November 14, 2024
It’s a Republican trifecta.
A republican takeover.
A conservative connect of all three branches of government.
It’s real. And in 2025…it’s happening.
I’m going to do the math for you in a second.
But first – lots of you have been asking — what does that mean for constitutional checks and balances?
Shrug? It means elections have consequences. Voters voted and this is what the majority wanted. Since the republicans are now projected to win control of the United States House of Representatives and also won control of the senate, that means republicans will control the entire legislative branch, trump won the White House – so that’s the executive branch and conservatives hold a super majority of the judicial branch in the highest court of the land, the United States supreme court. Hence the trifecta. Technically one branch can check the other, but will they if they’re all republicans or conservatives? It’s not likely – but we’ll have to see.
Now what’s going to be interesting to watch is what happens with the House voting majority. Especially since the president elect has selected three House Republicans to serve in his cabinet.
To the math.
In order to win control of the House of Representatives you need to have a 218 seat majority. Well – no surprise – we knew this was coming – but last night, the Associated Press officially projected Republicans secured 218 seats and Democrats have secured 209 seats. 8 seats left to be called.
So let’s do some math – Democrats are likely going to win four of those seats but Republicans are on track to also win four of them. So let’s just say those numbers hold. That will mean Republicans will have a House majority of 222 and Democrats will have 213. So if every single House member is present and voting in order to pass a piece of legislation with only Republican priorities – which we assume will be most of them under a Trump administration — Republicans will need to get 218 votes. That means in order to get 218 votes – Republicans can only lose four Republicans to no votes.
Now – here’s where it gets interesting – Trump has trump has nominated Representatives Elise Stefanik, Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz. That means if they are confirmed we’re going to subtract three from the Republican majority. Republicans will still be in the majority but will have 219. So if this is the scenario – in order to pass that same piece of Republican priority legislation the math changes. They will need to get 217 yes votes which means they can only lose two votes from their own party. That’s going to be extremely difficult.
Now these vacancies will only be for a short time – special elections will be held in New York and Florida to fill those seats and they will likely go to another republican because those are all solid red seats.
