House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) stated that House Republicans would “win and grow the House majority” by the midterm elections while acknowledging that “historically when the president takes the Oval Office,” his party usually loses the midterms.
During a press conference on Monday, Johnson stated that the Democratic Party was “in disarray” in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, adding that Democrats have “no obvious leader” and “have no obvious vision or agenda.”
“The Democratic Party is in disarray. They have no obvious leader, they have no obvious vision or agenda, their platform has to be rewritten whole cloth, and they don’t exactly know how they’re going to wander in this wilderness for the next couple of years,” Johnson said. “It’s not just going to be a couple of years though, it’s going to be four years at least and then more because we are going to win and grow the House majority in 2026.”
Johnson’s comments come months after the Republican Party took control of the presidency, Senate, and the House of Representatives, giving them a trifecta in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election.
“Historically, when the president takes the Oval Office, then his party then loses on average a number of seat in the House in that first midterm,” Johnson continued. “That won’t happen this time around because there’s been a seat change and we’re going to deliver on this agenda, and that begins now.”
Reuters reported that midterm elections, which “take place every two years,” are usually “thought of as a referendum on the current administration’s performance”:
In the United States, the midterm congressional elections take place every two years, dividing each president’s four-year term, and are often thought of as a referendum on the current administration’s performance. If that is the case, then voters over the past 80 years have generally not been impressed with their elected presidents, as results of the past midterm elections show the party in power almost always loses seats in either the House of Representatives or Senate (and usually both).
The outlet also noted that “13 of the last 19 midterms saw losses in both chambers for the party in power.”
Currently, House Republicans have a seat majority of 218, while Democrats have 215 seats, according to the U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery website. There are two vacancies, as former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) resigned from his seat after President Donald Trump had nominated him to be the attorney general, and former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) resigned from his seat after Trump selected him to serve as the National Security Adviser.
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