House battle takes center stage as Trump’s party pursues full control of Washington

The high-stakes fight for the House is still unsettled. Speaker Mike Johnson and his allies are projecting confidence that a Trump-led GOP will win a trifecta in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Republicans have reclaimed control of the White House and the Senate. Now all eyes are turning to the House of Representatives, which Democrats see as their last line of defense to stop President-elect Donald Trump and his agenda.

The fight for the majority comes with enormous stakes.

Will Trump wield a Republican trifecta that’s expected to support his agenda and his demands? Or will he face a House run by Democrats who would serve as a check on his legislative agenda and wield subpoena power to investigate his administration?

With many competitive races still not called, NBC News has not yet projected which party will control the House in 2025. But given Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, House Republicans are feeling bullish about their chances of preserving their slim majority.

In a statement from West Palm Beach, Florida, where he was spending time with Trump and his team, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., predicted that he and his party would hold onto power in the lower chamber.

“House Republicans have been successful in securing critical flips in swing states including Pennsylvania and Michigan, while our battle-tested incumbents have secured re-election from coast to coast,” Johnson said in the statement. “The latest data and trends indicate that when all the votes are tabulated, Republicans will have held our majority, even though we faced a map with 18 Biden-won seats.”

Congressional Democrats have been relatively quiet as they process Trump’s stunning win but are not throwing in the towel. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sounded an optimistic note on Wednesday afternoon, pointing to several bright spots. He said Democrats had held open seats in Virginia and Michigan, scored wins in Alabama and Louisiana due to redistricting and were targeting four GOP seats in New York.

The “House remains very much in play,” Jeffries said in a statement. “The path to take back the majority now runs through too close to call pick-up opportunities in Arizona, Oregon and Iowa — along with several Democratic-leaning districts in Southern California and the Central Valley. The party that will hold the majority in the House of Representatives in January 2025 has yet to be determined. We must count every vote.”

House Democrats are planning to hold a virtual members-only meeting on Thursday to discuss the election results and next steps forward, according to an invitation shared with NBC News.

A different kind of battleground

Which party controls the House will have major consequences for Trump’s second administration.

“It’s the difference between a GOP rubber stamp and some modicum of oversight over the Trump administration and check on his legislative agenda,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive activist group Indivisible.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said it’s a case of “deja vu all over again.”

“I was in the House the first time Trump was president. So I know what it’s like,” Boyle said. “Trump equals crazy chaos. Every day Trump careens from one thing to another. In the morning he’s firing one of his staffers by tweet, in the afternoon he’s trying to buy Greenland. So it’s incumbent that House Democrats, whether in the majority or minority, are as strong and united as ever.”

The House battlefield is distinct from the terrain that decided the presidency and Senate control for the GOP, as it runs largely through the suburbs where Democrats have held their own in an otherwise disastrous 2024 election for the party. Harris hemorrhaged with Latino voters and younger men, but she gained ground with white women, college graduates and older voters.

Because of the GOP’s paper-thin 220-212 majority, Democrats needed a net gain of just four seats to win back control of the House, which they lost two years ago. But so far, both parties have notched key wins — either through redistricting or by upsetting incumbents — preserving GOP control for the time being.

In New York, Democrats picked up a seat by defeating freshman GOP Rep. Brandon Williams, who represents a Syracuse-area district. And another first-term lawmaker in the Empire State, GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro, was trailing Democrat Josh Riley with 94% of the vote counted, though NBC News has not yet called that race.

In Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state won by Trump, Republicans knocked off two vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Republican businessman Rob Bresnahan unseated six-term Rep. Matt Cartwright in northeastern Pennsylvania’s 8th District, which Trump carried in 2020. Next door, in the 7th District, GOP state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie defeated Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who had flipped a GOP seat in a 2018 special election.

“There is no sugarcoating it: this is a bitterly disappointing outcome,” Wild said in a statement conceding the race and congratulating her opponent.

Republicans also flipped an open seat in Michigan’s 7th District, after Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin decided to run for the Senate.

Other races were too close to call. Republican Nick Begich III was leading Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola by several percentage points in Alaska’s at-large district with roughly 70% of the vote in. In Arizona, vulnerable GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani was narrowly trailing Democratic challenger Kirsten Engel with about 60% of the vote counted, while GOP Rep. David Schweikert had a slight lead over Democrat Amish Shah with more than 60% of the vote counted.

In Nebraska, moderate GOP Rep. Don Bacon appeared on his way to winning re-election despite being a top Democratic target.

Because California is notoriously slow in counting ballots, some of the half-dozen hyper-competitive races there — critical to which party wins the House majority — likely will take days. But early Wednesday afternoon, the five Republican incumbents whose races Cook Political Report had rated as “toss-ups” were all leading their Democratic challengers.

In the Golden State’s 13th District, Republican Rep. John Duarte was leading Democrat Adam Gray, with roughly half of the vote in. In the Central Valley’s 22nd District, GOP Rep. David Valadao had a 10-point lead over Democrat Rudy Salas, with a little more than half the vote counted. In the 27th District, GOP Rep. Mike Garcia was narrowly beating Democrat George Whitesides with 65% of the vote in. In the 45th District, GOP Rep. Michelle Steel had a 5-point lead over Democrat Derek Tran, with more than 60 percent of the vote in. And in the 41st District, longtime GOP Rep. Ken Calvert was edging out Democrat Will Rollins, with 60% of the vote counted.

In another California battleground race, NBC News projected Wednesday that GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley has defeated Democrat Jessica Morse.