2022 United States elections

Joe Biden's Democrats lost the House by a handful of seats in a year when a Republican wave was widely predicted and never quite arrived; they even gained a Senate seat and kept that chamber. The thin majority made the Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, miserable. He needed 15 ballots to become Speaker in January 2023, the first time since 1923 the vote had gone past one, and that October eight Republicans joined Democrats to make him the first Speaker ever voted out.