Republicans in the United States have secured the 218 seats needed to own a majority in the lower chamber of Congress about a week after the midterm elections which has continued to generate mixed reactions.
Africa Today News, New York reports that while the party’s margin in the House of Representatives is still quite tiny, it is enough to throw spanner in the works of President Joe Biden’s agenda for the next two years.
Meanwhile, Democrats will keep control of the Senate when the new Congress convenes again in January.
In the meantime, a handful of seats remain are yet to be formally announced.
The Republicans – who had hoped to win back control of both chambers – underperformed expectations in last week’s midterms.
But they won the seat they needed for their House majority on Wednesday when California’s 27th district went to incumbent Mike Garcia.
According to CBS, the Republican party is now projected to win between 218-223 seats in the 435-seat House,
However, with votes in several cliff-hanger races still being tallied, their majority may not be clear for days or even weeks.
Kevin McCarthy, who was picked by rank-and-file Republicans on Tuesday to be their nominee to replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi as the next Speaker of the House, celebrated having ‘officially flipped’ the chamber.
‘Americans are ready for a new direction, and House Republicans are ready to deliver,’ the California congressman tweeted on Wednesday night.
In order to be elected Speaker, the House Republican minority leader must win over majority support from the 435 members of the full House.
But Mrs Pelosi signalled she would not relinquish the gavel quietly, vowing in a statement on Wednesday night that her party would exert “strong leverage over a scant Republican majority”.
The first woman to hold the post, Mrs Pelosi, 82, said nothing in her press release about whether she planned to stay on as minority leader, amid speculation in Washington about her future.
Nancy Pelosi was able to accomplish a considerable amount with just a nine-seat margin, but she has proven to be singularly gifted at wrangling recalcitrant Democrats. There’s no guarantee Republicans, who run the gamut from moderates in suburban battleground districts to Freedom Caucus conservative hard-liners, will be equally co-operative with their party’s leadership.
President Biden congratulated Mr McCarthy and offered to work with Republicans to deliver results for Americans.