By the end of this week, the states will have completed the canvassing process, but we have all of the results from the local election authorities.  In the Senate, we knew going into the year that this would be a difficult map.  The last several cycles for this Senate class (2018, 2012, and 2006) have been generally favorable for the Democrats allowing us to keep seats in several states (Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia) that have been trending Republican.  While we hoped to keep those seats, it was always going to be an uphill battle.  The only swing state that we lost was Pennsylvania and that was a close one.  There will be a couple of vacancies due to people taking positions in the Trump Administration, but these vacancies are in Republican states and the governors should fill the vacancies rather quickly.  (It is my understanding that, in both states, the special elections for the remainder of the term will be in November 2026.)

The House was essentially a wash.  Seventeen seats changed hands with Democrats picking up a net of one seats.  Right now, the House is nominally 220-215.  However, Matt Gaetz opted against returning to avoid the release of an ethics committee report that would kill his hopes of becoming governor of Florida in 2026.  Thus, when the House convenes on January 3 to elect a speaker, the margin will be 219-215.  Shortly after January 20, there will be two more resignations by people who will be sacrificing their futures working in the Trump Administration.  That will bring the margin down to 217-215 through, at least, mid-April, when Florida will fill its two seats.  Even assuming, as seems likely given the seats, that Republicans win all of the special elections, a five-vote majority only allows the Republicans to lose two votes on a bill.

Let’s start with the bad news, it only takes a simple majority in the Senate to fill judicial vacancies.  If Trump continues to work with the Federalist Society, he should be able to get most of his nominees confirmed.  However, there are Republican judges who could have taken senior status in the first Trump Administration but didn’t.  Likewise, the presumption is that a president should get to fill his administration with whatever qualified people that he wants.  Of course, Trump like naming unqualified people to posts.  Republican Senators will have to choose which nominees to fight (or at least slow down in the hopes that they withdraw).  Right now, there are at least three nominees for cabinet level positions that the Senate should reject — Hegseth for Defense, Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and Kennedy for Health and Human Services.  In recent years, the tendency has been for doomed nominees to withdraw rather than forcing the Senate to officially reject them but Trump might want the fight. Continue Reading...