One of the stories of the 119th Congress thus far has been how House Speaker Mike Johnson has overcome the challenges of his minuscule Republican majority. For a time, the GOP held a 218-215 advantage in the House, which meant he could lose no more than one Republican vote to pass a party-line bill. With Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky having sided against him in practically every critical vote since the start of the session, Johnson has had basically no room for error.
Coming back from recess this week, however, he’ll have more of a cushion. Two Democratic seats will be vacant following the recent deaths of two congressmen, giving Republicans a five-seat majority and allowing Johnson two defections before a bill fails. That margin will expand next week to 220–213—room for three Republican “no’s”—after two Florida special elections on April 1 to fill the safely red seats that were held by former Reps. Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz. Soon after that, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik will resign her seat when the Senate confirms her, as expected, to be President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. That will make the majority 219-213, bringing Johnson’s cushion back down to two votes, since a tie in the House results in a bill’s failure.
All the vacant seats are expected to be won by the party that previously held them, so it’s not a question of who fills them, but when. Those vacancies could prove crucial as Johnson attempts to push “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill containing Trump’s key legislative priorities through the House, hoping to vote on it before Easter. Just how large Johnson’s majority is could be the difference between success and failure.
Of the two seats in Florida, one became vacant when Gaetz resigned his House seat following his short-lived nomination to be Trump’s attorney general, and the other was left open after Trump tapped Waltz to be his national security adviser. Although Democrats are investing heavily in the races in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional districts, it is unlikely their efforts will be rewarded. Both Gaetz and Waltz won in 2024 by upward of 30 points, about the same margin by which Trump carried the districts. And there’s not much reason to believe that the expected winners, both of whom Trump endorsed in the primary, will stray from the party line once in Washington. In Waltz’s old district, state Sen. Randy Fine is a strong supporter of Trump. While he declined to speculate about how he would vote on a reconciliation bill without seeing the text, he told The Dispatch he planned to side with the president. “I believe that you’ve got to be with the team, and you’ve got to follow the team captain, and Republicans have to show that we can govern, and President Trump is the leader of our team,” he said. “So, unless there’s a really good reason not to be with him, that’s where I’ll be.”
Running in Gaetz’s former Florida Panhandle district is Jimmy Patronis, who has served as both a state representative and Florida’s chief financial officer. He has a history of strong support for Trump, having called during the 2024 presidential campaign for a “LEGAL DEFENSE fund for any Florida Presidential Candidate to use when they get targeted by politically motivated lawsuits.” Effectively, it would have allowed Florida to use taxpayer dollars to pay Trump’s legal bills. Patronis’ campaign did not respond to an interview request from The Dispatch.
The Democratic House vacancies followed the death this month of Reps. Sylvester Turner of Texas and Raúl Grijalva of Arizona within nine days of each other. Neither is likely to be filled before the House votes on a reconciliation bill. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, set the date for a special election to fill Grijalva’s seat the day after his March 13 death, but the general election will not occur until September 23. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has the statutory discretion to delay the special election to fill Turner’s seat as long as he wants, even until 2026, and he has given no indication when he will call the election. “An announcement on a special election will be made at a later date,” Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told The Dispatch. It is unclear whether Abbott will delay, but that may not even matter for the purposes of reconciliation. The soonest some expect him to set the date for the special election is May 3, the next scheduled elections for Texas, which would be after Johnson’s goal date for a House vote. Abbott must announce the date of an election 36 days before it is scheduled, giving him until March 28 to set the date if he chooses to hold it then.
But the House GOP could lose another seat before it tries to pass the pivotal bill. Axios reported last week that the Senate will take action on Stefanik’s nomination on April 2. While that is before Johnson’s preferred deadline of Easter, it is unlikely that the vote will occur by then, as text for a bill is not yet finalized. Once Stefanik resigns, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, will have 10 days to set a date for the special election, which must occur between 70 and 80 days after Hochul makes the announcement. She is expected to slow-walk setting the election date, according to Semafor. Failing to observe the 10-day minimum could draw lawsuits from state Republicans, but she could push the legislature to change the law and allow her to wait longer.
With all the vacancies taken into account, Johnson likely will have a 219-213 majority by the time his chamber votes on reconciliation, allowing him to lose two votes and still push a bill through. It’s still a small margin, but it’s more than the one-vote cushion he had earlier, and congressional Republicans have proven remarkably unified in their efforts to implement Trump’s agenda. The most important votes the House has taken this session are those on the budget resolution to craft a reconciliation bill and the continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. On both bills, Massie was the only Republican “no,” and they would have passed even with the entire 215-Democrat minority voting against them.
As speaker, Johnson gets some of the credit for that, but Trump’s aggressive lobbying likely had more to do with keeping the caucus in line. Prior to the vote on the budget resolution, a few Republicans had indicated they would vote against it. In a House Republican cloakroom telephone conversation with one of them, Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz, Trump reportedly yelled loud enough that others in the room could hear him through the phone. Whatever was said, Spartz ended up voting for the bill.
Once the reconciliation vote takes place, we will find out what the greater influence is—the size of the Republican majority or Trump’s hold on the party.
