After a quiet election on Tuesday, the House GOP will see its majority shrink… to a margin of just one vote.
New York state Rep. Timothy Kennedy, a Democrat, won a vacant seat in the U.S. House during Tuesday’s special election. He was running to fill the seat after the sudden resignation of Democrat Brian Higgins.
Kennedy will presumably be sworn in soon, and then the House will become split 217-213, with five vacancies.
After Kennedy’s swearing-in, the House GOP will have room for only one defector. If two House Republicans vote with the Democrats, then they’ll cause a 215-vote tie.
Meanwhile, conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has vowed to call a vote on whether to vacate the House speakership. If every Democrat votes against Johnson, then Greene can oust Johnson by whipping a vote from just one other Republican.
Kennedy, a Buffalo resident, won a landslide victory Tuesday. He won 68 percent of the vote in a suburban, D+9 district. He campaigned on firearm control, following 2022’s terrorist attack at a Buffalo supermarket.
The Democrat was also sitting on a massive war chest. He raised $1.7 million as of April 10, compared with Dickson’s $35,430 total, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by the Associated Press. Kennedy spent just over $1 million in the off-season election, compared with $21,000 for Dickson.
Dickson, a retired FBI special agent, described his own politics as “more towards the center,” but he supports former President Donald Trump’s campaign for another term. Dickson conceded shortly after the race and told supporters that he didn’t regret running.
When announcing his candidacy in February, Dickson acknowledged the challenges of running in an unfriendly district.
In other words, the House Republicans anticipated Kennedy’s victory… but they’re still stinging from it.
Kennedy will serve in Congress for the rest of the year. In November, he’ll run for a full term against Republican Anthony Marecki, an attorney. Former town supervisor Nate McMurray planned to challenge Kennedy in next month’s Democratic primary, but he announced on social media that he’d been removed from the ballot after collecting too few signatures.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.