With all of the U.S. House of Representatives seats now decided, the Republicans will have a narrow majority in the next Congress. There will be 222 Republicans and 213 Democrats, which is the exact reverse of the current Congress with 222 Democrats and 213 Republicans. The GOP was expecting a much larger majority but was hindered in many close races where Trump’s endorsements and extreme unpopularity cost the Republicans many House seats that were widely expected to be in their column.

However, California and New York are two states where Republicans nominated high quality candidates to key House races. Republican candidates without close ties to Donald Trump outperformed those who did across the board.

In California, there were many House pickup opportunities for the Republicans, especially in Orange County, where the GOP was wiped out in the 2018 blue wave. In 2022, the Republicans were able to regain every House seat in Orange County that was previously lost, and they also picked up seats in Los Angeles County and the California Central Valley.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and the California Republican Party have become masters at the art of ballot harvesting. This is the practice in which party operatives go door to door to retrieve absentee ballots from voters on the registration list and submit them to the official ballot collection sites on behalf of the voters. This practice is legal in the state of California, and the Republicans have used it to their advantage to make sure they are maximizing every possible vote they can get. The five House seats that Republicans picked up in California made the difference for the House majority.

In New York, Republican House candidates were boosted by the strong gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin at the top of the ballot.  Zeldin came within five points of defeating Democrat Kathy Hochul, which helped Republicans pick up House seats in the New York City area. This included the defeat of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney.

Republicans gained four House seats in New York without any Trump-endorsed candidates. On election night, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes gave some advice to the GOP leadership as the results came in: “You don’t need Trump!” He pointed out that almost every Republican candidate with close ties to Trump underperformed in all of their races, while Republicans who were viewed as traditional conservatives not beholden to Trump delivered major victories for the GOP.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, it may take yet another Trump loss in the 2024 election for the party to finally break away from his stronghold and head in a new direction. His base of supporters simply does not understand how flawed a candidate he is. Many of his supporters are not principled conservatives but rather apathetic to politics as a whole unless Donald Trump is on the ballot.