no tax on overtime, a pathway to citizenship, take other countries' jobs, restore reproductive freedoms. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have made a lot of promises on the campaign trail. The vast majority of these promises have at least one thing in common: they need to get through the US Congress before becoming the law of the land. And right now, the high-stakes fight to control the Senate and the House remains a toss-up. Issues like the economy, abortion, and immigration are important to a lot of voters, and all of those items in one way, shape, or form are likely to be on Congress's agenda in 2025. This is a breakdown of the House and the Senate ahead of the 2024 election. Republicans control the House, and Democrats control the Senate, meaning we have a divided Congress. We live in a time where we're constantly veering from threatened government shutdown to threatened government shutdown, and which party controls the House and the Senate has consequences for how that process unfolds. The margins for either party to take control of both chambers of

Congress remains pretty slim, so any tight race could tip the scales. There are currently three vacant seats in the House. Democrats are expected to pick up two of those, and the remaining seat is expected to be Republican. But Democrats would still need to flip four additional seats to win a majority in the Senate. Republicans only need to flip two seats to win a majority. With West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin retiring this year, it's all but certain that a Republican will take his place, meaning Republicans really only need to win one Senate seat. One state that could determine the future of the Senate is Montana. Democratic Senator John Tester is up for reelection and facing a challenge by Tim Sheehy, a Trump-endorsed Republican and former Navy SEAL. Tester is a three-term incumbent, but he's serving a state that favors Trump and leans sharply red. Montanans have been totally clear with me: we need to return American strength to Washington, D.C. In the 2020 presidential election, Trump won the state by 16 percentage points, and Republicans have swept all other

Statewide offices and secured a supermajority in the legislature. Voters are increasingly more tribal, so they really are understanding, Hey, if I want Donald Trump as president, I need to bring him a Republican Senate. Tester, he's really sort of running an uphill battle structurally against a solid Republican candidate in a state that's solidly Republican. Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into campaign spending and advertising for Tester, selling the message that he's a centrist politician who can work with Trump. I'm protecting our freedoms because Montanans don't like to be told how to live by anyone, especially the government. While Republicans gain momentum in Montana, Democrats are making headway in the Senate race in Texas. Republican Senator Ted Cruz is seeking a third term, but Democratic Representative Colin Allred is standing in his way. Democrats see changing demographics in Texas, and they have gotten increasingly hopeful that they can win a statewide race. Allred is campaigning on centrist policies, talking tough on border security while also backing abortion rights in an

effort to appeal to a wider swath of voters. I stood up to Joe Biden on the border and to extremists like Ted Cruz, who prefer chaos to real solutions. Cruz straddles the line between conservative warrior and bipartisan legislator as he tries to maintain his base while also appealing to suburban swing voters. It's all about turning Texans out to keep Texas Texas. If you don't want a fiery firebrand conservative, Ted Cruz is not your man. So do you start going and looking at Colin Allred, who is talking about having a strong, secure border? Since entering the race, Allred has outraised and outspent Cruz. But this isn't the first time Cruz has faced a tough challenge by a Democrat. During the 2018 midterms, then-Representative Beto O'Rourke pulled similarly to how Allred pulls now. He lost to Cruz but only by a slim margin. Texas is still a challenge for Democrats. When Cruz last ran for re-election in 2018, that was a presidential midterm year. It was a year that Democrats did very well nationwide.

people were very energized by the idea of getting out to vote against the party of President Trump. Now, let's look at the House. All 435 seats are up for reelection in 2024, but Democrats only need to win a net of four seats in the House to take the majority. And right now, there are multiple contentious races in California and New York. They are really targeting districts where Biden won in 2020, but a Republican won those seats in 2022, and Democrats see those as their prime pickup locations. Republicans, that's where they have to defend the most. The House Democrats' campaign arm had around $87 million at the end of August, roughly $16 million more than the Republicans' group. Abortion was a big issue in the '22 election. It has continued to be a big issue since then, and so in a lot of these districts where the voters might be somewhat more moderate, if they see reproductive rights as more under threat, you could also imagine that shaping folks' decisions. There are multiple significant policy decisions on the 2025 legislative agenda.

that have to be addressed, and whichever party is in the majority will have a huge say in their outcome. A big item on the agenda of the new Congress and the new president is going to be what to do about the expiration of the Trump tax cuts on abortion. One of the big questions that people have about what would happen if Republicans have unified party control is would they try to legislate a nationwide abortion ban. Exactly how that process unfolds, what it looks like, is going to be affected by the exact balance of power, which parties have majorities in the two Chambers, who's in the White House. But it's not just these states that could influence who will take control of the House and the Senate. Any race has the potential to remake the next Congress of the United States. There are a number of other competitive Senate races in places like Arizona and Pennsylvania, and then in the House, given just how narrow control of the House is right now for Republicans, really any one of those races, whether it's in New York, California, or another

state could be what determines which party has a majority in the House.

The Four Congressional Races That Will Decide the President’s Power | WSJ

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