Washington — Republicans held on to a majority of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, though the exact size of their majority is still unknown, pending final counts — and possible recounts — in some of the 2012 contests around the country.

With eight races still undecided as of 4 p.m. November 7, Republicans won a House majority of 234 seats to 193 for Democrats. Republicans will need to win seven of those undecided districts if they are to maintain the size of the majority they won in 2010.

Even with a few unknowns hanging in the balance, Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio offered supporters and the press an interpretation of the voters’ intent after the November 6 vote. “With this vote the American people have also made clear that there's no mandate for raising tax rates,” Boehner said, taking his stand on an issue that is a perennial source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. Rather than higher taxes, the Republican leader said, Americans want “solutions that will ease the burdens on small businesses, bring jobs home and let our economy grow.”

Every seat in the 435-member House chamber goes before the voters every two years, so elections sometimes can result in leadership shake-ups for the majority party. That is not expected to happen when the 113th Congress takes office in January, nor are there expected to be significant changes in the chairmanships of the standing committees of the House.

In the U.S. legislative system, those committees serve as the gateway for legislation to advance to a full vote before the entire chamber or to “die in committee,” in Capitol Hill parlance. The committee heads, therefore, wield significant influence in all legislative issues that relate to their committees' portfolios.

House Democrats had held out hopes they might win enough seats to retake the majority and win leadership of the body, but objective observers outside the party didn’t give that wish too great a chance of coming true.

In election night remarks to Democratic supporters, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California returned to the touchstone of her party’s values.

“Democrats are fighting for reigniting the American dream, building ladders of opportunity for people who want to work hard and play by the rules, take responsibility, but centered around small businesses and entrepreneurship and a strong and thriving middle class,” Pelosi said during an election night appearance in Washington.

The tone of this election was rough-and-tumble at many points throughout the months of campaigning, but in the last 10 days, after a superstorm hit the Northeast Coast at tremendous loss of property and life, the tone and rhetoric of the elections became somewhat more subdued. Millions of citizens in New York and New Jersey are without electric power and proper shelter as winter temperatures set in, and their prospects for recovery from these losses seem long, difficult and even grim. Houses are in ruins, streets are filled with debris and public services struggle to meet enormous needs.

Democrat Representative Steve Israel, at Pelosi’s side on election night in Washington, reminded the crowd of the people he represents in Long Island, New York, and the hardships before them. “And so while we're talking about winning the House, there are a lot of Long Islanders who are trying to figure out how to keep their homes and how to turn on the lights in their homes and heat their homes.”

Even with those hardships, people in New York and New Jersey still voted. In makeshift polling sites, in tents and with flashlights, people stricken by the superstorm still exercised their rights as a heavy voter turnout was reported in the region.

When the 113th Congress convenes in Washington early next year, the needs of the storm-struck region will obviously be a leading priority for lawmakers from the area, but they will encounter an atmosphere of financial austerity as extreme as any in recent memory. The gargantuan size of the federal deficit, levels of government spending and battles over top priorities for funding were core issues in the election. Now, lawmakers must tame the searing rhetoric of the campaign and apply themselves to the work of compromise to resolve the nation’s fiscal difficulties.