President Trump’s decision to poach three members of the House of Representatives to serve in his administration could have serious unintended consequences for his legislative agenda, now that the final battleground races are being called. For the first time in history, America may be looking at plurality control of the lower chamber of Congress. 

The permanent number of House members is 435, which makes 218 seats a majority — though the GOP is on track to win just 220 seats this year, and Trump has already asked three Republicans from the chamber to serve in his administration, meaning Speaker Johnson will have just a one-seat majority for several months. 

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has been tapped to serve as America’s ambassador to the United Nations, and Governor Hochul has yet to set a date for a special election for her deep-red, upstate New York district. Congressman Michael Waltz of Florida will be Trump’s new national security advisor. Congressman Matt Gaetz resigned from the 118th Congress and announced he would not be returning in January for the 119th following his failed nomination to lead the Justice Department. Governor DeSantis has set a special election date for both of those Florida districts for April 1. 

According to the Associated Press, Republicans have so far won 219 seats to the Democrats’ 213. Of the three uncalled contests, Republicans lead in just one, and Democrats lead in the other two. If Trump follows through with his promise to have Ms. Stefanik and Mr. Waltz in his administration, and Mr. Gaetz sticks by his pledge to not return to office for the new term in January, then Mr. Johnson will have just 217 seats to the Democrats’ 215 until at least the beginning of April — more than 70 days after Trump takes the oath of office on January 20. 

Another threat to Mr. Johnson’s grip on power is the reality of member resignations or deaths. During the 118th Congress, seven members resigned their seats, three members died, and one member was expelled. During the 117th Congress, nine members quit during the middle of their terms and six members died.

On November 14, Mr. Johnson pleaded with the president on television to stop winnowing his majority even further. 

“But I’ve told President Trump, enough already, give me some relief. I have to maintain this majority. And he understands that, of course, we’ve been talking about it almost hourly every day,” Mr. Johnson told Fox News. 

The math of the new House plurality will have serious complications for the president-elect’s legislative agenda. When he last entered the White House with a Republican trifecta, he had a nearly 25-seat House majority and was still unable to get much done beyond his tax bill. His other major agenda items — healthcare reform and border security legislation — both died in Congress. 

Those same tax reforms Trump put in place more than seven years ago will expire at the end of next year, and will have to make their way through the House with the support of an oddball collection of suburbanites, libertarians, and rural lawmakers who will no doubt fight for significant tax relief for farmers. 

A critical voting bloc of New York House Republicans — including Congressman Mike Lawler, Congressman Andrew Garbarino, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, and Congressman Nick LaLota — could band together to kill any tax bill that doesn’t significantly raise the current $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction. That same band of Empire State lawmakers took down a House rule last year to spite Mr. Johnson for not giving them a vote on a cap increase. 

When Speaker Ryan put the 2017 tax bill on the House floor for a vote, 12 GOP members voted against it. 

Before the 2024 elections and Trump’s staffing decisions left Republicans with the first House plurality in history, Mr. Johnson boasted in May that he could get a “mega bill” through the House that included tax and spending reductions, regulatory reform, and other items, which could later be passed with just 51 votes in the Senate through a process known as reconciliation.

“We don’t want to make the mistake that we made in the past,” Mr. Johnson told Semafor in an interview. “Back in the 2017 timeframe and in previous years, we Republicans kind of took a single-subject approach to reconciliation. We did one round of health care reform, one round of tax reform. But we’re looking at for [fiscal year 2025], we want to have a much larger scope, multiple issues to address in addition to the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”