As last week got underway, there were still a handful of unresolved U.S. House races. As this week gets underway, just about every congressional contest has been called. NBC News reported:
Democrat Derek Tran has defeated Republican incumbent Michelle Steel for a House seat representing California’s Orange County and Los Angeles, NBC News projects. … Separately, Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won re-election in her House race for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, NBC News also projected Wednesday. She narrowly fended off Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan, holding onto her seat by less than one percentage point.
As things stand, Republicans have won 220 seats, while Democrats have won 214 seats. There’s still one outstanding race in California, where the Democratic candidate appears to be ahead. While the race hasn’t been called, most observers believe we’ll likely end up with a 220-215 chamber when all is said and done. (For the cycle, this will reflect a net gain of two seats for House Democrats.)
For the GOP, the good news is that the party’s majority will still exist when the 118th Congress gets underway. The bad news for Republicans is that they’ll have the smallest majority in roughly a century.
But the closer one looks, the more complicated the image appears: The 220-member majority includes Florida’s Matt Gaetz, who recently resigned weeks after winning his re-election bid. It also includes Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida, both of whom are poised to give up their seats to join the Trump administration.
Yes, there will be special elections to fill those vacancies, and Republicans like their chances of keeping those seats. But as a practical matter, in the first few months of the next Congress, the balance of power will be 217 to 215.
As a matter of arithmetic, on key votes in which Democrats are united in opposition, that means the House GOP conference will have to be completely united to succeed. If even one Republican member balks, it will be enough to derail the party’s legislative endeavors. (A 216-216 vote constitutes failure. Bills need a majority to advance.)
And if recent history is any guide, keeping the entirety of the House Republican conference together will be profoundly difficult.
Even electing a House speaker might be tricky, given the number of Republicans who’ve been critical of incumbent Speaker Mike Johnson. Indeed, let’s not forget that as recently as April, some right-wing members launched an effort to strip Johnson of his gavel. The campaign was a dud because only three GOP members signed on to the scheme, but next month, three members might very well be determinative.
As for how we arrived at this point, let’s not forget that voters in North Carolina elected a Republican majority to the state Supreme Court in 2022, which in turned allowed Republican state legislators to approve a radically gerrymandered congressional map.
The consequence of this one change was three additional GOP seats in the U.S. House. Were it not for the North Carolina gerrymander, we’d see House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.
