Republicans won control of the US House on Wednesday, returning the party to power in Washington and giving conservatives an advantage in blunting President Joe Biden’s agenda and a flurry of investigations. But the threadbare majority would present an immediate challenge to GOP leaders and complicate the party’s ability to govern.
More than a week after Election Day, Republicans secured the 218th seats needed to flip the House from Democratic control. The full scope of the party’s majority may not be clear for several more days – or weeks – as votes are still being counted in the competitive race.
But they are on track to run together for what could be the party’s smallest majority in the 21st century, rivaling in 2001, when Republicans had a majority of just nine seats, 221-212 with two independents. The GOP had predicted a sweeping victory in this year’s midterm elections, when the party hoped to capitalize on economic challenges and Mr. Biden’s lagging popularity to reset the agenda on Capitol Hill.
Instead, Democrats showed surprising resilience, capturing moderate, suburban districts from Virginia to Minnesota and Kansas. The results could complicate House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s plans to become speaker as some conservative members have questioned whether to endorse him or put conditions on his endorsement.
President Joe Biden congratulated Mr McCarthy on Wednesday night and said he stood ready to “work with House Republicans to deliver results for working families”.
“Last week’s elections demonstrated the strength and resilience of American democracy. There was a strong rejection of election rigging, political violence and intimidation,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “There was an emphatic statement that, in America, people The will prevails.”
“The future is too promising to get bogged down in political warfare,” he said.
The narrow margins have upended Republican politics and prompted finger-pointing about what went wrong. Some in the GOP put the blame Donald Trump For worse results than expected. The former president, who announced his third White House bid on Tuesday, picked candidates during this year’s Republican primaries who often questioned the results of the 2020 election or downplayed the mob attack on the US Capitol last year was. Many of them fought to win during the general election.
Despite the GOP’s overwhelming performance, the party would still have remarkable strength. Republicans would take control of key committees, giving them the ability to shape legislation and launch investigations into Mr Biden, his family and his administration. Of particular interest is the investigation into the foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s son. Some of the most conservative lawmakers have raised the possibility of impeaching Mr. Biden, although it would be very difficult for the party to do so with a tight majority.
Any legislation that emerges from the House could face huge hurdles in the Senate, where Democrats held a majority on Saturday. Both parties are viewing the Dec. 6 Senate runoff in Georgia as their last chance to bolster their ranks.
With such a potentially thin House majority, there is also the potential for legislative chaos. The dynamic essentially allows an individual member to heavily influence what happens in the chamber. This could lead to particularly difficult conditions for GOP leaders as they try to keep the government funded or garner support for mandatory measures that would raise the debt ceiling.
The GOP’s failure to win more—they needed a net gain of five seats to take a majority—was particularly surprising because the party went into the election benefiting from a congressional map redrawn by Republican legislatures. History was also on the side of the Republicans: the party that holds the White House lost seats in Congress during the first midterms of almost every new president of the modern era.
The new majority will usher in a new set of leaders in Washington. If chosen to succeed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the top post, McCarthy will lead what is likely to be a rowdy convention of House Republicans, most of whom are aligned with Mr. Trump’s bare-knuckles brand of politics. Many Republicans in the incoming Congress rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election, even as claims of widespread fraud were dismissed by courts, election officials and Mr Trump’s own attorney general.
Mr McCarthy won the nomination for House speaker on Tuesday when the new Congress convenes in January.
After winning the nomination, Mr. McCarthy said, “I am proud to announce that the era of one-party Democrat rule in Washington is over.”
Republican candidates pledged on the campaign trail to cut taxes and tighten border security. GOP lawmakers could also freeze aid to Ukraine as it fights war with Russia or use the threat of defaulting on the country’s debt to extract cuts to social spending and entitlements — though all such efforts would be difficult, given That’s how small the GOP majority can be after all in the end doing just that.
As a senator and then vice president, Mr. Biden spent his career brokering legislative compromises with Republicans. But as president, he was clear about what he saw as the threats posed by the current Republican Party.
Mr. Biden said the midterms show voters want Democrats and Republicans to find ways to cooperate and govern in a bipartisan way, but also noted that Republicans have not achieved the electoral surge they were betting on and vowed Was, “I’m not going to change anything in any fundamental way.
The AP Votecast, a comprehensive survey of national voters, showed that concerns about high inflation and the fragility of democracy heavily influenced voters. Half of voters said inflation has increased significantly over the past year with prices for groceries, gasoline, housing, food and other costs. Slightly fewer – 44% – said the future of democracy was their primary consideration.
Contrary to GOP expectations, Mr. Biden did not entirely blame for inflation, with nearly half of voters saying higher-than-normal prices were due to factors outside their control. And despite the president facing criticism from pessimistic voters, some of those voters supported Democratic candidates.
The landmark Roe v. Democrats also benefited from the anger overturning the Wade decision. Voters in Michigan voted to amend their state constitution to protect abortion rights, while Republican Kentucky far more strongly rejected a constitutional amendment declaring no abortion rights.
Overall, 7 out of 10 voters said the High Court decision overturning a 1973 ruling that enshrined abortion rights was an important factor in their midterm decisions. Votecasts also showed that the reversal was widely unpopular. Nearly 6 in 10 say they are annoyed or dissatisfied with it. And roughly 6 in 10 say they support legislation guaranteeing legal abortion nationwide.