By Variety | Created at 2024-11-14 04:39:02 | Updated at 2024-11-23 08:19:32
1 week ago
Republicans will keep control of the House of Representatives, the Associated Press has projected, giving President-elect Trump a majority in both houses of Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he will work aggressively to implement Trump’s agenda, including tax cuts, deportations, energy policy, and regulatory reform.
“We’re going to raise an America First banner above this place,” Johnson said at a press conference shortly after the election. “The American people want us to implement that America First agenda, and we have to do that while we have that energy and excitement.”
The Republicans also flipped control of the Senate, picking up seats in Ohio, West Virginia, Montana and Pennsylvania, to claim 53 seats.
The party will hold a narrower margin in the House, and it is still unclear whether it will gain or lose seats. A handful of races remain uncalled, mostly in California.
Republicans held 221 House seats in the last Congress, a narrow advantage that did not leave much room for defections on party-line votes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker on the 15th ballot in January 2023, and was ousted nine months later when a handful of hard-liners defected. After three weeks of infighting, Johnson took the gavel.
Democrats had hoped to flip the House with strong showings in California and New York, which would have denied Trump the ability to move his legislative agenda, but fell short of that goal.
Johnson has said that when Trump first took office in 2017, the Republican Party was “not fully prepared for that moment, and precious time was wasted.”
“We are not going to make those mistakes again,” Johnson said. “We will be ready on Day One. We are prepared this time.”
Johnson said Republicans intend to use the budget reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass without a filibuster in the Senate, to achieve their aims on regulatory and tax policy.
