President-elect Donald J. Trump’s push to stack his administration with loyal members of Congress is colliding with a tough political reality for Republicans: They are running out of the bodies they need to preserve the narrow House majority they expect to hold.
With the party on track to win the House by a precariously small margin and Mr. Trump tapping two House members to serve in top national security posts, Republican leaders warned on Tuesday that they can’t spare any more.
“I don’t expect that we will have more members leaving, but I’ll leave that up to him,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday morning, as Congress returned to Washington for the first time since the election.
Control of the House of Representatives is still officially up for grabs, with several competitive races not yet called, but Republicans appear to be positioned to keep the majority by a similarly tiny edge that has made it so difficult for them to govern over the past two years. As of Tuesday afternoon, they had won control of 214 seats, and Democrats had 205. A party needs 218 seats for a majority, and most strategists expect that the G.O.P. will end up with only a few to a handful more than that.
That means that if Mr. Trump were to continue to raid their ranks to fill out his White House and cabinet, Republicans could lose their edge altogether.
“Every single vote will count, because if someone gets ill or has a car accident or a late flight on their plane, then it affects the votes on the floor,” said Mr. Johnson, who has cultivated a close relationship with Mr. Trump. He added that the president-elect “fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”
Mr. Trump has already tapped Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 4 House Republican, to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations, and Representative Mike Waltz, Republican of Florida, as his national security adviser.
Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority leader, echoed Mr. Johnson’s concern and tried to hint that the music had stopped on Washington’s current game of musical chairs — at least when it came to his ranks.
“Hopefully no more for a little while,” Mr. Scalise said.
Many House Republicans have spent years currying favor with Mr. Trump. Had he won the White House and Democrats taken back control of the House, those members would have been in prime positions to join his administration. The tight Republican majority in the House may benefit Mr. Trump’s agenda, but for at least some G.O.P. lawmakers, it will also mean putting their own personal ambitions on hold.
In the event of a House vacancy, there is typically a special election called to fill the seat for the remainder of the term. That process, the timing of which is sometimes dictated by the state’s governor, can take months.
In Ms. Stefanik’s case, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, would have an incentive to hold up the special election for as long as possible.
Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s most well-known backer who has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago while the president-elect fills out his cabinet, made it clear on X that he had reservations about Ms. Stefanik’s appointment, based on the tight margin of control expected in the House.
“Elise is awesome, but it might be too dicey to lose her from the House, at least for now,” Mr. Musk wrote.
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