Arizona Democratic congressman Raúl Grijalva passed away at age 77 Thursday, after battling cancer. This is the second death in the House of Representatives in as many weeks; last week Houston-area Democratic congressman Sylvester Turner passed away at age 70.

These unfortunate twists of fate are slowly giving House Republicans a slightly larger majority. With Grijalva’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives has 218 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and four vacancies. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz did not take his seat and resigned Congress in November 2024; fellow Florida Republican Mike Waltz resigned to become President Trump’s national security adviser on January 20. The special elections for those seats will be held April 1.

Under Texas law, the state will hold a special election for the remainder of Turner’s term; the “special election shall be held on the first uniform election date occurring on or after the 36th day after the date the election is ordered.” Texas has local elections scheduled for May 3.

Under Arizona law, “for a vacancy in the office of representative in Congress, if the next general election is not to be held within six months after the date of the occurrence of the vacancy, the governor shall call a special primary election and a special general election to fill the vacancy. The governor shall call the special primary election and establish its date within seventy-two hours after the office is officially declared vacant.” Arizona held local elections on March 11, so governor Katie Hobbs will likely call for a primary in midsummer and a general election sometime in autumn. Grijalva’s district, Arizona’s seventh abutting the state’s border with Mexico, scores a D+15 in the Cook Partisan Voting index, meaning whoever wins the Democratic special primary is extremely likely to be the next member of Congress.

Meanwhile, New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik is in a strange sort of limbo. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved her nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations way back on January 30. But New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, apparently intends to delay the special election to replace Stefanik in her GOP-leaning district as long as possible. (Remember, Democrats are the defenders of democracy who want to keep constituents without a representative in Congress as long as possible. Democracy dies in darkness, except when the governor of New York strangles it to death in broad daylight with everyone watching.) Perhaps after Florida’s April 1 elections, with Republicans heavily favored in both districts, Congressional Republicans will be comfortable confirming Stefanik and allowing her to step fully into her U.N. duties.