Kevin McCarthy is quitting Congress – and the House majority may be in play as a result
After weeks of buzz about it, Kevin McCarthy has indeed announced that he’s resigning from Congress at the end of this year. This comes after House Republican Bill Johnson also announced that he’s quitting early, and after House Republican George Santos was expelled. If you’re doing math on your fingers right now, you’re figuring out that the Republican majority is indeed going to be at risk at the start of 2024.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of moving parts here. McCarthy is in a fairly safe Republican district, and Johnson is in a totally safe Republican district. So while those seats will be empty for roughly ninety days, they’ll very likely be filled by other Republicans. But the point is that while these two seats are empty for roughly ninety days, at a time when Santos’ seat is also empty, House Republicans will likely come within one or two seats of losing their majority. I say one or two because there’s also a House Democrat who’s set to resign in early 2024. As I said, there are lots of moving parts.
But the upshot is that these House Republicans couldn’t function with a five seat majority, and now they’ll at least temporarily be down to perhaps a one or two seat majority. What if one or two of them try to vacate the Speaker at that point? It could be a free for all. And if one or two additional House Republican vacancies happen to occur during that period of time, Republicans could at least temporarily lose the majority altogether.
None of this changes the fact that if we want the Democrats to have the House majority for real, we’re going to have to put in the work. That’ll start with making sure we win the special election to replace George Santos, and we’ll be gearing up for that one very soon. Then it’ll continue with making sure we win all the competitive House races in November 2024. If we happen to pick up the House majority and/or the Speakership in the meantime due to Republican dysfunction, fantastic. But let’s keep our eyes on the prize, which is coming out of November 2024 with a real and lasting House majority.
