WASHINGTON — Republicans on Wednesday won enough seats to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, with races in California and Arizona being the final two victories that gave the GOP a 218-member majority.
With the House, conservatives have secured their party’s sweep into power alongside President-elect Donald Trump — Republicans earlier gained control of the Senate from Democrats.
And with hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Trump’s vision for the country.
The incoming president has promised to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation operation, extend tax breaks, punish his political enemies, seize control of the federal government’s most powerful tools and reshape the U.S. economy. The GOP election victories ensure that Congress will be on board for that agenda, and Democrats will be almost powerless to check it.
Six of the tightest congressional races in the country were in California, and Democrats thought they could flip enough Republican seats to win back the House. But they fell short.
The Associated Press announced Corona Republican Rep. Ken Calvert’s reelection Wednesday afternoon, though he had declared victory on Monday. His race against Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, was hotly contested and attracted national attention, with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana traveling to Riverside County to stump for Calvert, and Trump rallying nearby.
Four congressional races in California remain officially outstanding: Reps. John Duarte (R-Modesto) in District 13, Michelle Steel (R-Seal Beach) in District 45, Jim Costa (D-Fresno) in District 21 and Josh Harder (D-Tracy) in District 9.
Harder’s Republican challenger in the Central Valley district, Kevin Lincoln, conceded Wednesday, saying in a statement “I remain committed to our community and our shared mission to make the Valley a better place.”
“This campaign may have ended, but the work continues,” he wrote.
Steel leads Democratic challenger Derek Tran by just 349 votes, the closest margin in the country as of Thursday morning.
Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo said the GOP House victory reflected the national mood. But he noted that Trump’s nomination of several Republican House members to serve in his Cabinet could affect the Republican majority and leave openings for Democrats to win future special elections needed to fill those seats.
Trujillo also predicted that California Democrats will have a chance in two years to claw back some Republican-held seats.
“California is still a land of opportunity for the 2026 cycle,” he said.
When Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered GOP leaders resistant to his policy ideas, as well as a Supreme Court that was ideologically divided. Not this time.
When he returns to the White House, Trump will be working with a Republican Party that has been transformed by his “Make America Great Again” movement and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three whom he appointed.
Trump rallied House Republicans at a Capitol Hill hotel Wednesday morning, marking his first return to Washington since the election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,’” Trump said to the room full of lawmakers, who laughed in response.
Johnson, who with Trump’s endorsement won the Republican Caucus’ nomination to stay on as speaker next year, has spoken of taking a “blowtorch” to the federal government and its programs, eyeing ways to overhaul even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years. The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has pulled the House Republicans closer to Trump during the campaign season as they prepare what he called 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 they will seek retribution for the legal troubles Trump faced while out of office. The incoming president Wednesday said he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a fierce loyalist, for attorney general.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has said GOP lawmakers are “not taking anything off the table” in their plans to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, even as Smith is winding down two federal felony indictments of Trump that charge him with crimes related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
With a few races still uncalled, the Republicans may hold the House majority by just a few seats as the new Congress begins. Trump’s decision to pull members from the House for posts in his administration — Reps. Gaetz, Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) 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 could be filled by the time the new Congress convenes Jan. 3. Replacements for members of the House require special elections, and the congressional districts held by the three departing members have been held by Republicans for years.
With the thin majority, a highly functioning House is also far from guaranteed. The last two years of Republican House control were defined by infighting as hard-line conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by defying their party leadership. While Johnson — at times with Trump’s help — largely tamed open rebellions against his leadership, the right wing of the party is ascendant and ambitious on the heels of Trump’s election victory.
The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won tough elections by running as moderates. It remains to be seen whether they will stay onboard for some of the most extreme proposals championed by Trump and his allies.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, is trying to keep Democrats relevant to any legislation that passes Congress, an effort that will depend on Democratic leaders unifying more than 200 members, even as the party undergoes a postmortem of its election losses.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday that Democrats are listening and learning, and will “chart a course forward” in the weeks ahead. One of the priorities, he said, will be passing disaster aid before Trump is sworn in. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut off federal disaster aid for California’s wildfires.
Asked about winning back the House, Aguilar said Democrats need to appeal to constituents who are concerned about the costs of necessities, such as gas, groceries and rent.
“If we can’t communicate a message that helps lower the cost that people pay, then they may not support us, and so we need to be mindful of that moving forward,” he said. “But I do think that this poses an opportunity for us to communicate a message that works for everyday Americans, and that’s what we plan to do.”
The GOP’s Senate majority of 53 seats also ensures that Republicans will have breathing room when it comes to confirming Cabinet posts, or Supreme Court justices if there are vacancies. Not all those confirmations are guaranteed. Some Republicans were incredulous Wednesday when the news hit Capitol Hill that Trump would nominate Gaetz as his attorney general. Even close Trump allies in the Senate distanced themselves from supporting Gaetz, who had been facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Gaetz resigned his House seat in advance of the expected release of the probe’s reports, officials said Thursday.
Still, Trump on Sunday demanded that any Republican leader must allow him to make administration appointments without a vote while the Senate is in recess. Such a move would be a notable shift in power away from the Senate, yet all the leadership contenders quickly agreed to the idea. Democrats could potentially fight such a maneuver.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: www.latimes.com