Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Donald Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.
A House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California earlier on Wednesday, gave the Republicans the 218 House victories that make up the majority.
The result came more than a week after polls closed across the US and as Mr Trump made cabinet announcements that sent shock waves through Washington.
It ensures Republicans will continue to have a large say in key matters such as government funding, debt ceiling negotiations and foreign aid, and it spells an end to Democrats’ hopes that the lower chamber could serve as a blockade against Mr Trump’s agenda.
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Republicans had already won the White House and regained a majority in the Senate, so their victory in the House provides them with the last component of their governing trifecta. Although they will have a slim majority, Republicans have indicated they will use their trifecta to maximum effect when the new Congress is seated in January.
“We have to deliver for the people, and we will,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to get to play offense.”
Mr Trump’s selection of at least three House Republicans to join his administration further complicates the math for Mr Johnson.
The president-elect had already tapped the New York representative Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, the Florida representative, to fill the role of national security adviser. On Wednesday, Mr Trump announced he would also nominate Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman of Florida, as his attorney general.
A rightwing firebrand, Mr Gaetz was a thorn in the side of former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust Mr McCarthy from his role. Reaction to Mr Gaetz’s nomination ranged from puzzled to outraged, even from members of the president-elect’s own party.
Despite the increasingly narrow majority, Mr Johnson brushed off concerns about how Mr Trump’s picks might affect House Republicans’ ability to legislate.
Democrats unsuccessfully campaigned on a need to curtail the current “dysfunction” in Congress, after Republicans’ narrow majority repeatedly brought the House to a standstill.
When Republicans took control of the House in January 2023, it took 15 rounds of voting to elect Mr McCarthy as speaker, as roughly 20 hard-right members withheld support from their conference’s nominee. Nine months later, Mr McCarthy was ousted after eight of his Republican colleagues voted with House Democrats to remove him as speaker.
After Mr McCarthy’s departure, Mr Johnson, then a relatively unknown Republican member from Louisiana, ascended to the speakership following a tumultuous election.
Mr Trump gave Mr Johnson a welcome boost during a meeting with House Republicans in Washington, when he endorsed the speaker’s bid to extend his tenure and indicated that Mr Johnson has his full support. Mr Johnson returned the praise by celebrating Mr Trump as a “singular figure in American history”. – Guardian