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‘No room for error’: Calif. surprise election could create chaos for Trump

By Lester Black

Adam Gray has won his congressional race in California’s Central Valley, giving another win to Democrats and ensuring that the Republican Party retains only a bare-bones majority in the House of Representatives.

Gray was trailing in votes for most of November but pulled ahead of Rep. John Duarte in a narrow lead late last week. The Associated Press called the race Tuesday night with Gray ahead by only 187 votes in a race that saw over 210,000 votes cast. 

Gray is the third Democratic challenger to beat a sitting Republican representative after George Whitesides beat Rep. Mike Garcia and Derek Tran beat Rep. Michelle Steel. That’s made California a rare bright spot for Democrats in an election where the party lost four seats in the Senate and faced a bruising loss in the Electoral College to Donald Trump.

The GOP won 220 House seats this year, a five-seat lead over Democrats and enough for the party to control the chamber, but the narrow lead is the smallest House majority since the 1930s and will likely cause problems for Trump and the Republican agenda next year. Rep. Pete Aguilar, a Democrat from California and the House Democratic caucus chair, said in a statement to Axios that Republicans have “no room for error” thanks to the flipped California districts.

The Republican lead could crumble if GOP House members retire early or are absent for sickness or other reasons, and the party will have almost no room for defections, or it will risk stalling legislation. The GOP lead is set to become even thinner because Trump selected three members for his cabinet, which will create temporary vacancies that could threaten the Republican hold of the chamber. 

Observers are already predicting difficulty for the party to stay completely united, especially with important fiscal votes hitting the chamber early next year. The Trump-era tax cuts are set to expire in 2025 unless Congress acts to extend them, but the Republican Party appears to be deeply divided over how to extend the cuts. If the GOP is unable to unite around a decision, Republicans and Trump could be left overseeing a tax increase for most Americans early in their term, a prospect unlikely to sit well with their conservative base. 

With almost no votes to spare and Republicans already in deadlock over fiscal policy, California’s surprise wins could lead to chaos for Trump early in his second term.