House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) believes that neither party is likely to win a significant majority in the House in the 2024 election or soon in the future.
With one week until Election Day, the top House Republican told the Washington Examiner that while Republicans have an opportunity to expand their slim five-seat majority, gone are the days for either party to hold a double-digit advantage over the other. That’s due to several reasons, including recent redistricting that has changed the electoral map and made several seats more competitive.
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“We could get up to maybe double digits, like a 10-seat majority, but the days of a 30-seat majority are gone for either side. That’s just kind of where things are right now,” Scalise said. “But each race is so expensive. I mean, most of these races are $20 [million] to $30 million races.”
House GOP leaders have poured millions of dollars into defending some of their most vulnerable seats and flipping competitive seats currently held by Democrats in an effort to grow their tight majority.
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For his part, Scalise has raised $70 million during the 2024 cycle, giving $15 million to the House GOP campaign arm and another $10.4 million to individual candidates. The majority leader has also traversed across the campaign travel, appearing alongside candidates at 66 events across 28 states in October alone.
That builds on efforts by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who reported a record-breaking fundraising haul for the third quarter of the year, raising $27.5 million between July 1 and Sept. 30. Johnson has also set out on the campaign trail, with his office noting he would visit 24 states in October.
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Meanwhile, other GOP lawmakers are also pitching in, with members of the House Freedom Caucus transferring more than a million dollars to the National Republican Congressional Committee in October. That surge marked an unusual alliance between the two groups that have butted heads in the past.
Still, those transfers come after the NRCC trailed behind its Democratic counterpart in recent fundraising, raising $18 million in September compared to the $30 million raised by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the same month. That’s given Democrats a sense of optimism heading into Election Day, with only four seats standing between them and the speaker’s gavel and House majority.