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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.