Here’s what’ll really happen if the Democrats win the House but not the Senate

With a couple days to go before the midterm elections, anything can happen. And with Donald Trump’s base largely still preoccupied with celebrating the Kavanaugh confirmation, the outcome of the elections will come down to how hard the Resistance spends these final hours fighting. That said, the polls (which are not always right) suggest the Democrats will win the House but maybe not the Senate. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the impact that would have.

I’ll give you the good news first. The Democrats simply need to retake the House in order to completely shut down the Trump legislative agenda. Donald Trump and the GOP can’t pass anything without the House. Conversely, even if the Democrats did take the House and Senate, they still wouldn’t be able to pass any partisan legislation of their own, because Trump could veto it.

In addition, if the Democrats only take the House, serious investigations every one of Donald Trump’s scandals will immediately commence. The Democrats would control every House committee, and they would use it to subpoena everything under the sun (including Trump’s tax returns), while holding public televised hearings every day in order to expose just how much of a criminal fraud Trump really is. If the Democrats win the House and Senate, that’ll mean twice as many committee investigations into Trump. The duplication couldn’t hurt, and it would be great to see rising Democratic Senate stars empowered in this manner. But really, the Democrats just need the House in order to start exposing Trump.

Then there’s the matter of impeachment. If the Democrats win the House, they can quickly begin impeachment hearings with a simple majority vote. The Senate would need 67 votes to convict and remove Trump, but that’s not dependent on whether the Democrats win the Senate majority. It’s important to understand that no U.S. President has ever been removed by impeachment vote. In reality, it’s the impeachment process itself that erodes a President’s ability to continue, and ultimately forces him out in what you might call death by a thousand cuts (see Richard Nixon). The crucial part is that if the Democrats win the House, they can start the destructive impeachment process.

So this all sounds just fine and dandy for Democrats, right? As it turns out, not entirely. Let’s say the Democrats win the House but not the Senate. Donald Trump would be crippled legislatively, and his scandals would begin eating him alive. But if another Supreme Court vacancy opened up, Trump and the GOP Senate could still confirm another extremist, and the Democrats would have no ability to stop it. The GOP Senate can also continue filling the relatively few remaining open seats on the federal bench with extremist judges. If this prospect is unacceptable to you, then you still have time to get out there and help the Democrats win the House and the Senate.