Zinke Confirmed as Interior Secretary, Creating 5th Vacancy in House of Representatives

March 1, 2017

Montana's at-large U.S. Representative Ryan Zinke was confirmed as Interior Secretary Wednesday. Zinke's departure creates the fifth vacancy in the House. Four Republicans have departed to become part of the Trump Administration, while the Democratic Representative is now Attorney General of California.

All five seats will be filled by special election this year; the calendar is below. At this point, only the race in Georgia appears to have a decent possibility of being competitive. That seat, formerly held by Tom Price, is in a Republican-leaning district in the northern Atlanta suburbs. Price easily won reelection by a 62-38% margin last November. However, Donald Trump won the district by only 1.5%, and Democrats would like to make this an early test of the new president's popularity.  

CA-34: Formerly held by Xavier Becerra (D), now California Attorney General. Safe Democrat

April 4: Jungle Primary Special Election | June 6: Top-two runoff if no candidate receives 50%

GA-06: Formerly held by Tom Price (R), now Secretary of Health & Human Services. Republicans favored to hold seat

April 18: Jungle Primary Special Election | June 20: Top-two runoff if no candidate receives 50% 

KS-04: Formerly held by Mike Pompeo (R), now Director of CIA. Safe Republican

April 11: Special Election

MT-AL: Formerly held by Ryan Zinke (R), now Interior Secretary. Safe Republican

May 25: Special Election 

SC-05: Formerly held by Mick Mulvaney (R) now Director of Office of Management and Budget. Safe Republican

May 2: Party Primaries | May 16: Party runoffs as needed, if no candidate gets 50% in primaries | June 20: Special Election 

Republicans currently hold 237 seats to 193 for Democrats. If all five vacancies are held by the incumbent party, the full House will be 241 Republican, 194 Democrats.  218 seats are needed for control.  Visit our 2018 House interactive map for an early look at the midterm congressional elections.