Democrats will narrowly retain control of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives – one of the only bright spots for the party after the red wave sparked by the election of President-elect Donald Trump. ushered in GOP wins up and down the ballot.

Democrats will once again control the House of Representatives with a 102-101 majority, after all incumbents won on Tuesday. The “humble majority” of Democrats, as House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) calls it, has often complicated lawmaking over the past two years and will likely do the same in the next legislative session.

The Associated Press called the latest House race and said Democrats would maintain their slim majority Friday morning, after voting problems in Cambria County delayed results.

“This was a tough election, but our incumbents have proven they have the trust of their voters,” said Madeline Zann, executive director of the House Democrats’ campaign arm. “This majority is the majority of the people because voters trust it to deliver results.”

Ultimately, the Democratic majority went to Rep. Frank Burns (D-Cambria), who was re-elected to a ninth term to represent Johnstown in the reddening county 80 miles east of Pittsburgh. He is the last of the Blue Dog Democrats in the State House, is anti-abortion and pro-Second Amendment, and has often blocked bills on social issues or asked Democrats to find Republicans in collar counties who would support them.

Burns himself ran a Trump-style campaign, including attack ads that said his GOP opponent wanted to bring 100 Afghan families to Johnstown and give them jobs done by locals, spend more on public housing and thus make the community less safe – a mirror of Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric.

Democrats surprised the state in 2022 when they flipped the State House for the first time in 12 years with a narrow majority. Officials were awaiting the state’s new redistricting maps, which gave Republicans have a slight advantage over Democratsto make the races more competitive, but I didn’t expect the Democrats to flip the House so soon.

House Democrats currently control the lower chamber by just one vote and have at times had to rely on moderate House Republicans. Bucks County to pass bills when they failed to gain the support of their entire membership. Legislation arrested several times throughout the two-year legislative session due to more than a half-dozen resignations that put Democrats below their numerical majority.

Only about 10 races statewide were competitive in this year’s elections. Republicans have targeted seats held by vulnerable Democrats in other parts of the state that lean more red, such as Burns, who held on to his seat by about 1,000 votes in a county that Trump won by 35 points. percentage.

Meanwhile, Democrats were hoping to win some of the few remaining GOP-held seats in collar counties — like Rep. Craig Williams’ seat as the last Republican representing parts of Delco or two Lower Bucks seats represented by Republican Reps. KC Tomlinson and Joe Hogan – like those they thought they could overthrow to maintain and expand their narrow majority. Williams, Tomlinson and Hogan were all re-elected.

Republicans also had their eyes on several seats across the state that they thought they could flip, including Rep. Brian Munroe (D., Bucks). House Republicans and a Jeff Yass-backed political action committee flocked more than $600,000 in advertising in support of GOP challenger Dan McPhillips. Munroe was ultimately re-elected by a small margin.

Governor. Josh Shapiroa Democrat, spent $1 million to help his party maintain and expand its majority in the House of Representatives, and he made 20 endorsements across the state in districts Democrats hope to flip or to protect incumbents vulnerable. In his endorsement earlier this fall, Shapiro highlighted Democratic priorities for him and the slim Democratic majority in the House of Representatives: in concert with the GOP-controlled state Senate — had managed to pass, including a property tax increase and rent reduction for seniorsA expanded child care tax creditAnd major investments in public education to respond to a court order requiring officials to create a new school financing system.

In recent years, Democrats have dominated fast-growing counties around Philadelphia, electing Democrats in 31 of 39 districts in Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester counties.

Bucks remains an outlier in the increasingly blue Philadelphia suburbs, as the only collar county with a GOP voter registration advantage. For this reason, many competitive House races are in Bucks County, and Republicans represent more districts in Bucks than in any other collar county.

This is a developing story and will be updated.