Washington After winning the Senate, US President Joe Biden’s Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives in the congressional elections. The Republicans will in future have more than half of the 435 seats in the Chamber of Congress, as reported by the US broadcasters CNN and NBC and the AP news agency on Wednesday (local time) based on vote counts and forecasts.
Such an outcome had been predicted – although the Republican majority will end up being much narrower than expected. And in the important Senate, the Democrats are in charge. With a divided Congress, governing for Biden will definitely be more difficult in the next two years. In addition, Republicans can conduct investigations into Biden and his policies.
With their new power in the House of Representatives, the Republicans can block future legislation at will. Both chambers of Congress are involved in the legislative process. The House of Representatives is particularly important when it comes to budget issues.
Republicans have threatened to block a debt ceiling hike or financial aid to Ukraine. Observers only see this as a means of wresting concessions from the Democrats elsewhere. However, it is likely to become more difficult for Biden to push through projects that are usually decided across parties.
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The Nancy Pelosi era is coming to an end
With the Republican takeover, the era of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, is likely to be over. The 82-year-old has not yet been officially voted out, but her withdrawal is very likely.
California MP Kevin McCarthy, the previous leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, will probably be his successor. The 57-year-old has been campaigning for eight years to be elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The third-highest office of state in the US carries enormous powers, for example the speaker can determine which laws are dealt with.
So far, McCarthy has been the so-called minority leader in the Congress Chamber, i.e. chairman of the opposition. The new congress is constituted on January 3rd. If McCarthy wants to replace Democrat Pelosi that day, he needs 218 votes in the House of Representatives.
However, members of the ultra-conservative, Trump-affiliated “Freedom Caucus” have declared war on McCarthy. Quite a few radical Republicans resent him for criticizing Trump after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
McCarthy won a non-binding preliminary vote on Thursday night, and US President Joe Biden then congratulated him by phone. After the midterms, the US President emphasized that his Democrats would want to work constructively with a Republican majority. However, Biden said he would “not make any compromises” when it came to the costs of social and health insurance and climate protection.
In practice, this probably means that the scope for cooperation is limited. The divided Congress is likely to lead to a series of showdowns between the Republican House of Representatives and the Democratic White House.
An important deadline expires on December 16th
If McCarthy is elected speaker, he will be Biden’s biggest opponent in Washington. The Republicans want to make life difficult for Biden, because the presidential election is coming up in 2024. Many Republican lawmakers are pushing for impeachment proceedings against Biden or his cabinet over the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan or the refugee crisis on the Mexican border.
You can keep Biden busy with investigations into his government and family. Hunter Biden, the President’s son’s, past Ukraine dealings are guaranteed to be investigated, as well as the Corona measures and the crackdown on Donald Trump in August.
There are even MPs who want to block both the budget negotiations and the annual debt ceiling hike in order to take a swipe at Bidens – which can quickly trigger a shutdown and an economic crisis.
The old Congress must decide on a new budget by December 16, which also includes financial aid for Ukraine. From the coming year, such projects could then become more difficult: McCarthy had threatened during the election campaign that the Republicans could block military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
A dispute over the debt ceiling could then threaten. So far, the camps have always been able to agree on a last-minute solution. Still, the potential conflict over the US government’s credit limit is dangerous. Some Republicans want to impose drastic spending cuts on social programs, which the Democrats will not agree to. If the US does not raise its debt ceiling, the nation will be unable to meet its debt obligations, which would destabilize the global economy.
The “red wave” did not come
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the seats in the Senate were up for grabs in the “midterm” elections in the middle of Biden’s term on Tuesday last week. In addition, the important governorships were filled in numerous states. The counting of the votes in several races took a long time due to very close results and electoral peculiarities in some states.
The fact that the Democrats secured a majority in the Senate is of particular importance. Because important personal details at the federal level – such as ambassadors, cabinet members or federal judges – are confirmed there. Biden is therefore certain of the opportunity to push through further nominations in the second half of his term.
In the midterm elections in the middle of a US President’s term in office, his party usually gets a reminder. The president himself is not up for election, but the vote is considered a kind of referendum on his policies.
In terms of domestic policy, Biden had recently added to inflation in the country, among other things – rising fuel prices in particular caused dissatisfaction. And even before that, Biden had to struggle with dramatically poor poll numbers.
Before the election, a wave of success was predicted for the Republicans and a debacle for the Democrats. But neither happened. Instead, the Democrats performed unexpectedly well overall.
More: Against the wishes of prominent Republicans, Donald Trump is entering the race for the 2024 White House. The ex-president is under pressure, but one should not write him off.
With agency material.