House Republicans appear to be on the verge of keeping the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2024 election after picking up four seats in the U.S. Senate to get to 53 and of course reclaiming the White House with President-elect Donald Trump’s historic win of both the popular vote and the Electoral College over Vice President Kamala Harris 312 to 226.
According to RealClearPolitics.com, House Republicans are now up to 217 seats, just one shy of the needed 218 to seat a majority, and still several races left to call.
For example, the race for the at-large seat in Alaska has U.S. Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) leading challenger Mary Petola by more than 10,000 votes, 125,195 to 114,918, with 71 percent reporting, 49.5 percent to 45.4 percent. That alone would be enough to get Republicans to 218, but with Alaska’s ranked-tier voting system, anything could happen.
In California alone, seven races have been left undecided, of which, Republicans lead three. That would get them to 221.
In Arizona’s 6th Congressional district, there’s a close race wherein U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani leads Kirsten Engel by about 1,100 votes, 180,913 to 178,820, or 49.1 percent to 48.5 percent. That would get Republicans to 222.
The only other race on the RealClearPolitics.com board is Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) leads challenger Austin Theriault by about 2,200 votes with 99 percent reporting, 196,189 to 194,030, or 50.2 percent to 49.7 percent. Republicans don’t appear likely to prevail there.
Still, with just one more race left to decide the balance, it appears Republicans should have a majority, albeit a very slim one, with which to govern. But that’s what happens when the incumbents win: In 37 states, no seats changed party hands.
Barring breakthroughs on bipartisan legislation, Republicans will have to keep their conference together on important bills that are pretty much guaranteed to pass: continuing resolutions, appropriations (consolidated or not), debt ceilings (next one is due Jan. 1, 2025), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorizations (next one is up in April 2026) and National Defense Authorization Acts that come up annually.
As those all require 60 votes in the Senate to come up for final votes, besides those, Republicans will attempt to get much of their legislative agenda through budget reconciliation: tax cuts — Trump promised business tax relief for those who only employ Americans, to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts and no taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security — and any spending items that might come up.
House Republicans may want to increase the use of reconciliation to defund regulations — although the Senate parliamentarian might see things differently — but a workaround might be to reduce the full-time equivalent hours for bureaucrats who implement regulations.
There could also be an attempt to reduce the federal workforce overall via reduction in force, whether through the budget or through the appropriations process.
Other than that, with such a slim majority, anything else that might pass in the House would have to be built on whatever the Senate is willing to pass on a bipartisan basis that incoming President Trump would be willing to sign.
And then, the midterms are right around the corner, wherein the incumbent party usually loses seats, wherein Republicans would be unlikely to keep the majority — in modern history the incumbent party only picked up seats in 1934, 1998 and 2002 with the Great Depression, Monica Lewinsky and 9/11. Whatever Republicans are planning on passing, they might want to get it done before 2026. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
