With a few House races still outstanding and likely to be settled by a handful of votes (with potential legal maneuvering to come), here's a look back at one of the closest, most contested and most politically consequential House races of all time: Indiana's Bloody 8th in 1984...

The race pitted first-term Democrat Frank McCloskey against 28-year-old GOP challenger Rick McIntyre in a notoriously marginal Indiana district that spanned from Bloomington to Evansville. On Election Night, it was too close to call…

When all votes were initially tallied several days after Election Day, McCloskey was up by 72 votes. McIntyre, though, noted potential tabulation errors in several counties and filed for recounts and the GOP Sec. of State refused to certify McCloskey as the winner:

In December, after a tabulation error was corrected, McIntyre took the lead, at which point he was certified the winner by the Sec. of State. The Dem-controlled House then refused to seat McIntyre and commissioned a task force – 2 D’s and 1 R – to oversee a recount:

As the recount dragged on for months, frustration built among House Republicans – then in the minority for 30 years – and was stoked by 41-year-old Newt Gingrich, who’d been gaining clout by urging R’s to adopt a much confrontational approach toward the Dem leadership:

Finally, in late April, the recount – conducted under rules established by the Democratic-led task force – declared McCloskey the winner by 4 votes, making this the closest House race of the century:

A week later, a party-line vote in the House certified McCloskey as the duly elected congressman from IN-8. But when, moments later, Democrats moved to seat McCloskey, the Republican side got up and walked out of the chamber in protest:

The idea that majority Democrats had stolen the 8th District election from them vastly increased House Republicans' openness to Gingrich's cutthroat tactics. He'd been a backbencher since coming to the House, but less than 4 years later, he'd win the No. 2 GOP leadership slot.