Speaker Mike Johnson’s small majority just got even smaller.
On Tuesday night, the final House race was called after Representative John Duarte of California, a freshman Republican, conceded to Adam Gray, a Democrat, cementing a 220-215 majority for Republicans in a margin even slimmer than they have now, at 220-213.
Those margins will erode even further in January, when Representatives Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida resign to take jobs in the Trump administration. Former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida has also given notice that he will not return.
Republicans will then be down to a 217-215majority, on par with the narrowest controlling margin in House history. If all Democrats are present and united in opposition to a measure, Mr. Johnson won’t be able to afford a single defection on the House floor until those vacancies are filled later this spring. Even then, no more than three Republicans can break ranks without dooming a bill’s passage.
Mr. Johnson sounded unfazed at the prospect on Wednesday, telling reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday: “We know how to work with a small majority. That’s our custom.”
He added: “We have nothing to spare. But all of our members know that. We talked about that today, as we do constantly — that this is a team effort, that we’ve got to all row in the same direction.”
What he did not mention is that much of his success in navigating a tiny majority over the last year has involved partnering with Democrats to push through must-pass legislation that his own party refused to support, an option that is unlikely to be available to him in the next Congress with President-elect Donald J. Trump in the White House.
Now, with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, Mr. Johnson will be managing high expectations with an even thinner margin and a slew of critical deadlines next year that will require Congress to take action.
“There’s lot of big priorities that we have for the people, and we’ll roll it out methodically,” Mr. Johnson said on “The Mike Gallagher Show,” listing the extension of Trump-era tax cuts, immigration and domestic energy reform. “A lot of this will happen in the first 100 days.”
He and other congressional leaders are looking to pass a short-term spending bill later this month — paired with a measure providing disaster aid for southern states ravaged by Hurricanes Helene and Milton — that would punt the government funding deadline to March, setting up a potentially fraught round of negotiations.
Even with total control of government, Mr. Johnson will have to balance the demands of hard-right lawmakers who have agitated for drastic spending reductions against more centrist members who generally oppose harsh cuts.
The bipartisan debt deal lawmakers negotiated with President Biden last year to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt limit expires January 2025.
And many of the sweeping tax cuts the party passed in 2017 will expire at the end of next year, meaning that without any action by Congress, taxes would go up for most Americans.
Republicans are expected to try to extend those tax cuts in a broad bill — or bills — using a process called budget reconciliation that sidesteps a filibuster and requires only a regular majority of 51 votes in the Senate.
Already several policy disagreements have emerged within the party, including on how they could raise revenue to pay for more tax cuts, and whether to end President Biden’s clean-energy subsidies next year, like a $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle.
The legislation is also likely to become a magnet for other issues Republicans have pledged to act on that have historically divided their conferences in Congress, including immigration.
“If you take a look at the priorities of one end of the spectrum for the House caucus and the other end on border, there’s some reconciliation — pun intended — that needs to be done before reconciliation,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said.
With an already narrow majority and Democrats in control of the House and Senate, Mr. Johnson has been repeatedly forced to rely on a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House to pass critical legislation to keep the government funded and avert a default on the nation’s debt. But with Republicans in control of all three levers of power in Washington come January, Mr. Johnson will be forced to cobble together legislation that can unite the two disparate wings of his own party, with no room for any defections.
“You’ll see great cooperation, bicameral cooperation, between the two bodies,” Mr. Johnson said at the Capitol. “And we’ll deal with it with a one-seat majority, just like we will when we fill those other seats.”
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