Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, giving Donald Trump’s party full control of both chambers of the US Congress and wide latitude to push a radical agenda through the legislature.
Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries congratulated Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson late on Wednesday, after several TV networks projected Trump’s party would retain control of the House.
“House Democrats gave it our all, running aggressive, forward-looking and people-centred campaigns,” Jeffries said. “While we will not regain control of the Congress in January, falling just a few seats short, House Democrats will hold Republicans to a razor-thin majority.”
The House verdict comes more than a week after Trump won a convincing election victory over Kamala Harris in the presidential race and means that when he is inaugurated in January his party will control the House and Senate.
The unified government will hand Trump considerable freedom to push through his legislative agenda, including plans to renew and expand sweeping tax cuts.
The House result, which came after more than a week of counting in California and other states, is a blow to Democrats, who will be minorities in both the Senate and House and unable to lead powerful congressional committees to oversee investigations into the Trump administration’s actions.
Eleven House races have still yet to be called, and the margin of the Republican majority has yet to be confirmed. But TV networks declared Trump’s party would keep control of the House because Republicans had secured the 218 seats necessary to have a majority in the 435-member body. The Financial Times’ tally of House results, which is based on race calls by the Associated Press, showed Republicans still one shy of the majority at 6.45pm on Wednesday.
Republicans will also have a firm grip on the Senate — where Democrats have held a slim majority in the current Congress — after picking up four seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Montana.
Republican senators on Wednesday elected John Thune to replace Mitch McConnell as the party’s leader in the upper chamber. McConnell, 82, remains a senator but said last year he would step down from leadership following a series of health issues.
Johnson, the Republican congressman from Louisiana and close ally of Trump who became Speaker last year, has said he intends to remain in the role.
Trump also presided over a unified government in the initial two years of his first administration, in 2017 and 2018, before Democrats won back control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
But many in Washington expect Trump to exert a tighter grip on Congress this time around, given the unwavering loyalty he commands from many top lawmakers, including the leaders of both chambers. In his first administration, he often faced opposition from McConnell and then-Speaker Paul Ryan.
Still, Trump will not have unchecked power over Congress, and Democrats may be able to exert leverage over his administration in narrow but meaningful ways.
Although budget and tax changes require only a simple majority of both chambers, and the president’s appointments can also be confirmed with the backing of 50 senators, most other legislation will need to break the Senate filibuster — a 60-vote threshold — to become law.
That means Senate Democrats could block other Trump legislative priorities — including laws to crack down on immigration at the US-Mexico border, or repeal the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare — unless Senate Republicans take the drastic step of scrapping the filibuster altogether. Thune on Wednesday said the filibuster would be “unchanged” so long as he was Senate majority leader.