Republicans win US House majority narrowly, setting stage for divided government

Washington: Republicans were projected to win a majority in the US House of Representatives, setting the stage for two years of divided government as President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party held control of the Senate.

The slim Republican majority in the lower house of the US legislature will be far smaller than the party had been banking on, and Republicans also failed to take control of the Senate in a historically weak performance in the November 8 midterm elections.

NBC and CNN projected the victory for Republicans with at least 218 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives — the magic number needed to take control. This came a week after millions of Americans went to the polls for the midterms, which typically deliver a rejection of the party in the White House.

The slender majority nonetheless gives the GOP power over the House investigative committees with subpoena authority to investigate Biden’s cabinet and his relatives as well as Silicon Valley businesses that conservatives have claimed are biased against them.

Republicans also have promised to slash government spending, expand fossil fuel production and extend Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy. Much of that agenda, however, will be left to wither in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The Senate remained in Democratic hands after John Fetterman won what had been a Republican seat in Pennsylvania and incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto were declared the winners in Arizona and Nevada in the days after the election.

The Senate race in Georgia between Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, and Herschel Walker, the Republican, will be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff.

The GOP House majority will stall much of Biden’s remaining agenda, but their advantage was one of the smallest gained by either party in a midterm election in modern times.