Republicans have gained enough seats to control the U.S. House of Representatives, completing the party’s sweep to power and securing their dominance in government alongside President-elect Donald Trump.
A Republican victory in Arizona, along with a victory in California — which was slowly counting votes early Wednesday — gave the GOP the 218 seats in the House of Representatives that constitute the majority. Republicans had also previously won control of the Senate.
With tight but hard-fought majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to transform the federal government and quickly implement Trump’s vision for the country.
The incoming president has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation ever seen in the United States, extend tax cuts, punish his political adversaries, seize control of the most powerful tools of the federal government and reshape the nation’s economy.
Republican electoral victories ensure that Congress will support that agenda, and that Democrats will be almost powerless to counter it.
When Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered Republican leaders resistant to his political ideas, as well as a more liberal-influenced Supreme Court. It won’t be like that this time.
When he returns to the White House, Trump will work with a Republican Party that has been completely transformed by his “Make America Great Again” movement, and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three named by him.
Trump gathered House Republicans at a hotel near the Capitol on Wednesday morning, his first return to Washington since the election.
“I suspect I won’t run again unless they say, ‘He’s good, we need to figure something out,’” Trump told the room full of lawmakers, who laughed in response.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who with Trump’s backing won the Republican Conference nomination to remain president next year, has talked about taking a “blowtorch” to the federal government and its programs, thinking of ways to review even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years.
The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has brought the House Republican Conference closer to Trump during the campaign season as they prepare an “ambitious” 100-day agenda.
“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Johnson said this week. “The American people want us to implement and deliver that ‘America First’ agenda.”
Trump’s allies in the House are already signaling that they will seek retribution for the legal problems Trump faced while out of office. The incoming president said Wednesday that he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, a staunch loyalist, for attorney general.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has said Republican lawmakers are “not ruling anything out” in their plans to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, even as Smith is wrapping up two federal investigations into Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and hoarding secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Still, with some races still undecided, Republicans could retain the majority by just a few seats when the new Congress begins session.
Trump’s decision to select members of the House of Representatives for positions in their government — Reps. Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik so far — could complicate Johnson’s ability to maintain a majority in the early days of the new Congress.
Gaetz submitted his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately. Johnson said he hoped the seat would be filled by the time the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3. Replacements for House members require special elections, and the legislative districts held by the three departing members have been in Republican hands for years.
Given the narrow margin by which Republicans won the majority, it is far from guaranteed that the House of Representatives will be highly functional.
The last two years of Republican control of the House were defined by infighting as hardline conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by openly challenging their party leadership.
Although Johnson — sometimes with Trump’s help — largely controlled open rebellions against his leadership, the party’s right wing is ascendant and ambitious following the president-elect’s election victory.
The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won difficult elections by running on moderate agendas. It remains to be seen whether they will continue to support some of the more extreme proposals advocated by Trump and his allies.
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