Republicans won back control of the U.S. House but by a far narrower margin than they predicted, a significant disappointment for a party that for weeks had been anticipating a major victory that would lay the groundwork for the 2024 presidential election.
More than a week after Election Day and with several seats still not called, the party gained the 218 seats needed to control the chamber, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday night.
Despite concerns about President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and the prospects of the country tipping into a recession, voters delivered a split verdict in the Nov. 8 midterm elections on who was to blame and how much weight to put on other issues, such as abortion rights and threats to democracy.
The slender majority nonetheless gives the GOP power over the House investigative committees with subpoena authority to investigate Biden’s cabinet and his relatives as well as Silicon Valley businesses that conservatives have claimed are biased against them.
Republicans also have promised to slash government spending, expand fossil fuel production and extend Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy. Much of that agenda, however, will be left to wither in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The Senate remained in Democratic hands after John Fetterman won what had been a Republican seat in Pennsylvania and incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto were declared the winners in Arizona and Nevada in the days after the election.
The Senate race in Georgia between Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, and Herschel Walker, the Republican, will be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff.
The GOP House majority will stall much of Biden’s remaining agenda, but their advantage was one of the smallest gained by either party in a midterm election in modern times.
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