WASHINGTON – The majority in the US House of Representatives hanging in the balance Wednesday, oscillating between Republican control that would usher in a new era of unified Republican Party governance in Washington or a swing to the Democrats as the last line of resistance to a Trump’s agenda for the second White House term.

A few individual seats, or even just one, determine the result. The final tally will take some time, likely pushing the decision until next week – or beyond.

After the Republicans carried away in the majority in the US Senate by winning seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, according to the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson predicted that his room would fall in line next.

“Republicans are on the verge of having unified government in the White House, the Senate and the House,” Johnson said Wednesday.

President-elect Donald TrumpWHO won the Electoral College and popular vote against the Democratic vice president Kamala Harrisconsolidated his growing power around his MAGA movement, supporting newcomers to Washington and setting the stage for his own return to the White House.

Johnson said congressional Republicans were preparing a An “ambitious” 100-day agenda with Trump, who he says “thinks big” about his legacy.

Tax cuts, securing the southern border and “blowtorching” federal regulations are at the top of the agenda if the Republican Party wins the White House and Congress. Trump himself has promised mass expulsions and retaliation against his perceived enemies. And Republicans want to drive federal agencies out of Washington and replenish the government’s workforce with the help of outside think tanks, Johnson said, to bring the federal government “in line.”

But Johnson, after only a year in office, has struggled to govern the House, and the new Congress would be no different. Hardliners led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Matt Gaetz and others have often confronted and upset their own Republican leadership in what has been one of the the most chaotic sessions in modern times.

If Johnson’s slim four-seat majority were to shrink further, the government could grind to a halt.

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the House “remains very active.”

While Democrats defeated two House Republicans in Jeffries’ home state of New York, he said the path to the majority now lies through pickup opportunities in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa and in California, which it is still too early to convene.

“We have to count every vote,” Jeffries said.

The House elections remained a tit-for-tat fight to the end, with no dominant path to a majority for either party. Rarely, if ever, have the two houses of Congress swung in opposite directions.

Each side gains and loses a few seats, in part through the redistricting process, which involves regularly redrawing the boundaries of House seats. The process reset seats in North Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama.

Much of the outcome depends on the West, notably in California, where a handful of House seats are hotly contested, and mail-in ballots arriving a week after the election will still be counted. The hotly contested races around the “blue dot” in Omaha, Nebraska and remote Alaska are among the races monitored.

Trump, speaking early Wednesday at his election night in Florida, said the results were a “powerful and unprecedented mandate” for Republicans.

He called the Senate rout “unbelievable” and praised Johnson, saying he was “doing a tremendous job.”

From the United States Capitol, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate Mitch McConnellprivately, a harsh critic of Trump, called it a “damn good day.”

Senate Republicans marched alongside Trump, flipping all three Democratic-held seats and holding off Democratic challengers who failed to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas and Sen. Rick Scott in Florida.

In West Virginia, Jim Justice, the state’s wealthy governor, flipped the seat held by incumbent Senator Joe Manchin. Republicans unseated Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio with a GOP luxury car dealership and blockchain entrepreneur Bernie Moreno. And Republican Tim Sheehy defeated Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana.

Democrats avoided a total wipeout by regaining seats in “blue wall” states. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won an open Senate seat in Michigan, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin won re-election in Wisconsin. The race in Pennsylvania between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick was still undecided.

Separately, Democrats made history by sending two black women, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, to the Senate. Only three black women, including Harris, have served in the Senate, but never two at the same time.

All told, Senate Republicans have the potential to secure their strongest majority in years — a testament to their will. McConnellwho has made a career out of charting a path to power, this time aligned himself with Trump, whom he privately called “despicable” in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

At a news conference Wednesday, McConnell refused to answer questions about his past harsh criticism of Trump and said he viewed the election results as a referendum on the Biden administration.

He told reporters at the Capitol that a Republican-controlled Senate would “check the guardrails” and prevent changes to Senate rules that would end the filibuster.

“People just weren’t happy with this administration and the Democratic nominee was part of that,” McConnell said.

What remains to be determined is who will lead the new Republican Senate, as McConnell prepares to leave office.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who previously held the post, are the favorites to replace McConnell in a secret ballot election scheduled for when the senators arrive in Washington next week.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.