IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Republicans in Iowa flipped one U.S. House seat on Wednesday and were competing in a tight race to pick up another.

The party was guaranteed to control at least two of Iowa’s four seats when the House reconvenes in January, up from the one they held during the current two-year session.

Republican Ashley Hinson defeated first-term Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer in a district that includes Cedar Rapids and much of northeast Iowa.

The pickup came as Republicans routed Democrats in key races across the state, which saw a record turnout of nearly 1.7 million voters, 75% of those registered.

President Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden by 138,700 votes in unofficial state returns. Joni Ernst similarly dispatched challenger Theresa Greenfield to win reelection in a pivotal Senate race, and Republicans expanded their majority in the Iowa House.

Hinson, a state representative and former television news anchor, received more than 51% of the vote and was ahead of Finkenauer by 10,759 votes in unofficial returns.

Hinson’s victory reclaimed one of the two seats that Democrats picked up in a strong showing in the 2018 midterm elections, when Finkenauer unseated U.S. Rep. Rod Blum. Finkenauer, 31, was the second-youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Republicans could control a third seat of Iowa’s delegation depending on the outcome of the still unsettled race between Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Rita Hart in southeast Iowa.

The seat opened upon the retirement of U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, a Democrat first elected in 2006.

Miller-Meeks was leading Hart by 282 votes in unofficial returns Wednesday, less than 0.1% of the votes cast.

But Hart’s campaign was hoping that enough absentee ballots would arrive in the mail in the coming days to erase the lead. Absentee ballots that were postmarked by Monday and arrive by noon on Nov. 9 will be counted under Iowa law.

More than 13,400 absentee ballots that were sent to voters in the district had not been returned as of Tuesday, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's office. That includes 6,670 ballots that were sent to registered Democrats, 3,147 sent to Republicans and 3,611 sent to voters of neither party.

Some, but not all, of those ballots are expected to arrive in time to be counted. The AP has not declared a winner in the race, deeming it too close to call.

Iowa law does not mandate an automatic recount in the event of a close race, but either campaign could request one regardless of the margin after the completion of next week’s official canvass of votes.

The state will pay for the costs of the recount as long as the race is closer than 1% of the total votes cast, which would be around 4,000 votes in this race. If the margin is greater, the candidate requesting the recount would have to pay the costs but would be refunded if the process changed the outcome.

Democrat Cindy Axne won a second term representing a congressional district that stretches from Des Moines through southwest Iowa. She defeated former U.S. Rep. David Young, whom she unseated in 2018, by more than 6,200 votes in unofficial returns.

Young conceded defeat on Tuesday night, saying he could not overcome Axne's large margin of victory in Polk County, the state's largest metropolitan area.

Axne leads Young by about 1.4% of the vote in unofficial returns, with about 20,000 absentee ballots still outstanding in the district. More registered Democrats than Republicans had requested those ballots, which makes it unlikely Young would get a large bounce from any that come in the mail in coming days.

In northwest Iowa, Republican Randy Feenstra coasted to victory in the heavily Republican district after defeating longtime U.S. Rep. Steve King in the June primary.

On Tuesday, Feenstra defeated Democrat J.D. Scholten, whose narrow loss to King in 2018 prompted many Republicans to abandon the controversial incumbent and get behind Feenstra's primary challenge.