The party winning the elections in each chamber of the US Congress is identified as the ‘majority’, and their political opponents as the ‘minority’.
This distinction is important, as the majority party holds the most Democrats Republicans significant leadership positions, such as Speaker of the House, and in
effect also appoints all the committee chairs. 280 252
Following the November 2018 elections, the 116th Congress opened with 280 Democrats, two independent Senators who caucus with the Democrats, and 252 Republicans, distributed in the two chambers as follows: