The fallout from last month’s high-stakes election and recent congressional battles provide the first clues as to what will set the tone for politics in 2025.
Democrats are trying to regroup after a disastrous election night, with the race for chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offering the party one of its first chances for a fresh start next year.
In the meantime, Republicans are enjoying their trifecta – but the battles over President-elect Trump’s candidates and government funding are already highlighting the fault lines within the party.
Here are five things that will shape politics in 2025:
Divisions between Congress and Trump
About a month after the election was a triumphant moment for Republicans — and perhaps just a fleeting honeymoon period.
Weeks after the victory in Congress and the White House, tensions are already rising between some Republicans on the Hill and Trump. There have been disagreements in the Senate over some of Trump’s nominees – notably Defense Department nominee Pete Hegseth and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), the president-elect’s pick for director of national intelligence.
Hegseth came under scrutiny after a Police report was released last month These included allegations from a woman who said he sexually abused her seven years ago. The incident did not result in any charges and Hegseth denied any wrongdoing and described the incident as consensual. He releases them from a non-disclosure agreement.
Gabbard’s nomination to be the top U.S. intelligence officer also faces an uncertain path in the Senate, as she has met with ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, spoken favorably toward Russia and previously called on Trump to pardon Edward Snowden, who remains in Russia for more than a decade after classified national intelligence information was leaked.
While senators have managed to successfully torpedo former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)’s chances as Trump’s attorney general, Senate Republicans, particularly those running in 2026, may not be able to handle the political costs carry that arise from shooting down too many others without risk primary challenges.
Meanwhile, Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) position appears potentially precarious after his original bipartisan government funding legislation soared amid disapproval from Trump, Elon Musk and others.
While Congress ultimately avoided a precarious shutdown just before the holidays, some members of the House of Representatives were convinced (*5*)expressed their dissatisfaction About the way top Republicans in the House of Representatives handled the government funding bill, which was passed in a third, scaled-down version and without Trump’s request to raise the debt ceiling.
Johnson had won Trump’s support to remain speaker after the November election, although it is unclear whether he can muster enough support from his colleagues – and from Trump – to retain the gavel on January 3.
The influence of Elon Musk
Musk has become an increasingly influential figure in politics. Musk – best known as the co-founder of several major companies, including SpaceX and Tesla – spent at least $250 million in the effort to support Trump win last month, an incredible sum for one individual.
Musk’s influence has only grown since Trump’s victory. For one, both he and Vivek Ramaswamy were elected by the president-elect to take over the leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group Trump said he would do it “Cut government bureaucracy, eliminate excessive regulations, reduce wasteful spending and restructure federal agencies.”
In response, the House of Representatives and Senate have launched DOGE rallies.
More recently, Musk and Ramaswamy attracted attention for their robust opposition to Johnson’s first government spending bill, with some party members supporting their positions. Both Trump and Vance later spoke out and also opposed the bipartisan government funding bill.
“They are prepared to be heavily involved in implementing Donald Trump’s agenda,” said one Republican lawmaker said The Hill earlier this monthrelated to Ramaswamy and Musk.
However, Trump and his team have rejected the idea that Musk is the one calling the shots, particularly given Trump’s decision to reject Johnson’s government spending bill.
“As soon as President Trump announced his official stance on CR [continuing resolution]Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his sentiments. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Completely over,” Karoline Leavitt, transition spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance team, said in a statement last week.
And during a Turning Point USA event in Arizona over the weekend, Trump noticed by Musk“He’s not going to be president, I can tell you that.”
“And I’m safe, do you know why? That can’t be right, he wasn’t born in this country,” he added of the South African-born billionaire.
The Trump factor in primaries
2025 isn’t a massive election year, as the biggest state-level contests will be in New Jersey and Virginia. But that doesn’t mean attention isn’t already turning to the 2026 midterm elections — and what role Trump will play in the GOP primaries this year.
With tensions already on full display on Capitol Hill, some Republicans questioning the president-elect could find themselves vulnerable ahead of their re-election campaign.
Most recently, Trump escalated his threats to primary Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) over his opposition to raising the debt ceiling without spending cuts. It could be a foretaste of what’s to come as the president-elect tries to oust members of his party who stand in the way of his agenda.
The Trump factor in the Republican primaries is certainly nothing modern. In fact, his support has played a key role for years, often deciding who gets his party’s nomination – although not always who wins in the general election.
During the 2022 midterms, some of his candidates — for example, Senate candidates Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, as well as Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake — won their Republican races but failed to cross the finish line in November.
Trump still scored some victories this year, most notably supporting his now-Vice President-elect JD Vance in the Ohio Senate GOP primary.
Democrats’ efforts to pivot after the devastating election
Democrats are still reeling from a challenging election in which the party lost all battleground states and several key senators, including Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, lost their seats, ultimately costing them their majority in the upper house.
Members of the party have conducted their own postmortems, although many Democrats say one of the main reasons for their party’s defeat last month was voters’ attitudes toward the Democratic brand.
“Our brand is really upside down right now,” Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and candidate for DNC chairmanship, said in an interview with The Hill earlier this month.
“For the first time in modern history, we have seen the perception of the two American political parties, where the majority of Americans believe that the Republicans…represent the interests of the working class and the poor and the Democrats are for the rich and elite” , he continued.
A looming question is how Democrats will regroup and address some of the issues that members of the party have identified as setbacks after the election. One of the first clues may come from the DNC chairman race in February, in which the party chooses one of its first chairmen.
Martin has received at least 100 endorsements from DNC committee members, while Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and another DNC leadership candidate, has received prominent endorsements from centrist Third Way and progressive groups like MoveOn.
International crises
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas have brought political divisions to the forefront and even become the focus of close elections.
The war between Israel and Hamas, in particular, caused turmoil in the Democratic and Republican primaries last cycle – even though there was no contest. The most prominent example is the Democratic presidential primary, where party members angered by the Biden administration’s belligerence voted “non-committally” against President Biden in the Democratic primary.
Although some advocates were initially hopeful about Biden’s decision to resign and Vice President Harris’ ascension to the Democratic presidential nomination, that didn’t stop advocates from putting pressure on the DNC, Harris’ campaign and others to have a Palestinian speaker at the last convention to have summer.
Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has heightened divisions between the wing’s isolationist faction, which wants to curb U.S. involvement in the Russian invasion, and interventionist Republicans, who believe the U.S. should do more to protect Ukraine support, made clear.
In addition, Trump has caused tensions in Latin America with his calls to retake the Panama Canal and with Denmark over its consideration of purchasing Greenland.
