 81% of the estimated vote total reported so far.
California’s 45th Congressional District
In this race between GOP incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel and Democrat Derek Tran, Steel is ahead by 3,900 votes with 84% of the vote in. CBS News characterizes the race as a toss-up. Steel is in her second term in the House and is one of the first Korean-American women to serve in Congress.
California’s 47th Congressional District
Democratic Rep. Katie Porter currently holds this seat, but her unsuccessful bid for the Senate set up a race between Democrat David Min and Republican Scott Baugh to succeed her.
CBS News characterizes the race as lean Min, meaning it’s likely to stay in Democrats’ hands. With 84% of the estimated vote total reported, Min is ahead by more than 3,200 votes.
California’s 49th Congressional District
CBS News characterizes the contest between Democratic Rep. Mike Levin and Republican Matt Gunderson as lean Levin. The Democratic incumbent is ahead of his GOP challenger by 14,000 votes, with 84% of the vote in.
Iowa’s 1st Congressional District
The race between Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Christina Bohannan is a rematch of the 2022 contest. The 2024 election is shaping up to be close, with Miller-Meeks currently leading by 796 votes in this race that CBS News characterizes as a toss-up.
Maine’s 2nd Congressional District
Democratic Rep. Jared Golden is facing Republican Austin Theriault in a district that supported Trump in 2016 and 2020. The Democratic incumbent is ahead by more than 2,100 votes, with 99% of votes in, and CBS News characterizes the race as leaning Golden.
Maine, like Alaska, uses ranked-choice voting, and because neither candidate secured at least 50% of the vote, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced it will be decided by a ranked-choice runoff. The second round of tabulation is starting this week in Augusta, the state capital, she said.
Ohio’s 9th Congressional District
Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is working to keep control of her seat in the race against Republican challenger Derek Merrin. CBS News characterizes the race as a toss-up. Kaptur is leading Merrin by more than 1,100 votes, with 94% of the estimated vote total reported.
Oregon’s 5th Congressional District
Republican incumbent Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is in her first term, is facing off against Democrat Janelle Bynum, who is currently ahead by more than 10,000 votes. CBS News characterizes the race as leaning Bynum, and 88% of the estimated vote total has been reported.
contributed to this report.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Opioid overdose deaths have now slowed to the lowest levels nationwide since 2020, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This marks the 12th straight month of decline since a peak last year.
Around 70,655 deaths linked to opioids like heroin and fentanyl were reported for the year ending June 2024, the CDC now estimates, falling 18% from the same time in 2023.
Almost all states, except for a handful in the West from Alaska through Nevada, are now seeing a significant decrease in overdose death rates. Early data from Canada also suggests overdose deaths there might now be slowing off of a peak in 2023 too.
“While these data are cause for optimism, we must not lose sight of the fact that nearly 100,000 people are still estimated to be dying annually from drug overdose in the U.S.” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement.
Other types of drug overdoses beyond opioids are also slowing. While they make up a smaller share of overall deaths, overdoses linked to drugs like methamphetamine and cocaine are also showing signs of dropping nationwide following a peak last year.
“We are encouraged by this data, but boy, it is time to double down on the things that we know are working. It is not a time to pull back, and I feel very strongly, and our data shows, that the threat continues to evolve,” Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, told CBS News.
Arwady pointed to a long list of factors that officials hope are contributing to the decline, ranging from broader availability of the overdose reversing spray naloxone, also known as Narcan, to efforts to ease gaps in access to medications that can treat opioid use disorder.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Trends in what health officials call “primary prevention” have also improved in recent years — meaning fewer people using the drugs to begin with. As an example, Arwady cited CDC surveys showing a clear decline in high school students reporting that they have tried illegal drugs.
The CDC and health departments have also gotten faster at gathering and analyzing data to respond to surges in overdoses, Arwady said, often caused by new so-called “adulterants” that are mixed in. Health authorities study this by testing blood and drug samples taken in the wake of surges, in search of potential emerging drug threats.
Agency researchers are now looking closer at what could be behind gaps in communities that are still not seeing slowdowns, Arwady said.
“Unfortunately, for the most affected groups, namely Native Americans and Black American men, the death rates are not decreasing and are at the highest recorded levels,” said Volkow.
Why are drug overdose deaths declining?
In the months since CDC data first began showing real signs of a nationwide change to the deadly record wave of opioid overdose deaths, experts have floated a number of theories to explain what caused the change.
“We had been seeing the numbers go down, on the national aggregate level, since last April, and we were skeptical and kind of holding our tongues. Then we started hearing from a lot of folks on the ground, frontline providers,'” said Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who studies opioid overdose deaths.
Dasgupta led an analysis in September by the university’s Opioid Data Lab illustrating the nationwide scope of the downturn and probing a number of theories that might explain it.
Some explanations they dismissed as unlikely, like stepped-up law enforcement operations. Other ideas they judged as plausible, but complicated to prove, like a so-called “depletion of susceptibles” — essentially the epidemic burning itself out, as users either found ways to survive the influx of fentanyl or died — or the wider availability of naloxone.
Dasgupta said they received a flood of interest since their initial post proposing more theories, like new scanners that were deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border.
There are likely a number of factors all playing a role in the shift, Dasgupta says. But he said early data from research they are wrapping up now supports one leading explanation: a shift in the illegal drug supply.
“Our hypothesis is that something has changed in the drug supply. This kind of pronounced shift, something that happens suddenly, if numbers had suddenly shot up, we would definitely be pointing to a change in the drug supply to explain it,” said Dasgupta.
Amid its downsides, xylazine‘s rise might have led to less injection drug use, they speculate. Its longer high could also be reducing the number of times people use fentanyl each day.
“We’re not in our offices celebrating. We’re still losing too many people that we love. So I just want it to be very clear that with like a hundred thousand people still dying, that’s obscenely high,” he said.