Republicans are very disappointed in the “red fizzle,” but they are still very likely to take control of the House of Representatives and they see a silver lining and a positive future in Ron DeSantis’s tremendous victory in Florida. The result has some parallels to 2020 when Democrats won the White House but lost seats in the House. There are clearly cross-currents in the electorate and neither party has a mandate.

It’s notable that the shots Donald Trump took at Governor DeSantis before the election had no impact at all. In fact, DeSantis was far the biggest winner on Tuesday. He won by a huge margin. He won Miami-Dade County. He won Hispanics. He won women. He won the suburbs. He now has a Republican supermajority in the state legislature. Florida was a purple state not long ago. It is as if the projected red tsunami occurred, but only in Florida.

House Republicans will meet on Tuesday to choose their leaders. These are simple majority votes amongst Republicans in conference, except for Kevin McCarthy who will also need a majority of the whole House in January to become Speaker. The narrower than expected majority means he may have to make some promises to various groups of members. Nancy Pelosi had to do the same thing a few years ago. Steve Scalise is fairly certain to be the majority leader, but there is an ongoing race for Republican Whip.

When it comes to committees, the key thing to remember is that Republicans have term limits for their chairmen, so we’ll have some new faces. The powerful Ways and Means Committee will have a new chairman, and there is a spirited contest underway for that. Cathy McMorris Rogers will take the gavel at the very important Energy & Commerce Committee. Virginia Foxx is favored to get a term-limits waiver to take back the gavel of the Education and Labor Committee, citing both precedent and strong support from her colleagues. Jim Jordan, a leader of the Freedom Caucus, will be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Most House committees are going to be focused on oversight for the next two years, in part because divided government will limit how much legislating can be done. Some of it will be backward-looking. Issues in this category include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Hunter Biden’s laptop, the origins of Covid, and the perceived politicization of the FBI. Committees will also focus on domestic energy production, China, ESG, “woke capitalism,” antitrust, and free expression issues. Perhaps the most significant change from past Republican majorities is that CEOs should expect to be subpoenaed. The Republican Party is no longer the party of big business.

Attention will inevitably turn to the House Freedom Caucus. This is actually a fairly diverse group of legislators. They are not all bomb throwers and they are not all Trump acolytes. They are, however, all self-described conservatives, but even that can mean different things. But if they stay united, they will definitely have leverage. Of course, that’s true for any group of members with an agenda, including moderates. The far bigger Republican Study Committee—the original and more mainstream conservative caucus—will play a very important role as House Republicans’ de facto policy committee. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma will be the new chairman of the RSC. It will be interesting to see if conservatives return to their traditional focus on fiscal restraint and entitlement reform. The Tea Party movement was laser-focused on these issues. The Medicare Trustees are still ringing the alarm bell on entitlement spending and inflation has definitely brought spending levels back to the fore. Congress is also going to have to address another debt limit soon. Conservatives can be expected to leverage the debt limit to turn attention to debt and spending. Exactly how they do that remains to be seen.

Both parties will focus on content moderation, but for very different reasons. There is vastly more information going through fewer channels than ever before. Determining the first ten hits in your search engine results or social media feed is an awesome power that makes Republicans and Democrats very nervous. Conservatives believe that Progressives are no longer committed to civil liberties and want to control these media to suppress conservative ideas they disagree with. This layers on top of longstanding concerns about ideological conformism in academia, journalism, and elite institutions generally. At the same time, Progressive groups are concerned about online racism and conspiracy theories. This debate will continue and may even escalate.

There are two possible futures for the GOP: one in which Donald Trump is nominated again for the presidency and one in which Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, or another Republican picks up the baton. Congressional Republicans have only a short window to act on their own priorities before the 2024 presidential contest overwhelms them.

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Photo of Gabe Neville Gabe Neville

Gabe Neville, a non-lawyer, helps Covington’s clients navigate the complexities of federal policymaking.

Gabe helps clients in various sectors understand individual policymakers and the legislative and regulatory tools they can use to advance their agendas. Using an intimate knowledge of the government gained…

Gabe Neville, a non-lawyer, helps Covington’s clients navigate the complexities of federal policymaking.

Gabe helps clients in various sectors understand individual policymakers and the legislative and regulatory tools they can use to advance their agendas. Using an intimate knowledge of the government gained over a nearly twenty-year period as a Congressional staffer, he helps clients proactively engage the legislative and executive branches of government. He also advises clients on responding to congressional inquiries and invitations to testify.

Gabe joined Covington after nearly two decades as a senior congressional staffer, most recently serving as chief of staff for Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Pitts (R, PA-16). He previously worked for the Pennsylvania state legislature, and managed several successful political campaigns. After managing Congressman Pitts’ first campaign for Congress, he served the congressman as press secretary and then as chief of staff. In that role, he advised the congressman on a wide range of issues, with special attention to the range of health, energy, and telecommunications issues that come before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Other issues Gabe engaged in range from agriculture to human rights.

As chief of staff to a leading conservative, Gabe also developed deep relationships within the conservative movement. He frequently chaired meetings of the Values Action Team (VAT) and attended meetings of the Republican Study Committee (RSC). Gabe continues to work with these and other right-of-center organizations in Congress, including the House Freedom Caucus.

While on Capitol Hill, Gabe worked closely with the members and staff of the Health Subcommittee while Congressman Pitts chaired that panel. The subcommittee oversees a wide range of government health programs and issues, including public health; hospital construction; mental health and research; biomedical programs and health protection in general, including public and private health insurance; food and drugs; and drug abuse. The subcommittee has jurisdiction over federal agencies responsible for public health programs, regulation, and administration. They include the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and others.

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