A GOP congressman has suddenly passed away at a relatively young age and the majority has shrunk.
Jake Sherman reported this morning that Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) died at the age of 65. He was a rice farmer who had served in Congress since 2013.
BREAKING NEWS
CALIFORNIA GOP REP. DOUG LAMALFA has passed away at 65.
LAMALFA represented a northern California district and chaired the Congressional Western Caucus.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 6, 2026
LaMalfa’s official cause of death is not clear at this point. However, he reportedly suffered an aneurysm and then a heart attack after being taken into surgery,
President Trump reacted to LaMalfa’s death as he spoke at the GOP meeting at the Trump-Kennedy Center.
I want to express our tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member, a great, great, great member, Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who passed away yesterday, as you probably have heard, Trump said. “He was the leader of the Western Caucus, a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water.”
“I was thinking about not even doing the speech in his honor, but then I decided that I have to do it in his honor,” he added. “I’ll do it in his honor, because he would have wanted it that way.”
The GOP majority now sits at 218-213, leaving almost no margin for error. House Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose two Republicans.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) resigned from the House on Monday, leaving open another seat.
Moreover, two seats in heavily Democratic seats are currently open, one in Texas and one in New Jersey.
These seats will be filled in the coming weeks and months.
A special election will be held in California to replace LaMalfa in the coming weeks. While the seat will probably remain in GOP hands, this is no guarantee given the massive overperformance by Democrats in recent special elections.
Any win by the GOP will almost certainly be temporary, as California Democrats have rigged the district for the 2026 midterms in a calculated effort to seize control of Congress next year.
But if more GOP deaths occur, it is not completely out of the question that Democrats could now seize control of Congress even BEFORE the midterms.
Should this happen, it will mark the end of Trump’s agenda for the foreseeable future.
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