House Republican Majority Shrinks Again as Congress Faces Critical Issues

And then there were two.

With Democrat Tom Suozzi’s victory in a special House election in New York on Tuesday, the shrinking Republican majority in the House was on track to dwindle even further, leaving the G.O.P. able to afford only two defections from the party line on votes when all members are present.

That will give them almost no cushion to deal with the inevitable absences caused by illness, travel delays, weddings, funerals and unforeseen events that could keep Republicans away from the House floor for votes. It comes as Congress is facing a crush of issues, including early-March deadlines for funding the government and a pending emergency national security spending bill to send aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies.

It also gives each individual House Republican even more leverage over Speaker Mike Johnson, who is already struggling to steer his unmanageable majority.

“I would be constantly on defense, I would be trying to avoid defeats, and I would be very, very careful,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an interview.

The dangers of the slim margin were already apparent on Tuesday night, even before Mr. Suozzi won the Long Island seat formerly occupied by George Santos, the Republican lawmaker who was expelled from the House in December.

In their second attempt to impeach Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, Republicans succeeded by just one vote after three of their members broke with the party to oppose it. If either of the two Democrats who were absent had shown up, the impeachment that Republicans had been promising their voters for more than a year would have failed again. (The two Democratic absentees were Representative Judy Chu of California, who said she was isolating after testing positive for the coronavirus, and Representative Lois Frankel of Florida, who was grounded by a delayed flight.)