Midterm Election Results Bring New Opportunities and Big Changes for Congress

Midterm Elections

It may be an understatement to call this week’s federal midterm election results a tsunami or a blue wave. The Democratic victories, which flipped both the House and Senate to Democratic control in the next Congress, have created majorities so large that Democratic control of both chambers may last far more than the next Congress. Most waves, even tsunamis, recede relatively quickly; this one may not. Let’s break it down.

The Senate

With two races still to call (Mississippi and Alaska), Democrats will occupy at least 54 seats in the next Congress, control the chamber and run all of the committees. Republicans, who enjoy a 53-47 majority in the current Congress, saw their majority evaporate under a deluge of Democratic victories in surprising places, and will become the minority party come 2027. When all votes are tallied, it seems increasingly likely that Democrats will enjoy a 56-44 majority in the chamber. We continue to watch the Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska.

Multiple incumbent Republican senators lost, including: 

• Senator Susan Collins (ME), the current chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee;

• Senator Darline Graham (SC), who currently sits on the Senate Labor HHS Education Appropriations Subcommittee

• Senator John Husted (OH), a current member of the Senate HELP Committee and the Labor HHS Education Appropriations Subcommittee; and 

• Senator Roger Marshall (KS), a Senate HELP Committee member who was expected to lead Republicans on that panel next year

Senator Cynthia Hyde-Smith (R-MS), who is in danger of losing her seat, sits on the Labor HHS Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

This Senate will feature one of the largest classes of new Senators in history, at least 17 new or returning (Sen. Brown in Ohio) in total. That number could grow depending on the outcomes in the Alaska and Mississippi races. Some members of this class will likely occupy now vacant seats on HELP, Appropriations and Commerce. Here is the current list of new Senators:

Alabama – Barry Moore (R)

Illinois – Juliana Stratton (D)

Iowa – Josh Turek (D)

Kansas – Adam Hamilton (D)

Kentucky – Andy Barr (R)

Louisiana – Julia Letlow (R)

Maine – Troy Jackson (D)

Michigan – Abdul El Sayed (D)

Minnesota – Peggy Flanagan (D)

Montana – Kurt Alme (R)

New Hampshire – Chris Pappas (D)

North Carolina – Roy Cooper (D)

Ohio – Sherrod Brown (D)

Oklahoma – Kevin Hern (R)

South Carolina – Annie Andrews (D)

Texas – James Talarico (D)

Wyoming – Harriet Hageman (R)

Leadership: With the turnover of the chamber will come new (sort of) leadership. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is likely to return to his previous role as Senate Majority Leader, though a challenge from Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is emerging. Senator John Thune (R-SD), the current Majority Leader, will likely become Minority Leader. The retirement of Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) at the end of this year opens up the number two leadership for Democrats, which Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is expected to fill.

Committees: On the committees, there will be a fair amount of Democratic and Republican chairs and ranking members swapping places. Senate HELP, though, is a bit of an exception. While current Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will likely become the committee’s chair, it is less clear who his Republican counterpart will be. The current chair, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), lost his primary and will be leaving at the end of this year. Those next on the seniority chart either will be Ranking Members on other committees and thus unable to take the lead on HELP (Senators Paul, Scott and Murkowski) and Senator Collins lost her reelection. As a result, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) appears likely to be the next Republican lead on the Senate HELP Committee. The final decision will shake out in a few weeks.

The leadership for the other Appropriations Committee is expected to be:

Senate Appropriations Committee

Chair, Patty Murray (D-WA)

Ranking Member, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Senate Labor HHS Education Appropriations

Chair, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Ranking Member, Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV)

The House

The final tally in the House may leave the party split at close to 260 Democrats to 175 Republicans – a massive change from the current Congress, where Republicans have a five seat majority. Coming into the midterms, Democrats only needed to flip three seats to attain the majority. As of this writing, with 13 seats still undecided, Democrats have flipped 45 seats. On a side note, House Republicans flipped three seats. A full list of these flips can be found here.

Republican language education was among the casualties in these elections. Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), the Republican co-chair of the America’s Languages Caucus and the lead Republican co-sponsor of the World LEAP legislation, lost her reelection bid. Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), who was a Republican lead on Congressional letters supporting funding for the World Language Advancement and Readiness Act grants (WLARA), lost to a fellow Republican after both were redistricted into the same district. Finally, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) was among several Republican losses in the Keystone State. Fitzpatrick was a very bipartisan member, who cosponsored a great deal of education legislation, including serving as a lead Republican cosponsor of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Act and a cosponsor of World LEAP. JNCL-NCLIS will be working with our advocates on garnering support for the America’s Language Caucus and for language legislation in the new Congress and especially during Language Advocacy Days.

As a result of the midterms, next year, Democrats will have full and complete control of the House, not needing a single Republican vote for virtually anything – except overriding a veto. The Senate, though, still requires 60 votes to close debate so Democrats will need between 4 and 6 Republicans to pass legislation, including funding bills (nominations only require a simple majority).

Additionally, the Democratic majority is so large that it will  be difficult for any single faction – progressives, moderates, etc. – to block a rule or vote down a bill. The slim House Republican majority in this Congress could only afford to lose two votes to pass legislation, which led to many instances where the floor was hijacked and shut down by a small group of members.  

Leadership: The incoming House Democratic leadership is largely set. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is poised to be the first African-American Speaker after his time as House Minority Leader. His leadership team will include Katherine Clark (D-MA) as Majority Leader and Pete Aguilar (D-CA) as Whip.

House Republicans are facing a leadership battle now that current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has announced he will step down from party leadership at the end of this Congress. House Republicans elected  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, as Minority Leader.

Committees: There appears to be less contention in terms of committee chairmanships and ranking memberships in the House, with one notable exception. The House Education and Workforce Committee is facing a contest over who will be the next chair. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the current Ranking Member, wants to run the committee next year. However, two current committee members – Reps. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) – have challenged him. Hayes has indicated publicly that preserving the Department of Education will be a priority for her. In a letter to fellow House members asking for their support, Bonamici listed these priorities should she become chair: 

• Make child care affordable;

• Recenter equity and civil rights as the federal role in K-12 education;

• Improve child nutrition programs;

• Confront the challenges posed by artificial intelligence;

• Invest in workforce development programs and higher education;

• Strengthen collective bargaining;

• End LGBTQIA+ discrimination; and

• Increase wages.

Scott, for his part, intends to fight for his job. On Election Day he sent a letter to Secretary McMahon,demanding that she preserve all records, a strong signal that he would launch investigations into a number of Department actions. 

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), who is the current chair, is expected to become the Ranking Member in 2027.

The leadership for the other key committees is expected to be:

House Appropriations Committee

Chair, Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)

Ranking Member, Tom Cole (R-OK)

Senate Labor HHS Education Appropriations

Chair, Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)

Ranking Member, Robert Aderholt (R-AL)

All of these are subject to change.

The 120th Congress’ Anticipated Agenda

Democrats ran on and are expected to focus on two main areas in the new Congress – affordability and anti-corruption. Media reports indicate that House Democrats are preparing a package of bills for immediate introduction in January that will address affordability issues, likely including bills to restore health care subsidies and to establish a higher federal minimum wage. There is likely to be an effort via resolution to force the end of the Iraq War. The Senate will attempt to follow the House’s lead, if for no other reason than that the House will be able to move faster, but will need some Republicans to pass anything. It is an open question whether the President will sign any bills on any subject that the next Congress produces.

On anti-corruption, the incoming chairs of the House Oversight and Investigations and Judiciary Committees are expected to launch a series of investigations on alleged graft and corruption by members of the Administration and possibly the President’s family. New Texas Senator James Talarico (D) may put together an anti-corruption bill, as well. It is worth noting that efforts to hold the Administration, the President and his family accountable may make it difficult to convince him to sign legislation.

Language Education

For language education, a Democratic controlled Congress brings the promise of both more funding for key programs, much stronger efforts to compel the Trump Administration to follow laws and regulations on the books and allocate money as Congress directed, and opportunities to introduce and perhaps pass new legislation, including World LEAP. In the immediate term, we expect the following things to happen in general education policy:

1. HELP/Education and Workforce investigations into the dismantling of the Department of Education and failure to enforce federal civil rights laws

2. Legislation, perhaps riding on appropriations bills, that would require the Department of Education to spend all money appropriated by Congress (the administration recently impounded funding from many different grant programs, including Title VI) 

3. Legislation that would prevent the Department from requiring political reviews of grant applications and allow the Department to easily cancel competitive grants

4. Impeachment of Secretary McMahon

With all of that said, the President still has a decisive role to play. Whether through issuing Executive Orders, creating or eliminating regulations, or vetoing legislation, the Administration will have a great deal of say over what the federal government prioritizes and does, and which bills become law. A newly Democratic Congress will aim to hold him accountable for those actions (and perhaps past actions) and place before him new policies and funding requests.

The Lame Duck Agenda

Appropriations/CR: What will happen in the upcoming Lame Duck session is an open question. A top-tier item is FY27 government funding. In order to prevent a government shutdown after December 11th, the date on which the Continuing Resolution (CR) lapses, Congress can either complete work on the 12 appropriations bills or pass another CR that kicks final FY27 spending decisions to the next Congress. Completing work on appropriations seems like a tall order given the limited amount of time left between now and December 11th, the likely absences of many members of Congress, and the major gulf between what the President wants – massive defense spending – and Democrats want – more money for domestic programs like education. While some Democrats might like the idea of a new Democratic-controlled making final decisions on FY27 funding rather than this Republican majority Congress, there are concerns that having to finish appropriations next year will impede Democratic legislative efforts on affordability and dilute accompanying messaging. Also, outgoing Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) would most likely want to leave completed FY27 appropriations bills as her final legacy. Ultimately, another shorter term CR, perhaps running into March, or a full year CR are the most likely options.

Nominations: Beyond funding, there is some expectation that Senate Republican leadership will try to move as many nominations, particularly judges, before they lose control of the chamber. There had been some chatter about one or two sitting Supreme Court Justices retiring immediately in order to allow President Trump to appoint and the Senate to confirm their replacements in this Congress.

JNCL-NCLIS will continue to provide updates as the implications of the elections evolve and as the new Congress is set.