House Republicans will enter the 119th Congress with a razor-thin majority after an election that saw Democrats score a net gain of one seat — a rare bright spot for the party that decisively lost the White House and the Senate last month.
The final race to be decided — nearly one month after Election Day — was in California’s 13th District, where Democrat Adam Gray ousted Republican incumbent John Duarte, who had ranked second on Roll Call’s final list of the 10 most vulnerable House incumbents.
That means Republicans won a total of 220 House seats this year, while Democrats won 215.
Gray, a former state assemblyman, was ahead by fewer than 200 votes when The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday. Duarte had conceded the contest hours before, according to multiple published reports.
California Rep. Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, highlighted Democratic victories in the Golden State by not only Gray, but also George Whitesides, Derek Tran and Dave Min in closely contested House races.
“California Democrats faced the same headwinds that our Party endured across the country and we were still able to flip three Republican-held seats that had been out of reach in previous, more favorable cycles, while holding another competitive open seat targeted by Republicans and special interest groups,” Aguilar said in a statement.
More angst ahead for GOP
House Republicans are expected to start the new Congress on Jan. 3 already down by at least one seat.
That’s because their final tally includes the Florida seat won by Republican Matt Gaetz, who resigned from the House in November. The former congressman has said that he does not intend to take the oath of office for his seat in the state’s western panhandle, even after withdrawing from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.
The GOP margins are expected to shrink even further in the session’s early months when another Florida Republican, Rep. Michael Waltz, resigns to serve as Trump’s national security adviser — a White House role that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Waltz is expected to step down on or around Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
The timing of outgoing House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s departure is slightly less clear, though it’s likely that the New York lawmaker will win fast approval from the Republican-led Senate to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the next administration.
The special elections for Gaetz’s and Waltz’s seats are slated for April 1, according to the Florida secretary of State’s office, with primaries on Jan. 28. And once Stefanik resigns, New York law gives Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul a 10-day window to call the special election, which would need to be set for between 70 and 80 days after that.
And until those seats are filled, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and the Republican leadership team would be left with no votes to spare in a chamber with otherwise full attendance: Losing even a single GOP vote would result in a 216-216 tie.
How they got here
House Republicans’ narrow majority stands in contrast to Trump’s decisive win in the Electoral College and GOP candidates flipping four seats to win control of the Senate.
In preserving their slender advantage, House Republicans were able to partly offset losses in California and New York with victories over a pair of Democratic incumbents in Pennsylvania. GOP challengers Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan unseated Democratic Reps. Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright, respectively, while Republican Rep. Scott Perry, a top target for Democrats, held on to his Central Pennsylvania seat. (The commonwealth proved particularly rough terrain for Democrats this year, with incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey also losing to Republican challenger Dave McCormick.)
Republicans also flipped the House seat in Michigan vacated by Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin for her successful Senate run; a suburban Denver seat in Colorado held by freshman Democrat Yadira Caraveo; and Alaska’s at-large House district, where Republican Nick Begich defeated Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola under the state’s ranked-choice voting process.
Off-cycle redistricting led to some widely anticipated flips, as well. Republicans picked up three seats in North Carolina following the redrawing of a favorable map, while Democrats gained one seat each in Alabama and Louisiana.
Pushing Trump’s agenda
With the House majority — however narrow — retained and Trump’s backing secured, Johnson is at least expected to win a floor election for speaker when the 119th Congress convenes in January, though even that would require near-full attendance.
The bigger challenge comes as it gets time to move ahead on Trump’s agenda.
Even before Trump returns to the Oval Office, the new House and Senate GOP majorities can get to work on a fiscal 2025 budget resolution, which would provide a pathway — in the form of reconciliation instructions — for the new president’s policy blueprint, especially when it comes to extending the tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term.
Since incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said that eliminating the legislative filibuster is not of interest to members of his conference, the way to enact bills into law with just a simple Senate majority vote will be through the budget reconciliation process.
Senate Republicans will, at least for a while, have a larger majority than their colleagues in the House. Assuming full attendance, they’d have a three-vote cushion to push through nominations or legislation, backed by Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote.
While Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is expected to resign his seat after a likely confirmation to be Trump’s secretary of State, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will be able to appoint a replacement Republican senator in short order.
It’s not yet clear how much of the early agenda will be spent resolving leftover appropriations business, as Congress still needs to extend current government funding or enact broader fiscal 2025 spending plans before Christmas.
With Senate Republicans well short of the 60 votes needed to thwart Democrat-led filibusters of legislation in their chamber, House Republican leaders will need to decide when it makes sense to force members to take tough votes on the more partisan Trump priorities, such as bills that have no chance of becoming law.
Mary Ellen McIntire contributed to this report.
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