Republicans in Strong Position to Retake House as Counting Continues

In the House, the GOP appeared on track to win the barest of majorities, nonpartisan analysts said. On Sunday night, additional vote tallies in California and Arizona put Republican candidates in striking distance of victory, though those races hadn’t been called.

“Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight,” David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, tweeted Sunday, referring to shifts toward Republicans in three races in those states.

Republicans currently have won 212 House seats with Democrats at 204, according to the Associated Press tally. A party needs 218 for a majority in the chamber. The GOP could end up only a couple of seats above that number, and the party got a boost Sunday by flipping a seat held by Democrats in Oregon.

Headed into the election, Democrats had a 220-212 majority, with three vacancies.

The possibility of an extremely narrow GOP majority is already creating challenges for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). Mr. McCarthy is running to be speaker assuming Republicans take back the House, but he is meeting resistance from his party’s right flank, which now has greater leverage to influence the vote.

Mr. McCarthy will need a simple majority of his conference during Tuesday’s leadership vote, to be selected as the party’s preference for leader. To become speaker, he will need a majority of the full House in a vote in January.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) plans to run against Mr. McCarthy for the post, according to people familiar with the matter. The ally of former President

Donald Trump

is unlikely to get enough votes to win, but the candidacy could provide a gauge of opposition to Mr. McCarthy.

Allies of Mr. McCarthy made calls to Democratic Rep.

Henry Cuellar

of Texas over the weekend and asked him if he would switch parties to expand the GOP majority, according to five people familiar with the calls.

Mr. Cuellar turned them down, according to multiple people. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy said the calls weren’t made at the request of Mr. McCarthy. “Anyone suggesting this is simply exercising in fan fiction,” said spokesman Mark Bednar.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell

(R., Ky.) was also facing pushback from some of his Republican members, who questioned whether the party should delay the leadership election until after the Georgia runoff, in which Republican

Herschel Walker

is facing Democratic incumbent Sen.

Raphael Warnock.

The Senate GOP elections are set for Wednesday.

New members are in Washington this week for orientation. Some who hadn’t had their races called were also invited and would be included in leadership votes. House Democrats will vote for their leadership later this month and the Senate is expected to keep their same top leaders.

Democrats had performed better than expected in the midterm elections, even with the anticipated loss of the House majority. They picked up a GOP-held Senate seat and flipped some House seats, including in Washington over the weekend.

Of the remaining uncalled competitive House races, a half-dozen were in California. They included the re-election contests of Democratic Reps.

Katie Porter

and

Mike Levin

and GOP Reps. David Valadao, Mike Garcia and Michelle Steel as well as one open seat. Both parties were also intensely watching close contests in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon.

While the contest for House control continued, Senate Democrats celebrated their victory, and the closely watched gubernatorial race in Arizona between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat

Katie Hobbs

remained too close to call. Ms. Hobbs was ahead Sunday evening by about 1 percentage point, with about 160,000 more ballots expected to be counted.

While Ms. Lake had a path to victory, she would need to overperform in all remaining ballots. The campaign manager for Ms. Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state, released a statement Sunday night calling her “the unequivocal favorite to become the next governor of Arizona.”

Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins+1@wsj.com. and Chad Day at Chad.Day@wsj.com