In a still-unfolding count that could surpass 300 electoral votes and Senate control that could reach 55 seats, voters have given President-elect Donald Trump not only a residence but resources, a mandate. It remains to be seen if Republicans will retain the House for the coveted trifecta.
“It's not that Trump is popular on a personal level. This is the opposite of Obama where Obama was personally popular, but his policies weren't. Here the mandate is on the policy. People wanted [Trump] to get in there to change direction," Blaze Media’s Daniel Horowitz said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
"So, when it comes to cutting spending, which is the key to inflation, when it comes to immigration, when it comes to crime, when it comes to all these issues, we need this time to be different. This time must be different.”
Republicans can celebrate like they’ve won the Super Bowl, but they can’t respond like the Chiefs. The fight isn’t over. “No, you won possession of the ball. Now is the game. Now is the season. Now is the time to get engaged,” Horowitz told show host Jenna Ellis.
Various trials just made him stronger
Trump’s historic victory is easy to compare to Grover Cleveland. The first Democrat elected after the Civil War served two terms but lost to Benjamin Harrison in between, making Cleveland the United States’ 22nd and 24th president.
But Trump dealt with so much more, facing legal actions against him in several states, most notably New York and Georgia, and facing at least two known assassination attempts.
Trump was not only shot at, as MSNBC host Joe Scarbrough described Wednesday morning, he was hit, the bullet grazing his ear. Yet Trump persevered “and made people think at the Milwaukee convention the next week, ‘Hey, that’s our guy. He’s tougher, he’s stronger, he got shot at, he’s still standing up and holding his fist to the crowd,’” Scarbrough said.
Democrats put Trump on the defensive, and "fight" became his theme long before the shooting at Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Time and time again in less dramatic ways, he’d walk out of a courthouse, hold a press conference, he’d say it’s a witch hunt. You’d talk to other Republicans running against him, and they would say, ‘these trials are just making him stronger,’” Scarbrough said.
It all added up to an election win, so big that the race was called the same night/morning, defying the odds with a margin seemingly protected from whatever legal challenges may yet come.
So now the page turns to a term-limited administration, one that knows on the front end that it won’t serve past 2028.
Trump campaigned on lower taxes, cutting inflation, securing the border, decreasing federal regulation and reorganizing trade relationships. In his first term he used executive orders to move his initiatives along more quickly.
Will Republicans hold the House?
Horowitz believes that ultimately, Trump will have a Republican majority in the House to go along with the Senate.
“I do think they’ll ultimately probably maintain roughly the same three- or four-seat majority, but that’s going to hinge on the California races that take forever, maybe a week to come in. I don’t know if there are shenanigans there. If the Democrats want to fight it enough, it could be the Democrats could win, but I think the Republicans will maintain a very slim majority,” he said.
When victory euphoria subsides, Trump will have to be politically savvy to get things done with the Senate even with a comfortable advantage, Horowitz said.
“The Republican Party has not changed. I know you're going to hear all of our Fox and conservative media with, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a different party.’ It's really not. The same people who have been there got elected. A lot of these new senators will come in literally like Bush Republicans.”
But there will be a new leader of Senate Republicans as Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell steps aside. Rick Scott, of Florida, is someone Trump could work with, Horowitz says.
“I think he would be a conduit for whatever Trump wants to do for better, for worse. This is really up to Trump to lean in and move the Senate to the right and demand that the Senate finally do something with their control that they've never really done.”
Senate races are still being contested in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Only in Arizona where Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Kari Lake is the margin greater than eight-tenths of a percentage point.
Republicans have secured 52 seats, and it’s likely they end up with enough of an edge to give Trump some flexibility with the chamber.
Room to breathe in Senate
It would become unlikely that less conservative Republicans – think Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – could torpedo Trump initiatives. Collins and Murkowski introduced Senate legislation in 2022 that would have codified Roe v. Wade.
The election win creates some Senate shuffling with the ascension of JD Vance to vice president.
The number of GOP seats could affect Trump’s thinking on Cabinet positions.
“You could afford to lose Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, let's say, on a hardcore Cabinet pick that they wouldn't be comfortable with. You should have a buffer for that now. Trump will be more likely now to tap sitting senators for Cabinet posts, not worrying about a temporary disruption of the GOP majority,” Horowitz said.
