A night shot of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Republican Party managed to eke out a slim majority in the House on Wednesday, according to announcements that broke in the late afternoon eight days after Election Day, after Republican Congressman Mike Garcia of the 27th District in California appeared to win his race with Democrat Christy Smith, a former Democratic state legislator. That call gives them 218 seats, to 210 sure votes for the Democrats.

Seven races are still undecided as votes are still being counted. The announcement ushers in a new era of divided government.

The New York Times called it “a somewhat anticlimactic finish to an election that was an overall disappointment for House Republicans who had arrived at Election Day with grandiose predictions of a red wave … a delayed yet consequential finish to the 2022 midterm elections that will reorder the balance of power in Washington and is expected to effectively give the party a veto on President Biden’s agenda for the next two years.”

Democratic incumbents displayed an “uncanny durability,” they report, from Michigan to Virginia to Kansas to Pennsylvania.

“If not for a series of court cases that affected new district lines in states like Florida, New York and Ohio, Republicans might not have won a majority at all. The Democratic Party’s struggles in New York, where Republican gains included knocking off the chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, also bolstered the Republican takeover.”

NAJ screen shot

The Senate Firewall

The Democrats maintain control of the Senate, in a 50-49 split with the Vice President holding the deciding vote in any tie, as all eyes focus on the Dec. 6 runoff between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, the wild talking hypocrite and former star fullback.

The final results show that voters failed to deliver the type of beating other presidents have taken in midterm elections, even in the face of the highest inflation in 40 years, many responding to Biden’s framing of the election as a choice between his party and MAGA Republican extremism.

A super PAC aligned with the House Republican leadership out-raised its Democratic counterpart by nearly $90 million, giving the party a financial edge.

Among Republicans, finger-pointing over the party’s shortcomings, in both the House and Senate, had already begun in earnest. Some blamed the party’s messaging. Others took aim at the large role that Trump has continued to play in the party after Republicans lost the House, Senate and White House during his first term.

Undaunted, Trump announced another run for president on Tuesday evening at his private club in Florida in one of the darkest speeches since his dark cloud tainted inaugural address in January, 2017.

Kevin McCarthy, 57, won a closed-door, secret-ballot vote 188 to 31 to become the nominee as the next Speaker of the House, beating the protest candidacy of Congressman Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican who was an influential figure in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results on behalf of Trump. That vote will have to be confirmed in a formal floor vote in January.

Democratic control of the Senate ensures that whatever agenda McCarthy and the Republicans push through is likely to be dead on arrival in the upper chamber. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, has called the Senate a “firewall” against Republican priorities.

President Biden will continue to be able to get his judicial appointments confirmed, including any potential Supreme Court vacancies.

Republicans will now have broad subpoena power in the House, however, to initiate investigations into the Biden administration, and McCarthy has signaled that they are eager to move in that direction.

They have also threatened to hold Social Security and Medicare funding hostage to a budget deal and raising the debt limit, keeping the government open and running, which a new Morning Consult poll shows is NOT popular at all with the American people.

The day after the election, when a Republican victory in the House appeared likely but uncertain, Biden floated an olive branch.

“I am prepared to work with my Republican colleagues,” he said, saying the two parties should work together for the American people. “They don’t want every day going forward to be a constant political battle.”

But don’t count on it. The battle will be joined in January, and we will be here to cover it.

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