Lisa Desjardins:
I think there are two important ways to think about these elections, first what they mean for the chamber right now. And I mean right now.
This is video of something that happened moments ago, the two Florida winners, Republicans, being sworn in to fill those vacant seats. Now, that changes the margins in the House right away. So let’s look at what that does specifically.
Before today, the Republicans had just a two-vote margin in the House. They had 218 votes. Now they have got a three-vote margin. That might not sound like a big deal to us, but that’s a huge deal to Speaker Johnson. They have 220 votes. Now, I will caution people, this is going to change again. There are two Democratic-leaning seats that are vacant. Those special elections will change things.
But this is likely the largest majority that House Republicans will see, at least for the foreseeable future. Now, that brings us to the next most important point, which is what this says about the House Republicans’ ability to hold on to the chamber after the next midterm elections.
Democrats see a real opportunity from what happened, especially in Wisconsin, because they note that Trump was not on the ballot there or in Florida. And, in fact, those margins for Republicans either were not what they wanted or smaller than they wanted. Democrats think then, with Trump not on the ballot again in the midterm, his voters won’t come out and they have got a real opportunity to reclaim the chamber.
