Democrats lost the race for the White House, and lost control of the Senate, in 2024. But, after holding on to a few competitive seats in the House of Representatives, what lessons can be learned for their future elections? This episode: voting correspondent Ashley Lopez, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. This episode originally aired on Dec. 3, 2024. The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han and Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This message comes from Whole Foods Market.
Let Whole Foods Market help with holiday meals.
Shop their organic meats, seasonal produce and luscious desserts or simply order crowd pleasing holiday catering@shop.wfm.com terms apply.
Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Ashley Lopez.
I cover voting.
I'm Deirdre Walsh.
I cover Congress.
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
And today on the show, we're going to be talking about the future of the Democratic Party after a pretty bruising election cycle.
Deirdre, I want to talk about Congress first.
First of all, let's talk about the balance of power in each of the Houses first.
Right.
Well, Republicans took control of the Senate.
They flipped four seats in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Montana.
So they will have in January a 53 seat majority with the Democrats having 47 members in their caucus.
In the House, Republicans will keep their super narrow majority.
The other challenge Republicans in the House are already facing going into January is that a couple of their members have been tapped to serve in the Trump administration.
Another member, Matt Gaetz, who was initially tapped to be Trump's nominee as attorney general, ended up withdrawing, but but does not plan to come back to the House.
So House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing vacancies along with a narrow majority, which is could just make his job that much tougher.