A new report in the Congressional Republicans’ (un)official state media outlet, aka Axios, says that the House GOP are at the point where they apparently actually believe they could lose their majority to the Dems before next January, even though that would take at least nine more GOP resignations given the upcoming special elections to fill vacant seats in CO-4, NY-26, CA-20, and OH-6.
This is a point that the media keeps fucking up – and we’ve been guilty of it too – when they say the GOP now currently has a one-seat majority in the House. It is technically true, but that’s a majority of the 435 seats. The number of voting members right now stands at 218 GOP to 213 Dem. With four special elections on the calendar, three of them safe GOP, one Dem, if nothing else changes by late June we’re looking at a 221 R to 213 D House. Hilariously Mike Gallagher is fucking them over by waiting until after the window is closed for a special election to replace him to effect his resignation.
So maybe whichever Republicans are feeding this to Axios are actually serious and not just darkly hyperbolizing about the attrition. The member who told them “normally they’re trying to talk people out of retirement. Now we’re at a point where we’re trying to talk them out of leaving early,” could legitimately be worried that what Gallagher and Ken Buck just did to them is the start of a trend.
The pool of roughly 19 other currently still serving GOP members who will definitely not be returning to the chamber for the 119th Congress is obviously deeper than the max eight-seat working majority they’ll have – as long as the Dems hold steady and don’t fuck off. It is however the Republicans whose morale is cratering after the shitshow that was Friday. On top of Buck leaving for good and Gallagher announcing he will next month, Axios also lists the internal fury over the spending bill, Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson, and James Comer admitting outright that his Biden impeachment effort had failed. So things can and certainly will get worse for the House GOP. The only question is whether it will get bad enough to hand they keys to the Dems.