It’s almost a week after Election Day, yet little has changed since the rush of called races on that first night. The little bit of progress since has been a trickle. Still, few races remain to be called – just one in the Senate and 18 in the House – and the results paint a colorful portrait of what Washington may look like over the next couple of years. Trump has won a majority of states, electors, and, so far, the popular vote. Republicans have a solid lead in the Senate, and the House GOP is on pace to keeping and even growing slightly its own majority. But there are majorities, and then there are majorities. And just how decisively Republicans rule the roost can make a big difference.
A Presidential Mandate
In 2020, Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump to become the nation’s number 46, and he took that as a mandate from the people to enact a bevy of progressive policies. It wasn’t, of course – and the 2024 election shows it. Biden won both the popular vote 51.3% to Trump’s 46.8% and the Electoral College 303 to 235 simply because he wasn’t Trump. Last week, Trump beat Biden’s successor, Kamala Harris, 312 to 226 in the Electoral College and 50.4% to 48% in the popular vote (so far) simply because he is Donald Trump after the electorate had to suffer through four years of Biden-Harris leadership.
Biden won a total of 24 states plus the District of Columbia. The famous Blue Wall and a handful of swing states were good to him. In 2024, Trump blew through the Blue Wall and took all the swing states, claiming a total of 31 states. Will he keep the popular vote? Most likely. California is the only state with a significant number of ballots yet to be counted, and for Kamala to overtake him nationally, she’d have to win about 74.5% of those remaining votes in a state where she currently enjoys a 58.5% majority. Trump’s win may not quite be landslide territory – but if it isn’t a mandate for MAGA, nothing is.
Paint the Senate Red
Just one race remains to be called for the Senate: Arizona’s seat, currently held by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema, who isn’t running for re-election. Democrat Ruben Gallego is presently beating Republican Kari Lake 50% to 47.8% with 92% of the votes counted. It has been a tight race from the beginning, with both candidates taking their turns with very slim leads. Will it go red or remain blue? The AP decision desk has yet to decide, but some have called it for the Democrat, suggesting a final Senate seat count of 53 to 47 in the Republicans’ favor.
Regardless of the outcome of the Arizona race, however, the GOP will have a solid majority in the upper chamber. Confirming just about any of Trump’s appointees this round should be a breeze – even if one or two rebel over something like the nominee’s opinion on abortion (looking at you, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine), Republicans will have a small surplus to potentially make up for it.
As for legislation, well, a 53-seat majority just means that only seven Democrats have to be convinced to cross the aisle to break a filibuster instead of ten – though that may not end up making a difference. Democrats have managed to remain unified enough in recent history, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin aside, neither of whom will be in the next Congress, that seven may not be any easier an ask than ten – or 20, for that matter. Just how much will the Democrats be able to obstruct the Republican legislative agenda? That may well depend on how willing the GOP is to erase the legislative filibuster this go around – something Democrats tried to do on more than one occasion in the current Congress, failing only because of the aforementioned Sinema and Manchin.
Can the House Deliver the Triumvirate?
Republicans have won 214 seats in the House to 203 so far for Democrats, and just 18 remain to be called. Of those, eight are leaning red and ten are leaning blue, bringing us ever closer to a final count of 222-213. It’s a good enough majority to ensure that most GOP-led legislation can clear the lower chamber, but it may not be enough, by itself, to avoid a repeat of 2023’s dramatic and drawn-out battle for the gavel.
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) barely won the gavel in 2023. It took 15 rounds of voting over several days and numerous concessions to the Freedom Caucus, who easily held up the process by voting against McCarthy alongside Democrats, who wanted their own party leader to grab the gavel. This particular vote needs a simple majority of those present and voting, not necessarily the whole House, and McCarthy finally got that with a 216-vote in his favor.
Then he lost it.
On October 3, 2023, Florida’s Matt Gaetz was joined by a handful of fellow Republicans and all the Democrats to oust McCarthy 216-210. House Republicans finally got another speaker in place on October 25 when they unanimously backed Louisiana lawmaker Mike Johnson, but that unity didn’t last, either. Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to unseat Johnson and was backed by 32 other Republicans. The Democrats, however, saved the day for the speaker and kept the wheels in motion. The final count was 359 to 43.
Why does it matter, in the grand scheme of things? Well, without a speaker, the House can’t hold any other votes. That could be a big problem, since Congress is constitutionally required to hold a joint session on January 6, 2025, to certify the 2024 election results. The new House session will convene on January 3, meaning representatives have just three days to settle on a speaker. Politico quoted an unnamed Democratic Party aide: “As a result of the protracted Republican infighting of 2023 – we are concerned about the possibility that a similarly messy Speaker fight could slip past Jan. 6 and prevent the House from convening the joint session. Staff are looking into that scenario and it’s unclear how Congress would be able to comply with the Constitution’s demand for a joint session when the House, effectively, doesn’t exist.”
Speaker Mike Johnson certainly has put in the work this year. He visited more than 240 cities across 40 states stumping for his fellow Republicans – and so far, it seems to have paid off! Whether that buys him enough goodwill even among the Freedom Caucus lawmakers who tried to vacate the speakership earlier this year for him to hold onto the gavel without major assistance across the aisle remains to be seen. Would Democrats come to his rescue once again, if needed, in the name of preventing a January 6 debacle? Or, now that they know it isn’t their candidate being confirmed, would they help remove him and let the dice fall where they may?
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