To most political pundits the math is simple. The Democrats have already lost Joe Manchin’s seat in the Senate. If they lose another seat in November, the GOP will take control of the Senate in January unless the Democrats flip a seat in either Texas or Florida. If they don’t, then a President Kamala Harris can’t confirm cabinet positions or judges. But that’s speculative, and I’ll deal with that in a minute.
If Traitor Tot wins, this is all moot of course. The control of congress, either chamber for the Democrats simply saves us another $5 trillion in national debt on another tax cut, and the tragedy of a national abortion ban. But if Kamala Harris wins on November 5th, the proverbial Keys to the Kingdom don’t lie in a single Senate seat.
Instead the keys lie in the simple math of Four seats in the US House of Representatives. Not only because of the control of the gavel, neutering the MAGA Freedom caucus, control of the all important budget ways and Means Committee, and the control of investigatory committees with subpoena power. It goes even deeper than that.
I did my due diligence, mainly I googled it. In 2025, the US House of Representatives is scheduled to reconvene on January 3rd and vote for a Speaker of the House for the new term. And that date holds to its bosom the continuance or death of this grand experiment.
If the GOP continues to hold the House, then they will elect either MAGA Mike Johnson or another far right wingnut, who will use atrocious legal and parliamentary tricks to try to refuse to certify the election results on January 6th and throw the whole thing to the US House to decide the winner.
But if the Democrats can win those 4+ seats and flip the House, then it’s Hakeem Jeffries who becomes the Speaker of the House on January 3rd. And on January 6th, Jeffries will quickly chop through the GOP bullsh*t and certify the electoral college results, with President Elect Harris waiting in the wings when the GOP Senate, if they control it unable to collect the votes to overturn the results.
And so, the most important seat in the US congress on January 3rd, 2025 is not a Senate seat. It’s the seat of the Speaker of the House, because it alone can stave off a constitutional crisis if Trump loses.
And here’s why a 51-49 GOP majority in the 2025 Senate is not the kiss of death for Kamala Harris’s first two years. If Traitor Tot loses in November, then MAGA begins a long, slow death spiral, with The Pampers President no longer a viable leader of the party while he models a NY state orange jumpsuit. And in the Senate alone, there are at least three long time moderates who are going to want a hand in what they hope will be the beginnings of the regeneration of their party. And that process starts with bipartisanship.
I’m speaking of Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah of course. Collins and Murkowski, both career pro choice advocates feel bitterly betrayed by the blatant lies and deception of Trump’s three SCOTUS picks. They spent their careers advocating for a woman’s right to choose, and then got suckered into voting for justices that overturned Roe. Romney has voted twice to convict Trump in impeachment, and had personal humiliation at the hands of El Pendejo ex Presidente to fuel his anger.
Anything less than a 54-46 GOP majority holds out the possibility that on cabinet appointments, moderate legislation, and even moderate judicial picks, they could cross the line and give VP Tim Walz the deciding vote. And at the end of their careers, I wouldn’t put that past them, especially if they believe that it will show GOP moderate defectors that the party is once again interested in governing rather than cultish performance art.
From where I’m sitting, the ultimate resolution of the US Senate is at the bottom of the pile. The first thing we have to do is to elect Kamala Harris the 47th President of the United States. That’s paramount. The second thing we have to do is to flip enough seats in the House to make Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House so that he can vertify Harris’s electoral college win. The Senate will be what it will be.
And even if they win, it will be a mosh pit for the MAGA bloc. Mitch McConnell has two more years left, and whether Rick Scott survives in November or not, McConnell has more than enough clout to make his life a living hell. John Cornyn is sick up to his leadership GOP ass with MAGA bullshit. And other Senate GOP moderates will begin recalibrating to a post Trump GOP. If Harris keeps her word and appoints a Republican to her cabinet, say Hogan from Maryland to Transportation secretary, that signals to the moderates in the GOP she’s for real. If she keeps her word and brings the Senate Immigration Bill up again, I bet it passes in a landslide through the Senate.
It all comes down to one seat. And that seat is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. If the Democrats flip the House, all things are negotiable with a President Harris and the final departure of Traitor Tot. If the GOP retains control, then we have a constitutional crisis and the possible death of democracy as we know it. No pressure.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
feels like a ticking time bomb
Susan Collins will vote how the GQP tell her to vote. She unfortunately has proven that too many times. When she had the opportunity to do what was right, she stuck with party over country, over democracy. She needs to go. I was originally from Maine many years ago. She’s spineless.
Another well reasoned Murf overview. The sine qua non is a Harris win, all digits crossed and earnest praying continued, with the Senate taking care of itself and “If the Democrats flip the House, all things are negotiable with a President Harris and the final departure of Traitor Tot.”
How big is the “IF”? Thoughts on the final mix in the House?
I’m cautiously hopeful New York Democrats learned their lesson after almost sigle-handedly delivering the slim House majority to the GOP in 2022 (Four Hudson Valley and downstate seats were flipped to MAGA). Former NY-03 rep Tom Suozzi regained the seat scuzzball Santos won after Suozzi left to run and lose for Governor; it looks good tor his reelection. About 2,300 Democrats in NY-04 (my district) must have stayed home then, as that was the margin of former Nassau County Exec Laura Gillen’s loss (The district was blue for 25 years). This campaign was very very quiet until aLabor Day, but became prominent since then, with heavy TV ad saturation, a stark contrast to the 2022 effort.
It was actually 5 seats lost in the NY metro from the 2022 election & you’re blaming NY Dems for not voting when you should be blaming Trump and a GOP Judge plus the NY Times. Trump illegally stopped the 2020 Census short during COVID and made sure the official population count in NY was 86 persons short of retaining the same # of house seats so NY lost 1 house seat. Then, the house boundaries of NY’s districts had to be redrawn, which led to lawsuits which went to court and a pro-Trump Judge ended up ruling on gerrymandered districts with boundaries changed – especially in the NYC area – to favor GOP. In addition the GOP favored map made sure the seat lost was a D seat. That ended up pitting 2 Ds against eachother in the primary which did not help the Dems. . On top of all that the NY Times heavily pushed Trump puppet Zelden’s agenda of running non-stop front page crime stories etc. to promote fear while also refusing to run the expose on George Santos that Dems provide to them 7 weeks B4 the election – choosing to run it in Dec. 2002 only after Santos had won. Another factor is the Dec. 2017 Trump Tax Law established the State & Local Tax deduction cap at $10,000, which hurt millions of homeowners – especially those in cities and suburbs (such as on Long Island) where property taxes are much greater than $10,000 and much greater than red rural areas. Many lost their homes & continue to suffer from this and blame the local govts. tax assessors instead of Trump. Finally, I agree with you about Suozzi being partly to blame. Suozzi waited too late to jump into the race to attempt to primary Hochul and would have won against Santos by making sure everyone knew Santos was a Trump puppet insurrectionist at J6 – Zimmerman did not. In Feb. of this year the lawsuits over the 2022 US House map boundaries in NY continued and a different non-Trump Judge approved a new set of boundaries that are slightly less GOP gerrymandered than in 2022 for 2024. Expecting 1 or 2 of the 3 seats you mentioned to flip back to Blue – not counting the Suozzi District which already flipped back in the early 2024 special election. Expecting more engaged voters + a better turnout in Nov.
You state Collins and Murkowski were/felt “betrayed” but I question whether they were even mildly surprised at what happened to Roe? If they were, they were the only people in the nation who felt that way. No, they were paid to vote beer bong, etc. onto the bench unless of course their babbling about women’s reproductive decisions are just that-babbling.
WRT Murph’s statement that Susan Collins feels “bitterly betrayed by the blatant lies and deception of Trump’s three SCOTUS picks,” I would have thought, based on her record, that she feels “concerned” about the blatant lies and deception of Trump’s three SCOTUS picks.
Susan Collins is very very very concerned about fascism in her party. She’ll support Trump but wants to go on record he promised her he would support our democracy. She’s more relieved now that he’s told her he supports her self delusions. Otherwise she’s worried sick.
Collins will write a sternly worded letter expression g her distress, but she will still.vote the way Mitch tells hef
What’s worse…having no principles or pretending to have them to cover up having none to begin with?