One of the more remarkable aspects about the current political era is how closely contested control of all parts of the federal government is these days.
It’s not just the presidency that’s on a knife’s edge — so is the House, and even the Senate is highly competitive, though a GOP takeover this cycle is looking closer and closer to inevitable.
We could see all three change party control in the same election cycle, without their all ending up in the hands of the same party — an outcome that would be quite astonishing and unprecedented. And yet, as unusual as that would be, in another way, it would be sort of par for the course, considering how polarized and closely divided we are as a country.
Toss in the fact that the most critical House races to decide control happen to be in very blue states (think California and New York) while the most critical races to decide control of the Senate this cycle are all in red states (Montana, Ohio, West Virginia) and this potential oddity of the House, the Senate and the White House all changing party hands — without the ultimate outcomes correlating — is more likely than many folks realize.
Ultimately, while I don’t believe most voters prefer divided government, they certainly prefer divided government to the alternative of seeing a party they don’t fully trust take full control of the three elected segments of Washington.
So perhaps the anxious centrist or moderate should take comfort in the fact that the likelihood of divided government is unusually high in this campaign. It should put a damper on just how much we should expect the next president to accomplish, especially if the divide is between the House and the White House.
There’s a big difference in just how divided government becomes, depending on whether the House and the White House are controlled by the same party or different parties. Two words send chills down the spine of any presidents who find the “other” party in control of the House: subpoena power.
Given the current incentive structures in both parties, using a House majority’s subpoena power as a political weapon to essentially neuter an opposing-party president would be quite tempting. And it’s a prospect folks should probably count on under either scenario, whether Donald Trump gets elected with a Democratic House (he was impeached twice by a Democratic House, after all) or whether Kamala Harris gets elected with a Republican House.
Big ideas like a child care tax credit or a rewrite of the tax code would be nearly impossible if the person in the White House is dealing with a House controlled by the other party. Just getting a budget passed without triggering a government shutdown would be a tall order.
And the one thing we’ve learned over the decades of fights between a contentious oppositional House and a White House is that while a president can eventually get the upper hand when it comes to “blame games” about who is being most unreasonable on budget talks, simply engaging in constant partisan warfare with members of Congress keeps presidents from ever accumulating political capital and high approval ratings. Ultimately, that's how a president ends up failing to win a second term. Both Trump and Joe Biden saw the second halves of their terms (after they lost control of the House) essentially paralyzed by an oppositional House.
Divided government in which the House and the White House are controlled by the same party but the Senate is in the hands of the opposition is far easier to navigate for a first-term president. That's the most likely scenario for Harris if she wins. It would scale back the size and scope of some of her possibilities, but there would be a path to do something big — say, a permanent child tax credit expansion. But without the House on her side, simply keeping the government ship afloat would be a tough ask.
As for Trump, it’s hard to imagine his winning without a GOP Senate majority following him, but the prospect of his winning while Democrats nab the House isn’t remote at all, and it actually seems more likely than Harris’ winning the presidency with Republicans holding the House. Why? Most of the crucial House seats that will determine control are not in the swing states but in places like New York and California. So whether Harris wins or loses, there’s an expectation that her candidacy helps those House Democratic candidates in blue states far more than Biden would have.
Since the Civil War, only three first-term presidents faced divided government because voters elected an oppositional Congress alongside them: Richard Nixon in 1968, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and, most recently, George H.W. Bush in 1988. That era was a time when conservative Southerners still identified as Democrats, giving the party a longtime lock on the House even if, ideologically, many of those Democrats voted like today’s Republicans.
But working with them still required compromise, and arguably, Bush paid a steep price for working with a Democratic House. He abandoned his “no new taxes” pledge to reach a budget deal with congressional Democrats, helping give rise in 1992 to a conservative primary challenge, a populist third-party general election challenge and ultimately defeat instead of a second term.
Since then, Bill Clinton, Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden all won their presidencies in conjunction with their party’s winning (holding) the House. In fact, other than those two decades from Nixon to Bush, it has been a near-given that a new president would be accompanied to Washington by a House in his party’s hands.
But if Trump wins the Electoral College and Harris wins the popular vote, it’s probably a safe bet that the Democrats grab the House because of California's and New York's blue leans. Under a Harris victory scenario, there is a chance (as we saw a bit in 2020) that some of her voters may vote Democratic only at the top of the ticket and then Republican the rest of the way, simply to protest Trump. Could it be enough to cost her party the House if she wins the popular vote? Maybe, but unlikely.
But the larger point of this entire exercise about control of the House is this: I can’t emphasize enough how difficult it is for presidents to get much done if their own parties doesn’t control the House. Ultimately, the difference between a presidency that never gets off the ground and a presidency that has a chance to get something done is control of the House.
While we're at it, let me leave you with a few more nightmare scenarios that aren’t that improbable.
First, because California House races will determine overall House control, it could take as much as two or three weeks before we know the makeup of Congress in 2025 for sure.
Second, a one- or two-seat majority for either party, contingent on a recount or two, is a distinct possibility when margins in the chamber are this close.
Third, while Democrats should have an easy time electing a speaker should they win the House, what if Republicans can’t get a speaker elected in time for the Jan. 6 Electoral College certification?
We will all rightfully be focused on the very close nail-biter that is developing between Harris and Trump. But whether either’s presidency has a chance at all is going to be determined by an even more nail-bitingly close fight for control of the chamber with subpoena power: the House. Good luck America!
