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What Republicans can do with their new power — and where they’ll struggle

Nov 6, 2024, 3:56pm EST
politics
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and President-elect Donald Trump
Win McNamee/Reuters
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The News

Donald Trump and Senate Republicans scored a decisive win on Tuesday. That doesn’t necessarily translate to a huge mandate in Congress.

Republicans must hang onto the House in order to claim the total control of government that they’ll need to extend tax cuts, and perhaps change Obamacare, without running into a Senate filibuster. If they can maintain their House majority, as looks likely, it will be a small one — and uniting the party on legislation will be harder than it might seem for the now-jubilant GOP.

The incoming GOP leadership team knows its top priorities: Installing Trump’s Cabinet, reshaping the judiciary and preserving expiring tax cuts from Trump’s first term, the focus of behind-the-scenes meetings for months now. Beyond that?

“That’s going to be up to President Trump. He’s the leader of the party,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who is running unopposed to be the party whip, told Semafor. “We’re going to work closely together with him on a shared agenda.”

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As they look toward that agenda, Republicans have a clear reminder of their challenges in the chaos that gripped the House during their past two years in power: A fired speaker and a long leadership vacuum that forced them to rely on Democrats to approve critical bills. The party will be more motivated to put aside its ideological disputes now that it controls the White House and Senate, but cross-Capitol cooperation with small majorities is never easy.

Democrats proved that as they struggled to enact President Joe Biden’s agenda in 2021 and 2022.

“Obviously, the higher we get the better. But this is not 60 votes,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who will step down from the top spot at the end of the year. “It’s harder, but I think we were successful before with a narrow majority, and I think we will be again.”

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If they can take the House, the GOP can get around the filibuster for some key economic legislation. But Trump’s biggest prize is the Senate, where the incoming Republican majority will be able to push through his top nominees, including to the Supreme Court.

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Senate Republicans are already strategizing with Trump’s transition team about holding hearings for his Cabinet nominees in early January, between when the Senate flips on Jan. 3 and when Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, Barrasso said. Republicans are now guaranteed to hold at least 52 seats, which could allow them to confirm more conservative nominees over the prospective objections of moderate Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

If they can prevail in another one or two of the Senate races that remain uncalled, Trump would have a lot of latitude in his Cabinet and judicial picks.

“The more Republican senators we have, the better it is in terms of making sure we get people confirmed quickly,” Barrasso said.

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What’s easy

Most judges and other executive-branch picks should be relatively easy to confirm. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, will become the party’s judiciary chair; with 52 seats or more, most conservative judges will get approved.

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Immigration is another clear case of GOP alignment around Trump’s approach. Though the president-elect is most likely to use executive power to enact more stringent border policies, Congress will have the opportunity to send more government cash to a border wall and other enforcement measures. And Republicans are eager to do so.

Ohio GOP Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno told Semafor last month that “President Trump has shown there’s things that you’re not going to negotiate on. Like, I’m not going to negotiate any idea that anybody can come into this country and violate our laws and get rewarded.”


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What’s hard but doable

Even with narrow control of the House, Republicans will have the power to pass major fiscal legislation without the risk of a Democratic filibuster. They can use the protections of the annual budget process to retain the Trump tax cuts and perhaps pass other legislation, from new tax breaks to health care.

Still, that will take an extensive debate over how ambitious to get, as well as inevitable intra-Republican disagreement over the deficit impact.

And certain Trump loyalists may prove tough to confirm in the Senate, even with a big GOP majority. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CNN on Wednesday that the party would give “great deference” to Trump, even on nominees like the vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Barrasso said it’s “too early” to say if there are nominees floating around that can’t be confirmed.


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What’s harder

There’s been some talk about taking another whack at Obamacare or repealing President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and its massive clean energy spending. That will certainly be more challenging than it sounds, and Republicans are unlikely to tackle those goals before taxes — though Barrasso said the GOP would look to “restrain” some renewable energy money.

Trump also will put forth policy proposals that Republicans might want to rein in, like across-the-board tariffs on imports from Mexico, China and other nations. But that will require standing up to a president-elect who has now decisively taken control of his party.

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