Republicans are on the brink of maintaining their House majority—and winning control of Washington for at least the next two years under a unified government—with 12 races left to be called as of Wednesday morning.

Republicans flipped a seat in Colorado, two Pennsylvania districts (District 7 and District 8) and a district in Michigan. Democrats flipped three seats in New York (District 4, District 19 and District 22).

It appears unlikely, considering 11 wins in uncalled races are needed but Democrats are only leading in six of them. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a news conference Tuesday that Republicans expect a majority that will be larger than its current 220-212 majority. Republicans have a 99% chance of retaining control of the House, according to the Election Betting Odds tool, which tracks odds across several major betting platforms. While the results are still pending, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told CBS in a Tuesday interview Democrats must now work with Republicans across Congress but House Democrats must “have that conversation about how to move forward.”

“We still have a number of races outstanding, but we're very optimistic about those and we are looking forward to governing in unified government beginning in January,” Johnson said at the Tuesday conference.

Some states, particularly in the western U.S., take longer to tally ballots because of state election operations. California is known to take more time than the rest of the country to finalize its results. It’s the only state with millions of remaining ballots uncounted as of Tuesday morning. California’s election officials need more time because the state has by far the largest population in the country. The state’s voting processes are more abundant and require more effort, such as its rule to give every registered voter a mail-in ballot, which makes it easy for citizens to vote but requires more work (through hours of phone calls) to verify whether the ballot was filled out incorrectly. Other states, like Oregon, Alaska, Arizona and Colorado, have counted 80% or more of the House race ballots. But there’s only about 1%-4% of House race ballots left uncounted in Maine, Iowa and Ohio, at the time of writing.

The House now holds enormous importance for President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to legislate when he takes office after Republicans won a majority in the Senate on Tuesday. If the GOP retains control, it would give them unified control of government—but if Democrats win the majority, they will be able to stall some of Trump’s legislative agenda. “We believe we can be the most consequential Congress of modern politics,” Johnson said at the Tuesday new conference. Republicans won a tight majority in the House in 2022, claiming 222 seats, including several competitive seats in Arizona, California, New York, Virginia and Nebraska. Democrats secured a Senate majority in 2021, later solidifying that number in 2023. The period of a divided Congress since has been marred by Republican infighting and lessened productivity—partly due to Congress’ partisan split and partly because of the GOP’s narrow majority, which allows a tiny number of lawmakers to control the fate of legislation. In October 2023, Republicans and Democrats voted for the first ouster of the House speaker in history, driving out then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., an action led by hard-right Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. The move was highly disruptive because of the extensive voting processes and the search for a new speaker. That year, the House also struggled to pass legislation, passing 27 bills after voting 724 times. That’s fewer bills passed than any other term since 2013, The New York Times reported, citing research from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Congress narrowly avoided several government shutdowns over the past two years. With this election, Republicans were predicted to take control of the House by a slim margin of 30 seats or less, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Gaetz was reelected to his House seat in Florida with 66.3% of the vote as of 8:30 p.m. EST, the AP called. He beat Democrat Gay Valimont, continuing a spell of success even amid controversial political attacks and his leading the ousting of McCarthy in 2023.

Several races made history on Nov. 5. Democrat Sarah McBride was elected to a Delaware House seat, becoming the first openly transgender Congress member with the win. Republican Julie Fedorchak won her North Dakota’s sole House seat, becoming the first woman elected to the House in North Dakota, and Democrat Julie Johnson became the first openly gay woman to represent Texas in the House. Democrat Yassamin Ansari won her seat in Arizona and became the first Iranian American elected to the U.S. House.