The U.S. House majority was uncertain on Wednesday. It was either going to stay with Republicans, which would start a new era of unified GOP government in Washington, or it was going to switch to Democrats as a last ditch effort to stop Trump’s plans for a second term.
A few seats, or even just one, will really make the difference. The decision will probably not be made until next week or later because the final counts will take a while.
The Republicans won a majority in the U.S. Senate by taking seats in West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that his chamber would follow suit next.
John F. Kennedy said Wednesday, “Republicans are about to have unified government in the White House, the Senate, and the House.”
President-elect Donald Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. He has built up more power around his #MAGA movement, which supports newcomers to Washington and sets the stage for his own return to the White House.
Johnson said that Republicans in Congress are working with Trump on a “ambitious” 100-day plan. Johnson said that Trump is “thinking big” about his legacy.
Getting rid of federal rules, cutting taxes, and protecting the southern border are the main things that the GOP wants to do if they win the White House and Congress. Trump has said that he will deport a lot of people and get back at people he thinks are his enemies.
To get the federal government “to heel,” Johnson said, Republicans want to get federal agencies out of Washington, D.C., and hire new people with the help of outside think tanks to work for the government.
But Johnson has had trouble running the House in his first year on the job, and the new Congress would be no different. There has been a lot of chaos in Congress this year, with hard-liners like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and others often going up against and overturning the GOP leadership.
Johnson only has a four-seat majority. If that number drops even more, the government could stop working.
Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Minority, said that the House “remains very much in play.”
Two House Republicans were defeated by Democrats in Jeffries’ home state of New York. He said that Democrats now need to pick up seats in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa, and California, but it’s too early to tell.
Jeffries said, “Every vote must be counted.”
The House races were a toss-up until the very end, with no clear path to the majority for either party. The two houses of Congress have almost never gone against each other.
There are some gains and losses for both parties, including during the redistricting process, which changes the lines between House seats. The process changed the order of seats in Alabama, North Carolina, and Louisiana.
A lot depends on what happens in the West, especially in California, where a few House seats are very close. Even mail-in ballots that come in a week after the election will still be counted. People are paying close attention to races around the “blue dot” in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Alaska, which is very far away.
Trump said early Wednesday morning at his party in Florida on election night that the results gave Republicans a “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
He said that the loss in the Senate was “incredible” and that Johnson is “doing a terrific job.”
From the U.S. Capitol, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who is known for being very critical of Trump, said it was a “hell of a good day.”
Republicans marched across the country with Trump, taking back the three seats that Democrats had held and holding their own against Democratic challengers who failed to unseat Sen. Rick Scott in Florida and Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas.
In West Virginia, the state’s wealthy governor, Jim Justice, changed the seat that Sen. Joe Manchin was leaving. In Ohio, Republicans replaced Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown with Bernie Moreno, a Republican who sells luxury cars and works in blockchain technology. And in Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy beat Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
The Democrats kept from losing all of their seats by holding on to them in the “blue wall” states. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won a seat in the Michigan Senate that was up for grabs, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin was re-elected in Wisconsin. The race in Pennsylvania between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick was still not over.
Also, Democrats made history when they sent two Black women to the Senate. Their names are Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. Harris is one of only three black women who have served in the Senate. There have never been two at the same time.
Overall, Senate Republicans could get their strongest majority in years. This is a credit to McConnell, who has spent his whole career plotting his way to power, this time working with Trump, whom he privately called “despicable” before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
At a news conference on Wednesday, McConnell wouldn’t answer questions about how harshly he had criticized Trump in the past. He instead said that he saw the election results as a vote against the Biden administration.
He told reporters at the Capitol that if the Republicans took over the Senate, they would “control the guardrails” and stop any changes to the rules that would end the filibuster.
He said, “People were just not happy with this administration and the Democratic nominee was a part of it.”
It’s still not clear who will lead the new Republican Senate, since McConnell is getting ready to step down.
There will be a secret ballot election next week when senators return to Washington, D.C., to choose who will replace McConnell. The front-runners are No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and former No. 2 Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
