As many concerned US election observers continually refresh the forecast from 538 in the final days before polls close, their attention tends to focus on the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but the polling website’s predictions about the battle for House of Representatives and Senate paint an even more troubling picture for Democrats.
As of Saturday evening, 538 gives Trump a 50% chance of winning the presidential race, while Republicans have a comfortable 90% chance of regaining control of the Senate and a smaller 52% chance of retaining their majority in the House of Representatives. Retain delegates.
These numbers reflect a reality that is chilling to left-leaning Americans: Republicans have a decent chance of winning not only the White House, but full control of Congress.
Even without majorities in both houses of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race would give him significant control over U.S. foreign policy and the composition of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.
But a Republican trifecta in Washington would give Trump much more power to implement his legislative agenda. As the Guardian detailed in the Stakes Project, Trump’s plans include expanding tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a right-wing cultural agenda.
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One of Republicans’ most frequently repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts that Trump signed in 2017. Many of these will expire at the end of 2025. An analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5 billion in 2026 alone and would disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared to just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.
Perhaps the scariest possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their government trifecta in Washington to implement a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated whining on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has found that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at least four women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.
With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also commit vast resources to support Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, which has become a central part of his reelection platform. Although US courts have affirmed that presidents have wide latitude when it comes to setting immigration policy, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.
“The United States is now an occupied country,” Trump said recently at a rally in Atlanta. “But November 5, 2024 is Liberation Day in America.”
In addition to advancing Trump’s agenda, Republicans would almost certainly also want to unravel key parts of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA was the nation’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should keep some provisions of the law and repeal others.
That dilemma reflects a potential problem for Republicans if they gain full control of Congress: What will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a government trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried to repeal and replace the ACA but failed. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson recently suggested there would be “no Obamacare” if his party were to win a major victory on Tuesday, according to a video published by NBC News.
But he seemed to undermine this statement, telling his supporters, “The ACA is so deeply entrenched, we need massive reforms to make this work, and we have a lot of ideas about how to do that.”
In recent years, both parties have felt the pain of a government with a narrow majority in Congress, and election experts expect the battle for the House of Representatives and the Senate to be particularly tight this year. During Biden’s first two years in office, his bills were repeatedly blocked in the Senate even though Democrats had a majority over the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Related: The key U.S. Senate races that could determine who controls the House
When Republicans had a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference blocked the proposal. Two of those members — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — are still in the Senate and could oppose several parts of Trump’s agenda, especially a possible abortion ban.
Despite the potential challenges of a narrow majority, Trump has made clear time and again that he will use his presidential power to the maximum if he wins on Tuesday.
“With your vote in November, we are going to fire Kamala and we are going to save America,” Trump said at his recent rally in State College, Pennsylvania. “We will never back down, and we will never surrender.”
Voters will have the final say on Tuesday to determine how much power Trump and his party will have in January.
