President-elect Donald J. Trump’s push to stack his administration with loyal members of Congress is colliding with a tricky political actuality for Republicans: They’re operating out of the our bodies they should protect the slender Home majority they count on to carry.
With the celebration on monitor to win the Home by a precariously small margin and Mr. Trump tapping two Home members to serve in high nationwide safety posts, Republican leaders warned on Tuesday that they will’t spare any extra.
“I don’t expect that we will have more members leaving, but I’ll leave that up to him,” Speaker Mike Johnson stated at a information convention on Tuesday morning, as Congress returned to Washington for the primary time for the reason that election.
Management of the Home of Representatives remains to be formally up for grabs, with a number of aggressive races not but referred to as, however Republicans look like positioned to maintain the bulk by a equally tiny edge that has made it so tough for them to control over the previous two years. As of Tuesday afternoon, they’d gained management of 214 seats, and Democrats had 205. A celebration wants 218 seats for a majority, and most strategists count on that the G.O.P. will find yourself with only some to a handful greater than that.
That signifies that if Mr. Trump have been to proceed to raid their ranks to fill out his White Home and cupboard, Republicans may lose their edge altogether.
“Every single vote will count, because if someone gets ill or has a car accident or a late flight on their plane, then it affects the votes on the floor,” stated Mr. Johnson, who has cultivated an in depth relationship with Mr. Trump. He added that the president-elect “fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”
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