Capitol Hill is staging two fights at once on Tuesday: House and Senate Republicans are choosing new leadership for the incoming Congress just hours before the House votes on whether to advance impeachment articles against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both are playing out as the GOP processes what Sen. Josh Hawley called the party's worst set of losses since Watergate in last week's midterms.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is stepping aside from the race for minority leader, though he says he's still in charge here till early January. That has opened a scramble: Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan are competing for the top House GOP post, Rep. August Pfluger is challenging Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and Conference Chair Lisa McClain faces two challengers of her own. House Republicans were set to meet at 9 a.m. to sort it out. In the Senate, John Thune is expected to be reelected leader unopposed, though Sen. Ron Johnson is pushing colleagues to delay the vote by at least a month.

Layered on top of the leadership shuffle is the afternoon's marquee vote: the House is scheduled to act at 5:30 p.m. ET on a motion tied to articles of impeachment against Hegseth, reintroduced by retiring Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie. Massie accuses the defense secretary of waging war against Iran without congressional authorization and abusing his powers. Republican leaders are expected to muscle through a procedural motion that would effectively kill the resolution, with Johnson vowing the conference will defeat it one way or the other.

POLITICAL SPECTACLE. A FARCE.

That's how Hegseth himself dismissed the impeachment push in comments reported Tuesday. Not every Republican is on board with burying it quietly, though: retiring Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said he'll vote against impeachment but accused GOP leadership of acting as a rubber stamp for President Trump.

The dueling spectacles come as Republicans try to regroup from a midterm rout that handed Democrats 54 Senate seats to the GOP's 44 and 254 House seats to the GOP's 162, with 19 House races and the Alaska Senate seat still uncalled. Sen. Ron Johnson called it a stunning defeat.

Both storylines resolve on their own timelines Tuesday: the Hegseth vote is expected by evening, while the leadership contests set the GOP's chain of command heading into the new Congress in January — a Congress Republicans will run with a diminished hand in both chambers.