The Incredible Shrinking GOP Majority

Two critical House seat flips out in California along with self-sabotage could doom Republican hopes for massive, destructive legislation.

Nov 27, 2024

There’s great news out of California about the election. Yes, the election! Votes are still being counted in California in two tight House races.

Democrat Derek Tran leads his opponent, the very Trumpy and scandal-plagued Michelle Steel in CA-45, and is expected to prevail. Some have already called the race for him based on which votes remain to be counted and the direction things have consistently gone.

In CA-13, the closest race in the country and against most expectations, Democrat Adam Gray just pulled ahead by around 182 votes and is now also slightly favored to win.

As Rep. Robert Garcia noted, if this holds, California will be a bright spot in this election: Democrats will have held every seat in the state’s congressional delegation while flipping three Republican ones.

Not surprisingly, far-right election conspiracists are crying foul. How can they still be counting? Are Democrats just going to keep “counting” until they win?!

Sorry, Charlie.

While such claims are nonsense, the right does have some cause to be upset by the actual results. Assuming these races wind up adding two more seats to the Democratic side, the GOP House majority will be 220 to 215, the narrowest House majority ever to begin a session. And that spells a world of trouble for Speaker Mike Johnson.

In today’s piece, I’ll first address the concerns of the election conspiracy theorists and arm you with some key talking points to calmly push back with when, over Thanksgiving dinner, your MAGA uncle insists the counting is fraudulent. On the contrary, the extended counting period is specifically designed to lessen the possibility of fraud.

Then I’ll discuss how the 220 to 215 margin isn’t really how things will be. In fact, it looks like the margin will soon be so thin that the GOP will need unanimous support to pass any measure, meaning not a single “no” vote from any GOP House member.

As Joe Biden would say, “Good luck in your senior year.”

Counting votes, California style

California can sometimes seem too laid back and chill, especially as it makes the rest of the nation await the final outcome of an election that happened more than three weeks ago. And yet, votes are still coming in, so what gives? Does the far right have a point here?

No, as usual, they don’t. The claims of fraud are easily debunked and fact checked.

California is one of the few states that mails ballots to all registered state voters. And it has a very liberal ballot return policy: Ballots may arrive up to a week after Election Day, in this case November 12, so long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

But what accounts for the next 10 days of delays in the final count? It’s all about verifying signatures.

Republicans are constantly demanding that mail-in ballots be perfect in every way, and they have gone to court to enforce this. They must be aware that with mail-in ballots, voters’ signatures may fail to match what the county has on file for them. This happens often with older voters who have trouble writing their names, or even with younger voters who are more used to signing digitally using their index finger rather than a pen.

Given this issue, California decided that rather than throw out those ballots, it would provide voters additional time to “cure” any defects on them. There are armies of volunteers in these counties whose job is to personally contact voters whose ballot poses an issue and urge them to come in and cure the problem.

With limited staffing, this process can take weeks. It’s usually a few hundred or even a few thousand ballots from each county, and in a normal race that wouldn’t make much of a difference. But in the case of CA-45 and CA-13, it makes all the difference in the world.

In sum, the process can take weeks because

California mails ballots to all registered voters;

Mail-in ballots often have issues such as non-matching signatures; and

The state provides an opportunity for voters to cure defects.

It’s not fraud. It’s a careful effort to prevent fraud, while not disenfranchising any registered voters due to a clerical issue.

Every GOP House Member will have veto power

In the last congressional session, we witnessed how a handful of far-right extremists held up Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership bid for fifteen rounds and exacted punishing concessions giving the extremists more power than ever.

They then used that power to defy GOP leadership and to hold its agenda hostage, even torpedoing legislation at the procedural stage when it wasn’t sufficiently radical for them. As a result of their rebellious behavior, Speaker McCarthy lost control of the floor a few times, an unheard of phenomenon with a modern speaker.

A small band of extremists even proved enough to take out Speaker Kevin McCarthy, followed by another faction of more moderate members who retaliated by preventing political pugilist Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) from becoming the new speaker.

As a result, the last Congress was the least productive in recent history, perhaps ever. And now it looks like Democrats will have increased their House seats by two, in a year where the party narrowly lost the national popular vote.

If Tran and Gray win as expected, the House will technically be at 220 to 215, the narrowest margin since 1930. But remember: Matt Gaetz resigned his seat after being nominated as Attorney General, and he isn’t coming back after flaming out. He has joined George Santos and Rudy Giuliani among the disgraced politicians who are selling videos to fans on Cameo, the Only Fans for fallen D.C. officials.

That means in the first few weeks, assuming full attendance, the balance will be 219 to 215. With these numbers, Republicans can only afford to lose one vote on any measure. If they lose two, the count goes to a 217 to 217 tie, meaning it fails.

That is going to make for an interesting Speaker vote at the start of the session. Johnson’s position is so weak, he will likely have to concede significant power to the far-right once again, including handing out plum committee positions that would allow extremists to control the agenda.

But wait, there’s more! Trump genuinely freaked Johnson out earlier by naming two other House members, Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) to positions in his administration. Johnson reportedly had to beg him to stop poaching GOP House members, or he’d outright lose his majority.

With Gaetz’s resignation and the loss of two House seats until they can be filled by special election, the balance of power will be 217 to 215 for many weeks. Assuming full attendance, that would mean any single GOP member could sink any bill assuming the Democrats unite behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

That’s a lot of power to give the congressional bomb throwers on the right. And it will make passing much of Trump’s agenda really difficult if not impossible, including extension of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy; gutting the ACA, Social Security and Medicare; and authorizing billions of dollars to build mass detention centers for undocumented migrants.

This underscores how every single vote counts, and how the hard work of volunteers out in CA-45 and CA-13, who doggedly pursued voters to come cure their ballots, could pay huge dividends. If they remain disciplined, House Democrats could use the GOP’s own narrow margin against it to block the very worst of the far right’s wrecking ball agenda.

And while I would have far preferred to see a Speaker Jeffries, the next best thing will be to watch the GOP devour itself as every lunatic member on the MAGA right begins to realize how much power they actually will hold.

A concept of thoughts and prayers for you, Speaker Johnson.