It might be a while before we know which party will control either body of Congress. Arizona and Nevada are still counting votes for the U.S. Senate, while Georgia’s Senate race is headed to a runoff in December. And at the time of this writing, more than three dozen House races have yet to be called.
It is, however, safe to say that the balance of power will be narrow in both the Senate and the House, and though it’s still possible Democrats retain the lower chamber, it remains more likely that Republicans will take it with a slim advantage, and Kevin McCarthy will be the next Speaker of the House.
But even if the GOP falls short (which would make an already shocking election night even more shocking), McCarthy will be in an unenviable position as his conference’s leader.
ADVERTISEMENT
House Republicans, in just a few years transformed from a coalition that merely tolerated Trump and his MAGA brand of politics (remember Paul Ryan?) to one that is dominated by America First acolytes and true believers. The 118th Congress—even if Democrats keep the majority—will mark the completion of something that’s been in the making since Donald Trump took over the Republican Party in 2016: the first MAGA House of Representatives.
The MAGA wing will have outsized influence over McCarthy and the rest of the conference, and Democrats will be largely hamstrung no matter what.
McCarthy determined some time ago that the political winds of his party were blowing in a MAGA direction, and he positioned himself accordingly. His most egregious action was voting to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election (not to mention his visit to his friend at Mar-a-Lago just a few weeks later). Unfortunately, McCarthy was not alone among top Republicans in this vote or in his attempts to remain in Trump’s good graces. The leading contenders for all five of the top GOP House leadership positions also voted to throw out the 2020 results (including Steve Scalese, Elise Stefanik, Jim Banks, and Richard Hudson).
Even so, these figures aren’t the wackiest within the Republican coalition.
Compared to the party’s true cranks—like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert—McCarthy and his deputies can seem perfectly well-adjusted and moderate. But these hardcore MAGA types, deemed misfits and outcasts as recently as two years ago, are now welcomed with open arms. Most embarrassingly, McCarthy has reportedly offered to create a new leadership position just for Greene—the self-avowed Christian Nationalist whose claim to fame is her embrace of the QAnon conspiracy and who once blamed California wildfires on a laser beam shot from space by the Jewish Rothschild family.
But the power that Greene and her extremist cohort will wield over the party is only destined to grow after what happened in the midterms. Should the GOP take the House, it will be by the thinnest of margins, and they won’t be able to afford any defectors. That means the party’s right flank will have exceptional leverage. Greene and the other few dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus will be able to make demands about the party’s policy agenda, committee assignments, messaging and campaign strategy, and so on.
Members of the Freedom Caucus have been talking about pressing this advantage for months, saying they plan to push for positions on high-profile committees and changes to House rules that would give them more influence. They have already notched one massive victory in that Jim Jordan (a founding member of the Freedom Caucus) is all but guaranteed the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee. And by leveraging the narrow House margin, they are likely to pick up other key leadership roles and committee assignments.
But even this doesn’t capture the dominance that MAGA Republicans will have over the House.
In addition to capturing institutional positions of power within Congress, the America Firsters also have the more nebulous, but no less consequential, influence that comes with having a firm grip on the Republican electorate. By any measure, whether its fundraising capacity, approval ratings, name recognition, invites to appear on national television programs, or followers on social media, the influence of the MAGA House members greatly outweighs those of their more moderate colleagues. To anybody paying attention, it’s quite clear that they have won over the party’s true source of power: the GOP base.
If Democrats narrowly retain the House, they’ll be dealing with an even less reasonable, more obstructionist GOP than they’ve ever had to confront before.
In the more likely event that a MAGA-dominated GOP takes the House, it will only be partially restrained by a Democratic presidency. Much of their agenda would be stymied, but they would be able to force fiscal and policy concessions from Biden if they decide to play chicken with government funding or the debt ceiling. They’ll also have the power to launch politically-motivated investigations into the Biden administration, the president and his family, the FBI, and whichever other political adversaries they choose to target.
That’s the sad state of affairs Congress finds itself in. After four tumultuous years of Trump’s presidency, a failed coup, unhinged election denialism, and a far-right culture war agenda—MAGA is stronger than ever in the House.
