A week after the US went to the polls, control of the Senate remains in Democratic hands while the House appears to be headed towards a narrow Republican majority. The final counting in some key races has yet to be finalized. News organizations have projected the final count will be 216 Democratic seats and 219 Republicans. A majority is 218.
What does this mean for legislation?
Kevin McCarthy or whomever leads the House Republicans will have a real challenge getting bills passed by the House. With this razor thin majority, a handful of Republican House Members can torpedo legislation by threatening to withhold their support. On several occasions the Democratic leadership had to modify proposals when a group of either moderates or progressive didn’t support legislation.
Assuming the Republicans do win a majority, important new Members will be from swing districts in Democratic states such as New York and California where Rs had some of their key pickups. With former President Trump reportedly ready to launch his Presidential campaign this week it is likely to put a spotlight on his leading supporters in Congress. Former President Trump is not afraid to weigh in on upcoming key votes; in fact, he has already said that Senate Republican Leader McConnell should be “impeached” for supporting an increase in the debt ceiling. Pro-Trump Republican legislators have a great loyalty to the former President than to the House Republican leadership.
In the next Congress, if House Democrats can offer a united front on key legislative proposals, Republicans will only be able to lose 2 or 3 members if they are to prevail. With a Republican caucus that includes members such at Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz and other members of the Freedom Caucus, a handful of dissenters will have the ability to kill a leadership initiative. This will be especially true if former President Trump weights in on critical issues ranging from the debt ceiling to funding the war in Ukraine.
The strength of the Republican House will be in the ability to hold hearings. A Committee chair has an almost unfettered ability to hold hearings. The Chair can pick the topic, date, and witnesses in order to set the Committee’s agenda. Republicans have expressed interest in holding hearings on issues ranging from activities by the President’s son Hunter Biden, to more substantive policy areas such as Covid policies, China, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. While there may be parts of the Republican legislative agenda that might test the cohesiveness of their membership, embarrassing the Biden administration will be a uniting theme.
Senate
In what looked like a volatile year for incumbents, so far not a single incumbent has been defeated. For the Democrats, endangered Senators in NH, NV and AZ were all re-elected. The final endangered Democrat, Georgia’s Raphael Warnock, got more votes than his opponent Herschel Walker but is now in a 12/6 run-off as he failed to get 50% as required by Georgia law.
Walker may have a real challenge in the run-off as he will not have the considerable coattails of the Republican Governor Brian Kemp. The magnitude of Walker’s challenge can be seen in looking at Election Day results when Kemp got 200,000 more votes than Walker. Furthermore, Republicans were hoping that the GA runoff would determine control of the Senate, but with Democrats already holding 50 seats the GA race would just cushion the Democratic majority. This could add to the difficulty Walker has in getting Republicans to the polls on December 6.
A Warnock victory will give a little breathing room to Leader Schumer as WV Senator Joe Manchin will no longer be the 50th and deciding vote on key partisan issues. A Warnock victory will also protect against the death of a Democratic Senator in a state that has a Republican Governor who could shift the balance of power with the appointment of a Republican Senator.
It was also a good election for the most endangered Republican incumbent, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson who was re-elected for a new six-year term.
The Democratic majority will allow the Biden Administration to keep up its disciplined approach to nominating federal judges and will also ensure that nominees to Administration positions are more easily confirmed. These accomplishments will serve as a big plus for the Biden record if he runs for a second term.
Perhaps most importantly, major legislation will have to be hashed out between the House and the Senate. Perhaps of most importance for the Democrats and the Biden Administration, a Republican controlled Congress won’t be able send messaging bills to the White House to force a Presidential veto. However, on issues ranging from the debt ceiling to approval of the annual federal budget a divided Congress can raise headline risk to meet “drop dead” target dates.
Polls
The polls again seemed to fall short. Polling, especially weeks prior to the election, was showing a red wave. Polls in October showed Republicans gaining ground in seats that were assumed to be solidly Democratic such as Colorado, Washington and even Connecticut. They also showed the New York Governor’s race as very close. In the end the Democrats won all the races handily, and polling which had shown a Democratic bias in 2016 and 2020 suddenly missed with a Republican tilt.
One of the possible reasons for the difficulty in polling this year was that exit polls showed young voters turned out in larger numbers than had been expected and tended to vote for Democratic candidates. As I have written, the switch from land lines to cell phones has made polling more difficult. This is of course even more of an issue with younger voters who exclusively use cell phones and seldom answer a call that is not identified in their address book. I might add that an old guy like me has the same policy of not answering unidentified callers. This all adds up to challenges for polling that must be dealt with in coming election cycles.