How to improve writing (no. 114)

This sentence from a New York Times article brought me up short:

Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House.

The logic of winning and losing here defies logic. If you lose only a handful of votes and still win, there’s nothing remarkable about that.

Better:

Any candidate for speaker can lose no more than a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House.

Or:

Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still lose the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House.

Better still:

Because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House, a candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still lose the speakership.

Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 114 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]