Republicans have won enough seats to keep control of the House of Representatives, ABC News projects, clinching a unified GOP government in Washington.
Republicans are projected to hit the 218-seat threshold in the House and Republicans have also won at least 52 seats in the Senate, with incumbent Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey trailing Republican Dave McCormick with a winnowing number of votes left to count.
Each party ultimately saw incumbents in tough House districts lose, but in the end, Democrats were not able to take full advantage of a map that had 17 Republicans running for reelection in districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020.
Before the projection, Republicans were already claiming victory Tuesday, with Republican House leaders vowing to swiftly work with President-elect Donald Trump after his inauguration in January.
“This leadership will hit the ground running to deliver President Trump’s agenda in the 119th Congress, and we will work closely with him and his administration to turn this country around and unleash, as he says, a new golden age in America,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a press conference on the Capitol steps.
With a Senate map that was heavily favored to Republicans, the House majority was the top congressional question for much of the 2024 election cycle.
Several first-term Republicans in purple districts were running for their first reelection — in a presidential year when the White House margin would play an outsized role in helping determine the winners in the down-ballot contests. Democrats had several members running in Trump-friendly territory, though many were battle-tested over the course of multiple reelection efforts
In the end, both sides saw successes and failures — though when the races are all said and done, Republicans’ margin in the House is anticipated to be narrow once again.
Republicans like Reps. Mike Lawler in suburban New York and David Valadao in California won reelection in tight districts — missed opportunities for Democrats — but Reps. Anthony D’Esposito in Long Island and Mike Garcia in Los Angeles fell to Democratic challengers.
Democratic Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in rural Washington and Jared Golden in rural Maine again won tough races — robbing Republicans of top flip opportunities — while Pennsylvania Reps. Matt Cartwright and Susan Wilds lost their seats as Trump took their state.
Still, with such an expectedly slim margin, Republicans will again be forced to reckon with the same internal divisions that plagued their control of the current Congress — it took the party more than a dozen rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker, only to boot him several months later and then endure another grueling process to ultimately hand Johnson the gavel.
Yet through it all, Johnson has maintained his tenuous hold on the speakership.
Trump said Wednesday he’s “with him all the way,” an endorsement that holds sway even among Johnson’s critics in the House GOP.
Now, Republicans will huddle on the kind of legislation they’ll seek to push through.
A top priority is extending tax cuts that Trump passed during his first term but that expire next year. The House will also likely seek to pass tougher border enforcement measures, though crafting legislation that can overcome a Senate filibuster could be a challenge.
Attention will also almost immediately be turned to whether Republicans can keep their majority in 2026.
The party that controls the White House historically performs poorly in the midterm elections — though Democrats did perform well in 2022 — and with a margin expected to be in the single digits, Republicans will be playing defense in two years.