GOP clinches control of House, solidifying hold on Congress after sweeping Trump win

Republicans secured a majority in the House of Representatives, clinching total control of Congress alongside President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping win of the White House and the Senate.

The GOP sealed a majority in the lower chamber of Congress Wednesday as news organizations crowned the party’s candidates winners in a minimum of 218 seats, although their final margin is surprisingly narrow given Trump’s broad victory.

Trump’s party already wrapped up a 53-47 victory in the Senate, meaning the incoming president will have unified control of the government for at least the first two years of his second administration.

NBC News called the GOP control of the House along with CNN on Wednesday. The Associated Press has declared 217 seats for Republican candidates, just short of the required 218.

House Republicans still hope to extend their lead by winning a couple of yet-to-be-declared seats, notably in California, where significant numbers of late arriving mail ballots remain to be tallied.

House Speaker Mike Johnson declared victory and said he was prepared to work closely with Trump and the new Republican-led Senate to deliver on his MAGA agenda.

“It’s a new day in America,” Johnson said. “Under President Trump, House Republicans will deliver, helping usher in a new golden age in America.”

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not immediately comment on the call.

The Brooklyn lawmaker had held out hope Democrats could flip enough seats to win the House even in the face of Trump’s wide win at the top of the ticket and big gains in the Senate.

“We’ve been able to withstand that presidential wave that broke against us,” Jeffries said Friday, before control of the House was called.

Republicans held a slim 220-212 edge going into Election Day, with three seats vacant. Although the final margin remains unknown, most analysts believe they will wind up with only a slightly wider margin in the new House that will serve until 2026.

New York Democrats were a major factor in limiting the impact of the GOP win, beating three Republican incumbents in upstate and suburban seats that the GOP won in 2022 even as Trump dramatically improved his showing in the Empire State.

The winners include Rep.-elects Laura Gillen on Long Island, Josh Riley in a sprawling Catskills-based district and John Mannion in the Syracuse area.

Rep. Tom Suozzi also held the Long Island seat he won in a special election called after disgraced ex-Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress. Rep. Pat Ryan held his Hudson Valley swing district by a comfortable margin.

The GOP surprisingly ousted only a handful of Democratic incumbent lawmakers from coast to coast, far fewer than parties of incoming winning presidents would normally expect to gain. In the Senate, Republicans flipped at least four Democratic-held seats, a solid achievement that will lead to at least a 53-47 majority in the chamber.

Republicans flipped two Democratic-held House seats in working class areas of northeast Pennsylvania, a perennial swing state that Trump narrowly won and where incumbent Sen. Bob Casey also apparently lost.

Republicans also picked up three seats in North Carolina after the party redrew district lines to dramatically skew several seats in their favor. But Democrats picked up one seat apiece in Alabama and Louisiana after courts ordered the creation of new Black-dominated districts to correct disenfranchisement.

Ironically, a key factor in limiting the scale of the House win is decades of Republican congressional gerrymandering in states they control.

The efforts to reshape congressional maps have made Republican incumbents much safer. But the new lines have mostly also left many Democratic incumbents with bluer districts that can help them withstand challenges.

About 20 Democratic lawmakers in the incoming Congress will represent districts that Trump carried, estimates say, including several in the New York City metro area. Just two Republicans appear likely to be left representing districts that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris.

Johnson is expected to extend his hold on the speaker’s gavel, especially after Trump gave him a strong vote of approval Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

The Louisiana conservative has predicted that the incoming Republican-led House will be more productive than the one he led for the past two years, where the Republican majority struggled mightily to pass even the most basic measures like keeping the government funded.

But Republicans could still struggle to cobble together a governing majority when small but significant groups of far right-wing GOP lawmakers oppose any compromises on fiscal and other hot-button issues.