Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), who was first elected to Congress in 2016 alongside Donald Trump, is leaving — and although he already announced that he’d not seek re-election, he’s moved up the timeline.
Gallagher announced this week he’d depart Congress in the middle of next month instead — close enough to the general elections to leave replacing him to that process but soon enough that Republicans will be down to being able to see just one defection if Dems oppose them in unison.
Republicans’ lead in the chamber will still be a few seats ahead of Democrats, but the specific total of Republican-held seats expected to remain is 217. If all Democrats vote together and as few as two Republicans join them in opposition to an otherwise unified GOP, that would be a tie, creating an easy problem for the remaining months of Republicans’ current control of the House.
Gallagher is a committee chairman, currently leading a panel in the House specifically tasked with investigations related to currently ruling Chinese authorities. He also serves on the House Intelligence Committee. Him moving up the timeline for heading out of Congress mirrors roughly the same move by Colorado Republican Ken Buck, whose scheduled departure this month was early enough to compel a special election in his district in which the winner will serve a term of merely months alongside regular processes of a primary and general election.
Infamously Trump-supporting Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) is trying to jump districts with an already announced campaign in the regularly scheduled primary to replace Buck in Congress, though she’s out of the running for Republicans in the special election because she’s refusing to resign her current role, and you can’t hold two seats.
And back in D.C., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) unveiled Friday a motion that would force Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his leadership role in the chamber, throwing another stick in the wheel of Republicans’ next few weeks.
