WASHINGTON — Americans are about to elect a new Congress, with control of both chambers at stake as every seat in the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate goes before voters on Election Day.
Every non-incumbent president since 1992 has come to power with his party controlling both chambers of Congress, but there is no guarantee that will happen this year for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
The stakes are high, with the Senate charged with confirming judicial nominees and the next president’s Cabinet, while the composition of both chambers will determine the fate of the legislative agenda and key bills.
Republicans favored winning the Senate
In the Senate, Democrats currently have a 51-49 lead, but Republicans are favored to capture the majority. They are all but guaranteed to win an open seat in ruby-red West Virginia as independent-turned Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin retires.
That seat alone would be enough for the Republican Party to control the chamber if Trump wins the presidency, in which case Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, would become vice president and cast the tie-breaking vote in a 50-50 Senate. 50 seats.
If Harris wins, Republicans will need one more seat in addition to West Virginia to capture the Senate. The party also wants to flip seats in the red states of Montana and Ohio, where Democratic Senators Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown will once again have to defy gravity in states where Trump is expected to win easily. They face Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno respectively, both of whom the Republican Party is heavily invested in.
And Democrats are defending five more seats in purple states that are highly competitive at the presidential level: Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania; an open seat in Michigan, where Sen. Debbie Stabenow is retiring; Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin; an open seat in Arizona, where independent Democrat Sen. Krysten Sinema is retiring; and Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen.
Meanwhile, Democrats’ best hopes for capturing a Republican seat are in Texas, where Sen. Ted Cruz is seeking a third term, and Florida, where Sen. Rick Scott is running for a second term.
In deep-red Nebraska, populist independent candidate Dan Osborn is running against low-profile Republican Senator Deb Fischer in the polls in a race that could spring a surprise.
An exciting battle for the House
The race for the House of Representatives is on a razor’s edge.
Republicans currently hold a 220-212 majority, with three vacancies: two in safe blue seats, one in a safe red seat. Democrats will need just four seats to gain control of the House of Representatives, and with it the gavel and chairmanship of all committees.
The battlefield is narrow. According to the Cook Political Report, there are 22 “toss-up” seats at the heart of the contest – 10 held by Democrats and 12 held by Republicans. There are still a few dozen seats that are hotly contested, but they lean towards one party.
Notably, the blue states of New York and California are home to ten ultra-competitive House districts. These two presidential-level states are expected to be won comfortably by Harris, but Republicans are investing heavily in keeping and throwing away voting seats there.
In New York, Republicans are defending four seats they flipped in 2022, giving them the majority in the House of Representatives. These seats are held by Representatives Marc Molinaro, Mike Lawler, Anthony D’Esposito and Brandon Williams, all of whom are up for re-election. D’Esposito and Williams’ districts are rated “lean Democrat” by the Cook Political Report, as the party has tapped Laura Gillen and John Mannion to try to recapture those seats. Lawler’s race is rated as “lean Republican.” Meanwhile, Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., faces a tough challenge from Republican Alison Esposito in the Hudson Valley in a race rated “lean Democrat.”
And in Central and Southern California, at least five Republican incumbents are also facing tough reelection bids.
Freshman Rep. John Duarte faces Democrat Adam Gray in the 13th District; Rep. David Valadao has a rematch against Democrat Rudy Salas in the 22nd District; Rep. Mike Garcia fends off a challenge from Democrat George Whitesides in the 27th District; former Rep. Ken Calvert is trying to stop Democrat Will Rollins in the 41st District; and Rep. Michelle Steel is running against Democrat Derek Tran in the 48th District.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and the man seeking to replace him, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have swept through key House battlegrounds in recent weeks, as well as a slew of swing districts in Pennsylvania. Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and the Pacific Northwest.
As polls opened Tuesday morning, the chairman of the House of Representatives’ Democratic campaign arm sounded an optimistic tone.
“We are in a very strong position,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., told NBC News. “We have great candidates. In our message, we stand with the American people on policy. We have had the means to vote and communicate with voters across the country, and that has put us all in a very strong position today to take back the majority, take back the gavel and make Hakeem Jeffries our next speaker to make. ”
Still, she warned that the battle for the majority could be fierce and would take “a few days” to count all the votes.
“We might not know tonight,” DelBene said.
A full plate
The new Congress will have to work with the new president from the very beginning.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act, the result of an agreement between President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, extended the nation’s debt limit until January 2025. The Treasury Department will be able to prevent an immediate catastrophic debt deficit by taking extraordinary measures to clear the debts. cash, but it will likely still require a two-party agreement.
The Senate will spend the first part of the new year confirming the judiciary and Cabinet nominees, as well as hundreds of others nominated for other political positions.
If Republicans manage to gain full control of the White House and Congress, they will be in the same situation as in 2016 – with Trump back at the helm.
In that scenario, Republicans will have to determine how to use budget reconciliation, an arcane process that would allow them to fast-track legislation without Democratic support: Do they first move ahead with another round of Trump tax cuts? Or will they try to repeal or revise Obamacare again, as they failed in 2017?
Johnson, whose political fate is tied to the outcome of the election, recently said Republicans would go big and pursue “massive reform” of the Affordable Care Act if his party wins.
“The ACA is so entrenched that we need massive reforms to make it work, and we have a lot of ideas about how to do that,” Johnson said during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.
If Democrats manage to capture the White House and Congress, it would be a remarkable coup for a party facing one of the most intimidating Senate plans in modern times. That would give Harris’ aggressive economic agenda a fighting chance and put legislation to codify abortion rights high on the agenda.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
