Eight days after Election Day, Republicans have clinched a House majority and full control of Congress.
A dozen races were yet to be called on Wednesday morning, but the GOP claimed the last two seats it needed to win the lower chamber by paper-thin margins in the early afternoon. By 2 p.m., they secured the 218 seats needed to overtake the Democrats, who have won 207 races this cycle, according to NBC News. Several more are yet to be called.
The incoming Trump administration made several essential White House appointments this week, risking the erosion of their narrow majority in the House. The president-elect chose two Members of Congress—Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida—to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser, respectively.
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Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s gotten the nod from Trump and believes he has a reinstatement on lock, has said he doesn’t anticipate that the incoming president will pick off any remaining Members as he seeks to fill positions in his cabinet. Majority Leader Steve Scalise, too, is expected to retain his role in the new Congress, though official elections will take place Thursday.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on Wednesday elected Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history, as he retires after 18 years. Thune beat out Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) for the role.
Trump, who traveled to Washington on Wednesday to address Congressional Republicans and meet with President Joe Biden at the White House, is already seeking to draw upon the benefits of a Senate majority and exert control as the incoming leader of the party—and the country.
On Sunday, the former president tweeted that any Republican Senator looking to become Senate Majority Leader would need to agree to calling Senate recesses that would allow him to skirt the normal process for confirming nominees to key government roles.
Traditionally, the Senate holds the power to confirm appointments, but the president-elect wants free rein over the instatement of new picks. “We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote.
In the same tweet, Trump also wrote that no Supreme Court judges should be approved during the lame-duck session. According to the president-elect, “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership”—an outcomes he said is “NOT ACCEPTABLE.”
The Republicans have maintained their tenuous hold over the lower chamber of Congress, but they will still have to contend with the implications of ruling with a narrow majority.
While presidents dating back to Bill Clinton have all enjoyed unified governments—full party control of the House and Senate—when first taking office, midterm elections are often messy. The president has just two years to advance his agenda before Members have to defend their seats once again, and they’ll begin campaigning long before that.
If there are bumps in the road for the Republicans in the lead-up to the midterms, “The strength of the coalition held together by the president-elect is going to start to fray,” Matt Priest, CEO and president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA), told an audience of industry insiders at Sourcing Journal’s fall summit on Tuesday.
Trump’s win is replete with notable anomalies, among them the fact that for the first time since President Grover Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897, the country will see a non-consecutive second-term president.
What this means for the administration, and the unity of an often “dysfunctional” Republican bloc, is largely yet to be seen. But according to Priest, because Trump is not running for reelection in 2028, and his supporters in the House are thinking about a future beyond his time in the White House, “2025 is pivotal” to his agenda.
The first 100 days of his last term in office will likely be spent taking “aggressive” measures to advance new legislation and deliver on campaign promises.
“Once the calendar flips to ’26, all bets are off as to what can be done and accomplished,” he said.
