The Republicans have achieved the trifecta of government: they retain control of the House of Representatives and win the Senate and the presidency.
It will be the first time that Republicans have had full control of Congress and the White House since 2018. House Republicans have been quietly preparing their legislative agenda on tax cuts and other priorities for months, though an expected narrow majority is likely to complicate those efforts. as well as Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid to hold the gavel during a floor vote in January.
The Republican Party held on to a slew of risky incumbents as results trickled in over the past week, with Republicans also picking up a few seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
But they still lost a handful of seats in New York and California.
Home control has been considered a toss-up for months. While Republican leaders were publicly confident in their ability to hold the House, there was also deep fear as Republicans struggled to keep up with Democratic fundraising. Unlike in 2022, Republican leaders kept their estimates fairly modest on election night. They have also spent months pushing a campaign message focused on the border and the economy, betting that the two issues could be used as a wedge to pressure vulnerable Democrats.
The redistricting of parties has meant there are fewer competitive seats to flip, limiting real battleground districts to just a dozen races on either side. Party leaders have acknowledged that the days of more than 30 seats are over for the foreseeable future. Republicans got some help this cycle from Democrats’ decision to pursue a less aggressive redistricting map in New York, which was at the heart of the battle for control of the House of Representatives. Similarly, a map drawn by the Republican Party in North Carolina also helped offset Democratic gains elsewhere.
“There are only about 45 seats in the country that are truly competitive. … And so each of them is very competitive and very expensive and our candidates are great,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told POLITICO ahead of Election Day.
In addition to flipping Democratic seats, Republicans also managed to counter Democrats’ goals that seemed to come into play in the final weeks of the campaign, including retaining threatened incumbents in Iowa and Wisconsin.
Another big difference in the campaigns this year: Republicans were much more deliberate about their candidate recruitment and which challengers they supported in the primaries than in 2022. The House Republicans’ campaign arm worked closely with Trump and coordinated the encouragement of candidates who according to the party most likely to win the general election – a level of intervention that ultimately paid off.
Vulnerable Republican incumbents, namely Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), fended off primary opponents who likely would have been weak candidates for the general election. In Alaska, the party managed to rally behind one Republican this year to avoid problems they had with the state’s electoral system in 2022. (That race has not yet been called, although Republican Nick Begich is leading Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola.)
On the other side of the candidate canvass, Democrats relied on a handful of returning candidates who narrowly lost in 2022. The party had thought they would benefit from the existing campaign infrastructure and brand recognition among voters. But that didn’t work out for many candidates, and some were likely swept away by a lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
