Outside the Beltway

GOP Wins Last Outstanding House Seat, Has Largest Majority Since 1928 Elections

Doug Mataconis · Thursday, December 18, 2014 · 3 comments

The final undecided House election of 2014 was decided yesterday in Arizona, and it gives the GOP another pickup and its biggest House majority in eighty-six years:

Republicans clinched their 247th U.S. House seat on Wednesday when GOP challenger Martha McSally officially unseated Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), bringing to an end the final unresolved congressional election of the midterms and handing the GOP its largest majority in the chamber since the Great Depression.

McSally’s narrow win, which came after a recount, means that House Republicans will begin the 114th Congress with a 247-188 advantage over Democrats. It is the largest GOP majority since Republicans claimed 270 seats in the 1928 election.

“We’re grateful to everyone who devoted their time and resources, especially during the extended vote and recount processes, to get us over the finish line,” McSally, a retired Air Force colonel who lost a close race to Barber in 2012, said in a statement.

In his own statement, Barber congratulated McSally.

“This result is not the one we hoped for, but we take solace in having spoken out loud and clear for the principle that every legal vote should be counted,” he said.

McSally’s win is the 13th pickup of a Democratic House seat for the GOP in the 2014 midterms, far larger than most analysts had anticipated heading into the elections.