Washington Weekly: Finalizing the Election Results

The Senate and House are out of session.

The Senate and House will return to Washington next week to elect leaders for next year’s session (see below).

Trump Two-Year Term.

We all know that President Trump will have a four-year term, but the first two years may be the most impactful. He likely will have Republican control of both the House (still not certain) and Senate in 2025 and 2026. However, that could change following the mid-term elections in 2026. Given the close margins, Democrats could win one or both chambers and complicate the passage of Trump’s agenda in those last two years. Much of what Trump wants to accomplish in areas like trade, national security and regulation can be done through the executive branch and therefore over his entire four-year term. However, certain policy priorities (particularly extension of the 2017 tax cuts and government spending) will require congressional approval. We can expect Trump to claim a mandate from voters and seek immediate action early next year on his cabinet and other senior official nominees, extension of the expiring provisions of his 2017 tax law and certain immigration policies.

A New Senate Leader.

Senator Mitch McConnell has been the leader of Senate Republicans for 17 years. He will step down next year and likely be replaced by either Senator John Thune (R-SD) or Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). Both senators have a respectful relationship with Trump but not a close one. Trump may not like either choice and urge Senators to select either Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) or Senator Steve Daines (R-MT). Both are closer to Trump personally. Presidents usually don’t get involved in these leadership contests on Capitol Hill, but Trump may choose to intervene and demand that Senate Republicans choose a leader more committed to his policy agenda. This would trigger tensions with Republican Senators, but Trump’s significant influence (especially after a dominant election win) would no doubt be impactful. Regardless, the Senate will feature a new leader next year, and his name will not be Mitch McConnell.

Speaker Johnson Redux?

It is an understatement to say that Republicans have had difficulties in running the House over the past two years. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is generally well-regarded by his peers, but he has detractors that want him to embrace more contentious issues and confrontation with House Democrats. Speaker Johnson is fairly close to Trump, and we sense that he will be endorsed by the President-elect to continue to serve in that office. This should quiet the Speaker’s skeptics and give him some breathing room to do his job without fear of being overthrown. The House in turn should operate more smoothly. If the skeptics persist, Trump will intervene and use his influence to resolve disagreements quietly (but can he do anything quietly?). It won’t surprise us to see Trump butt heads with various House Republicans next year as a part of this process.

New SCOTUS Members?

Will Trump get an opportunity to add his fourth or fifth nominee to the Supreme Court? Some Republican leaders may quietly urge current Justices Clarence Thomas (age 76) and Samuel Alito (74) to retire so that Trump and a Republican Senate can replace them with younger jurists who could serve on the high court for another 30 years. This wouldn’t result in a switch from the current 6-3 configuration in favor of court members appointed by Republican presidents, but it would prevent a Democratic president (if one is elected in 2028) from potentially replacing a retiring conservative with a young liberal on the court. Approaching Thomas and Alito to check on their health and potential retirement plans will be a delicate exercise, but it is certainly on the new administration’s to-do list.

Trump and the Senate Filibuster.

There was much speculation that Democrats would change the filibuster laws in the Senate if they won a majority so they could more easily pass legislation to expand membership of the Supreme Court, grant statehood to Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, raise the national minimum wage and enact a national right to abortion. That obviously won’t happen now. Senate Republicans may be urged to scrap or reform the filibuster by a powerful advocate – President Trump. Trump believes the filibuster (and its requirement for 60 votes to pass legislation, not a mere majority) will prevent Republicans from passing many of his legislative priorities next year. While that is no doubt true, Senate Republicans have long resisted changes to the filibuster. We believe that sentiment still runs strong with enough Senate Republicans to prevent its removal, and they will resist those changes. Nonetheless, this disagreement will cause friction between Trump and some Senate Republicans and could be an issue when they elect a leader next week.

Democratic Soul-Searching.

Every losing side goes through a reflective process of soul-searching once it loses an election, especially one it thought it was going to win. Democrats will no doubt go through that process over the weeks and months ahead as they try to assess where things went wrong. Different party leaders will bicker with each other, point fingers and assess blame. That is all part of the process of dealing with a defeat. Nonetheless, Democrats will be back. Defeats are rarely permanent, and this one will not be so. Democrats will seek ways to address what went wrong this election, but most of their path going forward will be determined by Trump’s performance in office. He will make mistakes, as all presidents do, and Democrats will offer alternatives that may serve as a basis for a comeback. Notably, Trump’s emergence over the years has been based on his focus on shortcomings of government and the actions of past administrations (of both parties). Democrats may be down this week, but they will recover to very likely make elections in 2026 and 2028 competitive.

A New Republican Coalition?

The more we look at the vote around the country and particularly the swing states, the more impressive Trump’s vote tally was. He took a small – but decisive – part of virtually all major Democratic voting blocs compared to 2020. That was coupled with a lower turnout among Democratic voters generally, many of whom seemed to have lost their enthusiasm for Harris late in the campaign. Notably, exit polls showed that Trump won Hispanic men by ten points, while Biden won them by 23 points in 2020. He also did much better than expected among younger voters. Can Republicans hold this coalition together and apply it to future races? We don’t know, but we know that Trump is well aware of the power and potential of this coalition. It is unique in this divided political environment, and it gives him a little more swagger to aggressively pursue his policy agenda.

Joe Biden.

President Biden remains largely out of the limelight but certainly wonders what would have happened if he had remained in the race. He will leave the White House in 73 days and spend his remaining time finishing up various projects, including many of his pending regulations, judicial nominations and foreign policy. The President will also try to polish up his legacy as he spends his final days in the White House. While Biden was elected in 2020, it didn’t take long for voters to sour on him. He began office with an approval rating over 50%, but he quickly went underwater (where his unfavorable rating exceeded his favorable) late in his first year in office. He has never recovered. He has had notable accomplishments in office, but they were overshadowed by persistent inflation, the southwest border problem, domestic unrest and a growing sense that he was too old to deal with these problems. The Biden-Harris partnership had its moments, but at the end of the day, most voters didn’t believe it was effective enough.

First Trump Actions.

Over the coming days and weeks, the President-elect will announce his cabinet selections. All of them will need to be confirmed by the Senate, and that will keep the White House and Senate busy for the first couple of months of next year. While campaigning, Trump pledged a very ambitious action plan for “day one” that includes a closure of the US-Mexico border, deportations, new tariffs, and an overhaul of many of President Biden’s executive orders and regulatory actions. The reality is that he will begin work on many or all of these activities, but he needs his appointees in place to implement and finalize that work within the agencies. He won’t have that on the first day. We expect more symbolic proclamations on day one to include a review of all of Biden’s executive actions and regulations, a review of current tariffs and trade policies with global partners (to be used as a basis for imposition of tariffs later) and the reimposition of his former policies on immigration that force migrants to seek asylum outside of the US (rather than staying in the US while a court rules on their cases years later). Any deportations will focus on new migrants to the US and would require time to ensure the right resources are in place (which they are not now). The President-elect will be constrained by many things on day one, and most of these top priorities will require time to be implemented.