Small and 'chaotic' House Republican majority poses challenges for the new Trump era

WASHINGTON — Over the last two years, a narrow Republican House majority has fought bitterly over everything from electing a speaker, keeping the government functioning and even passage of symbolic messaging bills. Those divisions led to one of the least productive congresses in modern times.

Now, Republicans have clinched at least 218 seats to win a House majority, NBC News projects, but it’ll be another small one. And this time the stakes are much higher, as the party seizes full control of Washington under President-elect Donald Trump with high expectations from voters.

Will the party be able to unify, govern and deliver this time?

“The House has always been a chaotic place, will always be a chaotic place. Anyone who thinks it’s going to be smooth sailing has never spent one day walking these halls. But it’ll be on us as members to actually go out and find a way to deliver,” Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, told NBC News. “And I certainly think the members that helped bring this majority — we have more to gain, more to lose than anyone else.”

The unified government gives Republicans power to set outcomes and deprives them of their recent luxury of sharing the political blame for paralysis with a Democratic president.

The GOP trifecta will face major tasks with portions of Trump's tax cuts as well as Obamacare subsidies expiring at the end of 2025. There will also be deadlines like a new round of government funding, with the possibility of another shutdown fight, a farm bill reauthorization and a debt ceiling extension, all of which are subject to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and therefore likely to require cutting deals with Democrats.

With Trump returning to the White House, Republicans will also control the Senate — but with far short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, a rule that many GOP senators insist they will keep. Outgoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised after the election that “the filibuster will stand." His successor, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., echoed that promise Wednesday after he was elected to the position.

Republicans will be able to use a Senate rule to bypass the filibuster for matters involving taxes and spending, but other legislation will be subject to 60 votes. The party will have to decide how aggressively to pursue Trump's legislative promises like new immigration restrictions and conservative priorities like anti-abortion or anti-transgender legislation.

“We have to make life affordable, we have to secure the border and keep our communities safe," said Rep.-elect Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who flipped a divided district in Pennsylvania and helped create the Republican majority.

But the numbers "provide opportunities, given the fact that Republicans have such a narrow majority in the House,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in an interview on Wednesday. “If they really try to pass extreme stuff, they’re going to have a hell of a fight on their hands — including from some of, at least, their House members who are in Democratic-leaning districts or purple districts. And here in the Senate, obviously, we continue to have a number of tools to exercise.”

There is precedent for a narrow House majority delivering major legislation. In outgoing President Joe Biden’s first two years, Democrats had a slim majority and racked up historic new laws from trillions of dollars in pandemic relief, climate and health care funding, infrastructure spending, semiconductor investments, codifying same-sex marriage, assisting veterans and more.

‘You reap what you sow’

Replicating that will be a tall order. Over the last two years, the GOP has been torn between lawmakers seeking incrementalist wins and a hard-right wing making maximalist demands.

“We could have gotten twice as many conservative victories in the last two years had we had more unity,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D. “That unity is going to be a key question of the first few months of the 119th Congress.”

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said he expects Republicans to be as chaotic as they have been during their current majority. And it gives Democrats a playbook to shape outcomes if they stay unified.

“The last two years are a good example. They also had narrow majorities. We think we’ve done a good job of stopping a really a lot of really bad things. And so I think we’re going have to be using that same strategy,” Garcia said. “I think our leadership is going to do a great job of making sure that we’re a good check.”

One area Democrats will have power is must-pass bills like government funding, the farm bill and debt ceiling extensions, which are subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate and therefore become bipartisan endeavors.

“We’ll see how it plays out. But we have the leverage,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “We’ll be able to look at it strategically and use it strategically.”

In their recent majority, Republicans took 15 ballots to elect a speaker and threw him out mid-session for the first time in U.S. history. They fought over a rules package, government funding legislation, financial assistance for Ukraine to fend off Russia, impeachment of Biden administration officials — and cycled through three speaker candidates before settling on the little-known dark horse pick, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who is expected to stay in power and has Trump's endorsement to keep the top job.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., the chair of the GOP campaign arm, said he believes a Republican trifecta with Trump at the helm will promote party unity.

“The American people made it clear they wanted a change of direction, and so they’ve given us an opportunity for unified government, and we got a chance now to try to turn things around,” Hudson said. “The difference here is with unified government, Donald Trump is setting the agenda. I think it becomes much easier to move that agenda, even with a small majority.”

One unknown is how aggressive the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus will be at driving demands, and whether its members will again withhold their votes in pursuit of their preferred results. Their tactics have frustrated other Republicans, who believe it could hurt the party if they revive them next year.

“You reap what you sow. So think about what you want to do,” said a senior House Republican aide, who sought anonymity to vent candidly.

Another open question is what role the Republicans in swing districts will play. They will undoubtedly be targeted by Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, where the president’s party almost always faces a backlash and loses seats.

“We’ll do what we’ve got to do. So it’ll be fine,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who Democrats unsuccessfully targeted for defeat in a competitive exurban and rural district east of Los Angeles.

‘Trump is so volatile’

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a former House majority leader, told NBC News that nobody knows what to expect from the new GOP trifecta.

“It remains to be seen,” he said. “The reason it remains to be seen is: If Trump wants to be an arbiter, he obviously has enough stick to be that. So from that standpoint, they will have a referee, an arbiter, a conciliator, or whatever they want to call the role of trying to bring people together.”

“But Trump is so volatile, you can’t count on what is he going to do, and their caucus is so volatile. But clearly they’re in a different context at this point in time. Because they now have a president who will sign bills that would be unacceptable to the American people. In some respects, it’s hard to say. ... They just had a big victory,” Hoyer said. “But they didn’t have a big victory for the House.”

Progressive Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., noted that the GOP majority will shrink further in the near term as Reps. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have been tapped by Trump for roles in his administration.

“Sounds like — the first three months, they’re not gonna be able to do anything if they’ve got two people going to the administration,” Pocan said, while urging Democrats to remember that post-pandemic inflation has caused parties across the world to lose power for reasons outside their control.

“So let’s not beat each other up,” he said.