With the final race of the 2024 election wrapping up, Republicans’ control of the House of Representatives is down to the wire.
That race was in California’s 13th Congressional District in the San Francisco Bay area, where Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) ceded his seat to Democrat challenger Adam Gray in a contest that came down to just 187 votes.
It was the last of several pickups in the House of Representatives for Democrats—who gained new seats across California and in Oregon, Alabama, Louisiana, and New York—in an otherwise dismal election year for their party.
However, the GOP made gains in several seats as well. The final tallies put their share of the House at 220 seats, the same amount the party holds in the current lame-duck Congress.
That could be a problem for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Republicans at the start of the next Congress, however.
Due to planned resignations, their initial 220-seat majority will shrink to three in the first few weeks of the new 119th Congress, leaving Republicans with 217 members.
As a result, the GOP will temporarily lose its majority in the early weeks of the new Congress, and the loss or defection of even one member could shift control of the House to the Democrats.
The departures include Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who left Congress in November and won’t be reclaiming his seat in the next Congress, and two House members selected for positions in the incoming Trump administration: Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), U.S. ambassador to the U.N. nominee, and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), the incoming national security adviser.
Waltz and Stefanik have been elected to the 119th Congress and will take their seats in the body on Jan. 3, 2025, when the new Congress takes office. Waltz will resign on Jan. 20 to assume his cabinet role, an appointment that does not require the advice and consent of the Senate, while Stefanik will likely resign if the Senate votes favorably on her confirmation.
The seats will be filled by special elections, which are expected to heavily favor Republicans.
But while it’s unlikely, it’s not unprecedented for safe seats to be endangered when control of a chamber of Congress is on the line.
Even if Republicans win back all three seats in special elections, their 3-seat majority will imperil Republicans’ ability to pass any major legislation opposed by factions within the conference.
“Do the math. We have nothing to spare,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a Dec. 4 press conference.
Defections among the narrow 5-seat Republican majority during the 118th Congress produced many defeats for the conference. The defection of eight Republicans, led by Gaetz, prompted the removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from office in Oct. 2023 through a motion to vacate the chair.
Similarly, defections within the conference defeated several key measures on the House floor, such as the first attempt to impeach U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2025.
Ideological differences among House Republicans on critical issues, such as government spending, will persist in the new Congress. If just a handful of Republican opponents vote “Nay” or “Present” on a partisan bill, it could fail due to the expected unanimous opposition from Democrats.
“I’ve never voted against my conscience,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) wrote in a Dec. 4 post on X regarding the narrow majority.
Burchett voted to remove McCarthy and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a fiscally conservative group whose demands for heavy spending cuts have led them to defect from the majority on several questions.
As with the 118th Congress, House Republicans may be forced to seek support from members of the Democratic Party for must-pass legislation, particularly for annual government funding. Demands in exchange for their support could significantly undermine conservative policy goals pursued by the Trump administration.
“The House Republican Majority will be historically narrow. There is no mandate to jam far-right policies down the throats of the American people. House Democrats will not let that happen,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote in a Nov. 27 post on X.
“It’s clear the incoming House Republican majority will not be able to do much without us,” he said at a Dec. 6 press conference.
—Arjun Singh, Joseph Lord
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