How Trump can keep the House without winning the midterms

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson leads the first day of the 119th Congress in the House Chamber on Jan. 3, 2025. Republicans could use delay tactics to maintain control of the House if they lose the majority in midterm elections.

Despite the passage of Proposition 50, California Gov. Gavin Newsom continues his crusade to stop MAGA Republicans from manipulating the outcome of the midterm elections.

“This notion of fair and free elections,” Newsom warned last month, “will define the 2026 midterm.”

The governor is right to be worried, and gerrymandering is not the only ruse in the MAGA playbook. Republicans can also deploy a little-known delay-and-deny strategy.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson recently delayed seating Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva after she won a special election for nearly four weeks in a failed attempt to keep her from joining MAGA apostates in their successful vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Those machinations foreshadow a more promising Republican delay-and-deny strategy that would allow Trump to keep his grip on power even if his splintering base fails him in the midterm elections.

According to House rules, when the new Congress convenes next Jan. 3, only candidates whose certificates of election are on file with the House Office of the Clerk are eligible to vote for the speaker. There is no federal statute prohibiting states from delaying those certifications.

If Trump’s election deniers in GOP-led states slow walk recounts and stall certification of Democratic wins, their House seats will remain vacant on Jan. 3. Without their votes, Republicans will retain their majority.

Too cute to be true? Not according to history.

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In New York, a 2020 election dispute went on for three months after Election Day. A contested election in 1984 in Indiana produced four months of wrangling.

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