How control of Congress will shape US politics, no matter who’s elected president

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DAN RICHARDS: From the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I'm Dan Richards. Come election day on November 5, most eyes will be on the race for the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump appear pretty much neck and neck and the stakes, it feels to many people, couldn't be higher.

But today, we're going to look at another pivotal outcome of this November's election, control of the US Congress, and specifically the fate of Republicans in the House of Representatives. The Senate is most likely to flip in Republicans favor, but control of the House of Representatives remains up for grabs, which means that a handful of close races in House districts across the country will likely have a huge impact on the agenda of whoever becomes president.

In fact, the outcome of these races could have an impact on our politics even before the next president is sworn in. That's because the next Congress will vote to certify the election results on January 6, Twenty Twenty-Five.

To get a better sense of the fight for control of the House ahead of next week's election, I spoke with Olivia Beavers. Beavers is a congressional reporter for POLITICO, who focuses on House Republicans and GOP leadership. We talked about some of the closest races we're likely to see this November in the House and the role House Republicans will play in our politics in Twenty Twenty-Five and beyond. Here's our conversation.

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Olivia Beavers, thank you so much for coming on to Trending Globally.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Of course. Thank you for having me. It's so exciting to be both at Brown, which is a school I would have never been admitted to back in the day. So it's a nice honor to be here.

DAN RICHARDS: Join the club.

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So I wanted to start as someone who's covered Congress closely for many years, how does Congress change in the final stretch of a general election like this? Like, does day-to-day law making, does it change dramatically? Does it stop altogether? Like, how does it change this time of year?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: If you ask the members of Congress who are in the majority, they'll claim that they're still trying to get work done. But the truth is, they're out campaigning. Both sides are trying to either win the majority or keep the majority. And so there's not a ton of work getting done.

So as a reporter who covers Congress, that's a little bit less fun because you're a lot easier to ignore over the phone than you are in person. But it doesn't mean that there's less stories. Campaign season is pretty crazy and it's all gearing up to who wins and what the leadership elections look like. But it's definitely a different sort of tempo for us covering the House and the Senate.

DAN RICHARDS: So different, but not in any way quieter.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: No, no, it's definitely not quiet. And I started covering Congress just as sort of Trump was-- his administration was starting. And it has never really seemed quiet, especially when he was in office. That's all I sort of ever known covering the Hill is a pretty hyper-partisan time borne out of the Trump effect.

DAN RICHARDS: Yeah, well, speaking of the Trump effect, before we dive into Congress in more detail, I wanted to ask-- and we're recording this for listeners on Monday, October 28-- the big headline of the last few days has been about Donald Trump's rally in New York City over the weekend. It was riddled with insults against Puerto Ricans, Palestinians, and many other groups of people.

And the news cycle moves so fast. So who knows if this will still be on anyone's mind in a few days? But I wonder, what do you think? Does it matter? Are you hearing anything from House Republicans about how this may be shifting how they're thinking about the election?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: So there's already been some public comments from Republicans, I think, Rick Scott and a few House members, including Anthony D'Esposito, who condemned the comedian's comments about Puerto Rico and Latinos. Those are voter facets groups that they're trying to attract in the last few days of the election.

And even if the Trump campaign has tried to publicly distance itself and what should have been this big homecoming Madison Square Gardens moment, they're now on the defense. What I do find pretty wild is that the campaign's polling are so close, and a skill campaign would have vetted what the speakers were going to say. And my colleague reported that these speakers were not vetted. That is a major gaffe and major flop on their part.

I traveled with two campaigns for a story one time, and you can tell what is a strategic campaign and what is not a strategic campaign by who they're going to introduce you to. And the Dem candidate was like, hey, I want to introduce you to this person, this person, and this person. And I pulled one of those people aside and they go, I'm not voting for him. That is a sign that this person doesn't know what they're doing in my mind.

DAN RICHARDS: Not a strategic.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Not a strategic campaign. And so that was one of the big thoughts I had about Trump is even if they had no idea what this person was going to say, well, why were you not more careful and strategic about who spoke? So definitely, I think something that the campaign is not happy with, how the outcome has proved to be.

DAN RICHARDS: All right. Well, let's turn back to Congress. So the Senate is widely expected to come under Republican control this election, but control of the House seems much more like a toss up. And just for listeners who might not be that familiar, why is that? Does it speak to some sort of bigger shift in our politics, or is it more a matter of just luck, like what senators are running for re-election right now? Why is one close and one not?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Well, definitely the House is up for re-election every two years. And so all of them are campaigning all the time. That is not the same case with the Senate, which has four years and the races are staggered. So right now, you have seats that look way more promising for Republicans in terms of different senators who are retiring.

In West Virginia, Joe Manchin has left, and that looks like it will be a red pickup. And the Senate is evenly split with Harris being the tiebreaker vote. So if Republicans just pick up one or two, depending on who's in the White House, then they control the Senate.

And then the House is seen to largely mirror where the presidential race is. But experts are also saying that there could be a ticket splitting effect. So if Trump wins, the House could still be controlled by Democrats. Or even if you flip it, Harris could be in control, and then Republicans.

There might be a voter who will vote for a Republican in a battleground district, but they won't support Trump. So they might put Harris on the ballot, especially in suburban, sort of competitive areas across the country.

DAN RICHARDS: I wanted to look at two races that I think illustrate some of these tensions and dynamics you're describing. The first one is in New York State between representative Anthony D'Esposito and his challenger, Laura Gillen. So who is D'Esposito and how would you characterize that race?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Well, he's a Long Islander, and that was seen as a competitive race. And I believe he flipped the seat.

DAN RICHARDS: Back in Twenty Twenty-Two?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yes. But he has had a few difficult news stories. So The New York Times had a story that suggested he was not only having an affair, but one of the women that he was having an affair with was put on the payroll. And House Ethics has certain lines. You're not allowed to put someone in your family on payroll. But is someone you're dating sort of seen as crossing that line? So I'm sure that that's something that's being looked at. And I don't have the answer of whether that would be a violation.

But CNN also, I guess, looked into his finances and they found some curious transactions in terms of spending money at steak houses and other sort of luxury hotels. And so I think that that's another factor playing into it. But Republicans need to hold on to seats in New York.

D'Esposito's is a battleground. If Democrats can flip a handful, then they would be gaining power in the House. So I think that's why you're going to be seeing a lot of spending. New York is a very expensive media market. And that's why you're seeing a lot of money being poured into some of these New York races.

DAN RICHARDS: And his district went for Joe Biden in Twenty Twenty. So this is really a trying to pitch to more moderates, or that's how the two candidates are framing themselves, right?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yeah. And in this sort of situation, they try to tout that they work across the aisle, that they got stuff done, and they can't be the flamethrowers. They can't be the only on Fox News sort of personality members. They have to be someone who is seen as being present in their district.

And there's a chance where the voters don't care about The New York Times article. They don't care about the CNN article. That's something that they'll vote for. But that's up to what the voters decide they care about.

DAN RICHARDS: Another interesting candidate who is sort of fighting to keep his seat is Representative Scott Perry in Pennsylvania. He won this seat in Twenty Twelve. So he's been in Congress longer than D'Esposito. But he's a member of the far-right, Trump-aligned Freedom Caucus and was a supporter of Trump's efforts to overturn the Twenty Twenty elections. So a little bit of a different type of Republican. And yeah, how would you describe that race?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: This race is interesting because he's someone who has taken very strong conservative stances. And the fact that he has a challenger who is really making the party worry is a sign that maybe some of his views don't exactly match the district. And he had previously voted to advance a bill in the House that was pro-LGBTQ, which I had heard from his colleagues, was him trying to survive in a general.

But I don't remember the exact timing, but the bill then came up for another vote and it had a slight adjustment and he said the adjustment was the reason he voted against it when actually he was trying to just get through a primary season. So you see him juggling trying to survive the political realities of being in Congress.

DAN RICHARDS: So there isn't just one type of Republican who is at risk in the House this election cycle. You've got Perry, the bomb throwing Trump supporter. You've got D'Esposito, the Long Island moderate. And we'll see how all these races play out.

But I wanted to move a little bit into-- I'm not going to ask you to predict either of those races or any of the House races, but I did want to look a little bit more at potential ways this election could unfold and what it might mean for the country, especially with regards to how House Republicans do in this coming election, which is important on its own.

And I'm especially interested to hear your thoughts on it, given your expertise following House Republicans in Congress. And so the first hypothetical I want to look at, let's say Trump wins the presidency. Republicans take the Senate, like many people expect they will, and they maintain the House, which is not an unlikely scenario.

Are there still Republicans in Congress who would challenge Trump's agenda meaningfully in that case do you think? Or do you think it might become something where he really is sort of effortlessly able to pass his agenda?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: I think it would depend on what it is. There's definitely a Trump effect in Congress. And I'll tell you-- so I did a story before Trump decided to run again. And I went and asked this huge swath of House Republicans, do you want Trump to run again? If not, who do you want? And I got DeSantis's name across the board. And members would say, I like Trump's policies, but he brought too much drama. I want someone else.

Now, these conversations were held on background, which means if I wanted to get their opinion, I didn't name them. And some of those people who said they don't want Trump to run again ended up being early endorsers of him. I think some of that came after the Stormy Daniels defamation suit, where members thought, well, this is going to be very politically good for Trump in their mind.

They thought it looked like Democratic overreach, and they put their fingers up in the air, felt the way the wind was blowing, and backed Trump. It's politically advantageous to back both the party nominee and whoever ends up being president because you have more power. But the story wasn't wrong, it just was the party shifted and people are in the House and the Senate political beings.

Now, there are definitely some things that have Trump moved forward with members would protest. It depends if you're in more of a battleground district like Anthony D'Esposito, who has endorsed Trump, that's sort of a game some of these battleground Republicans play, or if you're a Freedom Caucus member, you have very different sort of policy objectives.

DAN RICHARDS: What's an example of different policy objectives?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yeah. So let's take abortion. Trump has said he will not support a national abortion ban, but there are definitely members in the Freedom Caucus and the far right who would adopt that. You would see centrist, sort of vulnerable members standing up and saying, we don't agree with this because they know that the head of their party pushing that agenda would mean that they are not reelected.

They saw it with the last midterm cycle, where abortion was a huge motivator in a way that the polls didn't even fully predict how much that would drive out votes against Republicans in that way.

DAN RICHARDS: Another likely outcome is, again, Republicans take control of the Senate and maintain control of the House, but Vice President Harris wins and becomes president. How do you think a second loss for Trump in the presidency and a loss for House Republicans might affect how some of the GOP operates on the Hill? Like, might it lead to a cooling off of some of the most intense kind of MAGA voices, or do you think it'll just continue on at a similar way.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: So I think you're going to see a few shifts. Some are hoping they go back to a more traditional Reaganesque, don't insult, don't create the drama, but inspire in a way that's way more traditional. Others think that you're going to get a version of Trump, but not Trump himself.

So they used to describe DeSantis in that way, but they found that he lacked the charisma and ability to inspire. And he really kind of failed to bring down Trump. So maybe they go for a more Nikki Haley type. The party has debated it, too. I don't think that there is an answer because there is a sliding scale.

There is the very, very pro MAGA. And then there is the old Tea Party who's not quite MAGA, but they like the kind of ultra conservative approach. And then a trickle down into much more centrist reach across the aisle kind of Republicans.

DAN RICHARDS: Another potential outcome and a trajectory that's maybe to more easily imagine is if Harris wins the presidency, but Republicans control both houses of Congress.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: It would be just a clash. Very little gets done, unless there is a major tragedy or something like a natural disaster. But they would block her agenda and she would block theirs.

DAN RICHARDS: Right. And I could imagine, too, there might also just be some variety of investigations into all sorts of things.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: For sure. Yeah.

DAN RICHARDS: One other scenario I wanted to look at, which is something that would really occur just a few days into the next session of Congress in Twenty Twenty-Five and would have a huge effect on our politics, which is that on January 6, Twenty Twenty-Five, this newly elected Congress will gather in a joint session to certify the presidential election results.

And Trump has made pretty clear that he plans to contest this election, or at least has made everyone feel like they should be prepared for that in some way. And if this coming election is close, if Harris appears to win but the election is close, how might a Republican-controlled Congress work with Trump in his efforts to disrupt the election results?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Well, when we go to January 6, I was asking if there's a chance that we see something like that again if Trump loses and there is an effort not to certify. That's not going to happen again because of a few things.

One, I think it's called the Electoral Reform Act, which was passed after January 6. And it would have prevented what you saw in Twenty Twenty-One, which is it would require a fourth of the Senate and a fourth of the House to object to the certification in order for a situation like that to occur. And the Senate did not have those numbers. And so that wouldn't have happened in a way.

So there have been steps taken to basically make what the VP does ceremonious and not something where Mike Pence is put in a position, again, where he could be pressured not to certify. Now, if Trump does win, there are some irony that Harris is a VP and would have to take part in the certification. But yeah, I don't think we're going to see, at least in that same way, a January 6.

Now, are we going to see peaceful transfers of power? I hope so. But there's definitely doubts that I hear on Capitol Hill. And I'm sure that different elections are going to be contested, particularly if they are close.

I travel with Mike Johnson. I was the first reporter to do campaign travel with him. And that was something that we were trying to figure out was how did he see his role as it relates to certifying? And he said that he's a constitutional lawyer, he'll follow the Constitution, but he said, as long as the election is viewed as fair. And so there was a little bit of wiggle room there.

DAN RICHARDS: So this bill that was passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in Twenty Twenty-Two really aimed to officially set a high bar for Congress's ability to challenge the certification of an election.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yeah, I think that it was sort of a ceremonial procedural practice that had just gone pretty smoothly for most of history, and we just happened to be in the time where it wasn't. And I was in the House evacuation on January 6 and really hope that we never live through that.

I remember talking to police officers after January 6, and asking them-- they seemed to have the worst PTSD because we were all under this illusion that the Capitol was one of the safest places and we felt protected. But the Capitol was not built for a mass mob situation. It was built to prevent a lone terrorist trying to detonate bombs or do something like that, not for its own people to try to storm the building.

And so one of the safe rooms was the House chamber. And it's two levels. And it turns out when there is a mob attack, it's not a safe place because there's about seven or eight doors that give you access. And luckily the rioters had only tried to get into two. So there was enough security who could block them. But if they had figured out that there were other doors, we were probably sitting ducks at that time. So I was in the Gallery, which is a floor above the House floor where all of this was going on.

DAN RICHARDS: Wow. Well, I'm glad you were in the end safe.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yeah, me too.

DAN RICHARDS: That is terrifying.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Thanks.

DAN RICHARDS: But still Trump, I imagine, would plan to enlist Republicans who are on his-- who were strong supporters of him if he was making some sort of effort to question the election. But are you saying sort of that come the new session of Congress, even if the house is controlled by Republicans, even if the Senate is controlled by Republicans, there's not much that can be done sort of constitutionally legally in Trump's efforts to change the certification results?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: They can try to separately go through and challenge whatever they view as unfair or through lawsuits and whatnot. But it's the House, unless there is a very broad belief that something was unfair in how it went down, the House is going to basically be just checking a box and doing the ceremonious role, given the changes that have been made.

DAN RICHARDS: As we start to wrap up, thinking about the role House Republicans will play in the next administration, it seems like there are so many divides and instances of infighting among House Republicans. And a lot of that seems to have been sort of instigated by-- or rows with the Trump presidency, maybe a little bit before, too, the Tea Party.

But I guess as a close observer of House Republicans, going forward, whoever wins, whoever loses, what unifies this group of lawmakers? What are the values that really give them all a single purpose in the party?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Well, they'll say smaller government, reining in spending, being pro farmers, like those are some of the things that you'll just hear across the board. Trump is divisive, but he has had a unifying effect within the party in at least the House. I'm not talking about broader sort of disenfranchised Republican voters who are more moderate, or traditional Reagan Republicans.

But in the House, he can basically threaten to have you ousted. Out of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him, two remain. And out of the two who remain, Trump went after at least one of them. Republican leaders had tried to tell him like, please don't go after these guys. They're the only ones who can win in these districts. And yet, I think after the shooting, he was feeling a little bit more emboldened and went after Dan Newhouse, who was one of the 10.

DAN RICHARDS: Who is running for re-election right now?

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Yes.

DAN RICHARDS: So Trump, despite the fissures, still has this unifying his power over his people.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: It's power, but it's power through his ability to attack and unseat someone, which some can survive but it makes things tougher. It will give you a primary challenger. He was able to help oust the Freedom Caucus chair. But if he starts losing, his power will start deteriorating, too. If they lose the House, you can imagine that people will be a little bit less eager to back him.

DAN RICHARDS: Yeah. And the ways that this election will affect who controls the House, but also then how those results affect Republicans in the House are to be seen, I guess, should it happen now.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: We'll in a few days.

DAN RICHARDS: Yes. Well, Olivia Beavers, thank you so much for coming on and giving us a better sense of this really important facet of the November election. And yeah, so appreciate you talking with us.

OLIVIA BEAVERS: Thanks for having me.

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DAN RICHARDS: This episode was produced by me, Dan Richards, and Zach Hirsch. Our engineer is Eric Emma. Original music by Henry Bloomfield. And additional music by the Blue Dot Sessions. If you want to hear more from Olivia Beavers, you can read her work at POLITICO. You can also watch her recent talk at the Watson Institute's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. We'll have a link to that video in the show notes.

And if you like the show, leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps others to find us. And make sure you subscribe to the show, too. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for guests or topics, send us an email at trendingglobally@brown.edu. Again, that's all one word, trendingglobally@brown.edu. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Trending Globally. Thanks for listening.

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