Speaker Johnson Fears GOP Majority Will Drop To A Single Vote
Speaker Mike Johnson, with Rep. Elise Stefanik right
Democrats suffered three major disappointments in the 2024 election: (1) Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly lost to President-elect Donald Trump, (2) Republicans flipped the U.S. Senate, and (3) Republicans held their small majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans are calling this a "trifecta." To make matters worse, Democratic strategists and organizers are lamenting, Republicans still have a 6-3 supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court — and Trump may have a chance to move the Court even further to the right if any seats become available during his forthcoming second term.
But in an article published on November 27, ABC News reporters Benjamin Siegel and Tal Axelrod stress that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is still overseeing a small House majority. And Johnson won't have a lot of wiggle room when Trump returns to the White House in January 2025.
"President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in January with a razor-thin GOP majority in the House of Representatives that offers Republicans barely any margin of error," Siegel and Axelrod report. "Overnight Wednesday, one of two outstanding races in California tipped toward Democrats, giving Adam Gray a roughly 182-vote lead over GOP Rep. John Duarte in the inland 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley. In California's 45th Congressional District, anchored in Orange and Los Angeles Counties, Democrat Derek Tran has a roughly 600-vote lead over Republican Rep. Michelle Steel."
The reporters add, "In Iowa, GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is up by 800 votes in Iowa's 2nd Congressional District, though a recount is unlikely to change the result in the competitive district. Miller-Meeks first won her seat in 2020 by six votes. If these results hold, the House will start with a 220-215 GOP majority — even thinner than the current Congress' margin."
But Siegel and Axelrod point out that the number of House Republicans will "drop to 219 with former Rep. Matt Gaetz's resignation" and "could fall further to 217 depending on the timing of the resignations of Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Mike Waltz, (R-FL) who are set to join the Trump Administration as U.S. ambassador to United Nations and national security adviser, respectively."
Johnson, according to the ABC News reporters, "has pleaded with Trump to avoid taking any more House members for his administration."
During a recent Fox News appearance, the speaker said, "We have an embarrassment of riches in the House Republican Congress — lots of talented people who are very attuned to the America First agenda — and they can serve the country well in other capacities. But I've told President Trump: Enough already, give me some relief."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
