Unified Republican Control of the Federal Government Will Pass Quickly

But don't wish the time away

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Yesterday, Mike Johnson was re-elected Speaker of the House. In 16 days, on January 20, Donald Trump will be sworn in for his second term as president. On November 4, 2026—a mere 653 days later or roughly 21 and a half months—Democrats should be well positioned to take control of the House of Representatives. Unified Republican control of government would then officially end on January 3, 2027, 729 days from today.

That's really . . . not a very long time. In fact, the end of unified Republican control will effectively take place even earlier, most likely on October 2, 2026, when Congress adjourns (except for pro-forma sessions to prevent recess appointments) in order to hit the campaign trail before the midterms. In case you are counting, October 2, 2026 is 620 days from January 20, 2025.

While it can be a little daunting to think about what the upcoming period of unified Republican control of the federal government will mean, the honest truth is that it is going to fly by. I mean, in 620 days there will be only one holiday season. If you were born between October 3 and January 19, then you will have only have one birthday in that time frame. It is already 2025—October 2, 2026 will arrive next year.

Now, you may ask why I am so confident that Democrats will win control of the House in 2026. I am glad you asked, because I have a few good reasons why, and I am always eager to share them:

• The House is already extremely close. The current balance of power in the House of Representatives is 219-215, with one vacant seat in a deep red district. Democrats only need to pick up a net of three seats between special elections and the midterms in order to win back control of the House. We actually picked up a net of two between January 3, 2023 and January 3, 2025.

• Midterm elections, especially in the House, go badly for the party in the White House. Look at the outcome of the last 15 midterm elections, from 1966 through 2022. In 13 of them, the party in control of the White House lost House seats. In each case, they lost more than a net of three seats—what Democrats need to take control—and usually a lot more than three seats. The two exceptions were 1998, when a backlash against the impeachment of Bill Clinton hurt Republicans, and 2002, when support for Republicans following the 9/11 attacks helped them. Democrats have no power to make a self-inflicted mistake like Republicans did in 1998, and events like 9/11 are unpredictable and rare—so rare, in fact, that there is nothing comparable to it across sixty years of midterms.

• Trump built his winning coalition on low propensity voters. This is a point I keep coming back to because it is so important. Trump only won narrowly, and he won thanks largely to support among voters who are not going to turn out in midterm elections, off-year elections, or special elections. Kamala Harris actually improved on Joe Biden's performance among voters with college degrees, as she won that demographic 56-42 compared to Biden's 55-43, despite doing six points worse in the popular vote (losing by 1.47% vs Biden's 4.45% victory.) In other words, college educated high-propensity voters are even more Democratic than they were in 2017-2018, when Democrats crushed Republicans in special elections and the midterm.

So, while weird things can happen and there are no absolute guarantees in politics or in life, it’s a pretty good bet that Democrats will retake the House of Representatives in 669 days.

Now, some of you might say, sure, Democrats are well positioned to take back the House next year, but only if the elections are fair. To those of you with worries of that sort, please read my former colleague David Nir's wonderful article from November 7, ”Why we should talk about 'fair elections' differently,” published just after Trump's victory. Here is an important passage:

Americans have rejected those in power time and again. We did it in 2018, and we did it in 2020. And we can do it again.

It will be harder. Trump and his adherents will continue their assault on democracy. They will work hard to make our elections less fair still. They will weaponize the federal government. They will shred what's left of the Voting Rights Act. They will do things we have not yet imagined.

But I do not believe that, in two years' time or in four, they can rig our elections such that the outcomes, like in Putin's Russia, become pre-ordained. And I say that not out of any naive hope but because the way we conduct our elections is too decentralized for even the most fervent authoritarian to subvert in its entirety.

It is also worth noting that the House of Representatives itself is, in reality, the final legal arbiter of all House elections—not Congress in general, not the president, and not the Supreme Court. While Trump came disturbingly close to overturning the 2020 election by getting 147 Republicans to vote against certifying the results, that was still scores of votes short of what he actually needed. Trump does not have the votes in Congress to convince them to just chuck out free and fair election results (not to mention that, like the egotistical, selfish narcissist that he is, he hasn't really ever bothered to try to overturn an election he wasn't personally involved in). While we have to remain vigilant, the truth is that Trump does not have the votes to convince Congress to adjourn or raise the debt ceiling, much less to end our democracy.

So yes, unified Republican control will go by fast, and it will likely end with a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives in 669 days. That said, I would like to offer one final note of caution: no matter how upsetting, painful, and shocking the next 21 months will be, we still should not wish that time away. For one thing, never wish away any time in your life as a general rule, because it is the only time you get. However, in this specific case, there are actually a lot of necessary things that are easier to accomplish right now while in opposition than after taking back a share of power. These include:

• Utilizing the increased grassroots and big donor energy that comes with being in the opposition to build up new Democratic infrastructure, including new advocacy organizations and media outlets.

• Planning on what to actually do the next time you govern. The big plans of the Biden administration were already laid out, at least in broad strokes, before President Biden took power in January 2021. Much the same can be said about Trump's plans after he takes power.

• Welcoming a fresh round of new activist volunteers, who invariably become motivated to activism only through life in the opposition. This is something I have a lot of personal experience with, as I only became a political activist because of my disgust with the George W. Bush administration.

• Cultivating a new group of Democratic leaders, especially at the presidential level. Great figures like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were outsiders to the Democratic power structure of their time, would likely never have emerged if they were running to succeed a Democratic president instead of a Republican one.

So, let's not wish this time away. A lot of important things happen when you are in the opposition. Let's make the most of the 669 days between now and November 4, 2026.