Republicans have achieved the government trifecta — keeping control of the House as well as winning the Senate and the presidency.

It will be the first time Republicans have had full control of Congress and the White House since 2018. House Republicans have been quietly preparing their legislative agenda on tax cuts and other priorities for months, though an expected narrow majority will likely complicate those efforts, as well as Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid to hold onto the gavel in a January floor vote.

The GOP held onto a slew of at-risk incumbents as results trickled in over the past week and Republicans also picked up a few seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado.

But they still lost a handful of seats in New York and California.

House control has been considered a toss-up for months. Though GOP leaders were publicly confident in their ability to retain the chamber, there were also deep fears as Republicans struggled to keep up with Democratic fundraising. Unlike in 2022, GOP leaders kept their election night estimates fairly modest. They also spent months hammering on a campaign message focused on the border and the economy, betting that the two issues could be used as a wedge to squeeze vulnerable Democrats.

Partisan redistricting has meant that there are fewer competitive seats to flip, limiting the true battleground districts to just a dozen or so races on both sides. Party leaders have acknowledged that the days of 30-plus-seat majorities are over for the foreseeable future. Republicans got some help this cycle by Democrats’ decision to pursue a less aggressive redistricting map in New York, which was at the heart of the fight for House control. Similarly, a GOP-drawn map in North Carolina also helped offset Democratic gains elsewhere.

“There’s only about 45 seats in the country that are truly competitive. … And so each one of them is very competitive and very expensive and our candidates are great,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told POLITICO ahead of Election Day.

Beyond flipping Democratic seats, Republicans also managed to hold off Democrats’ reach targets that appeared to be in play in the final weeks of the campaign, including keeping endangered incumbents in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Another major difference in the campaigns this year: Republicans were far more intentional with their candidate recruitment and which challengers they backed in the primaries than they were in 2022. House Republicans’ campaign arm worked closely with Trump, coordinating to boost candidates the party saw as the most likely to win the general election — a level of intervention that ultimately paid off.

Vulnerable incumbent Republicans, namely Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), fended off primary opponents who would likely have been weak general election candidates. In Alaska, the party managed to coalesce behind one Republican this year to avoid problems they had in 2022 with the state’s ranked-choice voting system. (That race has not yet been called, though Republican Nick Begich leads Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola.)

On the other side of candidate recruitment, Democrats’ relied on a handful of repeat candidates who narrowly lost in 2022. The party had thought they would benefit from existing campaign infrastructure and name ID among voters. But that didn’t work out for many candidates, and some were likely dragged down by a lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

John Thune triumphed in his campaign for GOP leader by laser-focusing on two things: Republican senators and mending his relationship with Donald Trump.

He spent the last few months donating heavily to colleagues and joining them on their campaigns. He spoke frequently with Trump directly, including after the general election last week. And he ignored a conservative and MAGA-world pressure campaign to elect Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) as the GOP leader.

“I’ve been focused on my colleagues,” Thune said. He narrowly defeated Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on the second ballot by a vote of 29-24. Scott fell on the first ballot.

His ability to navigate his way to victory in this political environment is an early signal of how Thune plans to try to balance leading a historically bipartisan institution and appeasing Trump when Republicans control all branches of the government.

An institutionalist like his predecessor, current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Thune has worked to stay in touch with Trump while keeping his focus heavily on the senators who will actually keep him in power. Senators ultimately backing Thune indicates they remain interested in holding tight to their congressional powers, even as they look to greenlight much of Trump’s agenda — many Thune backers cited holding firm to separation of powers as one of their motivations heading into the vote.

Still, it was important to senators that Thune ended his rift with Trump, after a series of public criticisms against the former president. Thune said after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack that Trump’s actions were “inexcusable.” He was also the first member of congressional GOP leadership to call on Trump to withdraw from the presidential race after the infamous Access Hollywood tape was made public.

But even conservative senators aren’t worried about that history, at least right now.

“J.D. Vance once referred to him as Hitler, and he’s vice president,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told POLITICO of Thune’s past criticism of Trump. “So, one thing I know about Donald Trump: he’s got that sort of jocular, masculine ability to let the past be the past and embrace and pray in the middle of the 50-yard line after the game.”

Cramer, a Thune backer, called Trump “not an irrelevant factor, but not the main factor” for most senators’ votes on the leadership slate.

“They’re in a good place with each other,” added Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who’s spent recent time with Trump and is a Thune ally. “There’s no rift between them. There are no concerns about their relationship at all.”

Still, there are major potential areas of disagreement looming over the next two years, particularly the fate of the Senate filibuster. The president-elect has at times called to abolish the 60-vote threshold, including pushing hard on then-Majority Leader McConnell during Trump’s first term in the White House, while Thune has publicly confirmed he plans to keep the current threshold in place.

And there are still moderates in the chamber who could be a thorn in Thune’s side on nominees or other conservative priorities. GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) have been vocally outspoken against the president at times. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, is still in the chamber.

Trump, in Washington for meetings with the House Republican conference and President Joe Biden, did not immediately comment following the approval of the new Senate GOP leadership slate. But Thune and Trump have spoken regularly over the past few months, including a phone call after Thune won on Wednesday.

“[Thune] said over and over and over and over that he was going to make President Trump’s agenda his agenda, and so I feel good about that,” prominent conservative Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who supported Cornyn, said after the vote.

Multiple senators pointed out that Thune’s voting record aligned with Trump’s more than 90 percent of the time during the president-elect’s first term in office, according to a FiveThirtyEight average, a point that was underscored during a candidate forum Tuesday and during nomination speeches Wednesday.

“President Trump and Sen. Thune I think will do a great job working together,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.). “Sen. Thune is ready for change, and he knows that America is expecting results.”

That voting record is not reflective of some of Thune’s prior dust-ups with Trump, though. In addition to comments on Jan. 6 and the Access Hollywood tapes, Thune more recently backed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) initially in the 2024 Republican primary before shifting to Trump after the South Carolinian withdrew from the race. Trump even sought to recruit a primary challenger against Thune for his 2022 reelection bid, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Despite that history and their losses, Cornyn and Scott both expressed support for Thune’s leadership and vowed Republicans would stick together to enact their agenda.

“There’s no division,” Cornyn insisted. “I think it’s really important for our conference to stay together, to be as effective as we can be. … It was a secret ballot so, I don’t think any of us know exactly who voted for who.”

That dynamic is something Thune tacitly acknowledged after the vote, vowing to “be a leader who serves the entire Republican conference.”

“This Republican team is united. We are on one team,” Thune said. “We have a mandate from the American people.”

Eleanor Mueller, Meredith Lee Hill and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz resigned from the House Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson announced, the same day that Donald Trump announced that he had tapped the Florida firebrand to be his attorney general.

“He issued his resignation letter effective immediately from Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit,” Johnson told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday night.

Dozens of GOP lawmakers indicated that leadership had told them about Gaetz’s resignation before Johnson made the announcement. Many were excitedly spreading the news, glad to be rid of the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership ouster. Gaetz didn’t attend the GOP’s hours-long meeting near the Capitol on Wednesday, where Republicans elected their leadership slate.

Johnson said Gaetz had resigned so abruptly because he knew how long it would take to fill the seat if he becomes attorney general. Johnson said he reached out to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday and added that because of Gaetz’s early resignation it’s possible they could fill his seat as soon as Jan. 3, when the chamber is slated to elect a speaker.

DeSantis’ office did not have an immediate response to questions about when the governor would schedule a special election. But deadlines in state and federal law would make it difficult to schedule one before Congress convenes in January.

Other GOP House colleagues believe his decision is actually tied to an Ethics Committee report investigating several allegations including that Gaetz engaged in sex with a minor, which they believe was poised to be released in a matter of days. Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has sought to attack the panel probing various allegations against him. If Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, the report likely won’t be formally released, though it could leak.

One House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, tied Gaetz’s resignation to trying to “stymie the ethics investigation that is coming out in one week.”

Gaetz, his spokesperson and a senior aide did not respond to requests for comment about the decision.

Republican senators have already expressed doubts that Gaetz could get confirmed as attorney general, as the pick gets fierce pushback across the party. And even some of his House colleagues were quick to predict that Gaetz wouldn’t be able to get confirmed.

“I don’t think Matt cares if he gets confirmed — everybody is talking about him … so for Matt this is a win,” said Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), who added that Gaetz “ran around here last term like a six year old with a loaded revolver and a happy trigger finger.”

Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told reporters ahead of Gaetz’s announced resignation that the probe would end if Gaetz was no longer a member of the House.

“Once the investigation is complete, the Ethics Committee will meet as a committee. We will then return our findings. If Matt Gaetz is still a member of Congress, then that will occur. If Matt has resigned, then this ethics investigation, like many others in the past, will end again,” Guest told reporters about the impact of Gaetz being picked for attorney general.

Gary Fineout and Eleanor Mueller contributed to this report.

GOP lawmakers expressed disbelief at President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general, indicating the conservative firebrand could have a tough road to confirmation.

Senate Republicans largely refrained from wading into whether Gaetz — who the Department of Justice investigated for years over allegations that he engaged in sex with underage girls and paid for their transportation — could be confirmed. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) rolled his eyes and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) declined to comment.

Republicans, who will hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate, can only lose three votes and still clear nominees if Democrats unanimously oppose them. One of the most closely watched swing votes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said she doesn’t “think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general.” Another, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), told reporters she was “shocked” by Gaetz’s selection.

“That shows why the advice and consent process is so important,” she added. “Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but I’m certain there will be a lot of questions.”

Incoming Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) brushed off questions about Gaetz specifically, instead outlining what he’d like to generally see in an attorney general.

“All I’m interested in [for] who’s the next attorney general: Is he going to fight crime, enforce the law, and will he answer the forty letters that this Justice Department has not answered on my investigations?” Grassley said, ignoring questions on Gaetz’s involvement in a sex trafficking probe.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of leadership, replied to questions by saying: “We’ve got weeks to go until we get to those hearings.”

Gaetz has frequently targeted the Department of Justice and the FBI, accusing them of leading targeted, politically motivated investigations. He’s previously called for abolishing the FBI, which falls under the Justice Department’s jurisdiction. Those views largely align with Trump, who has also been the subject of DOJ investigations. The Department of Justice closed the investigation into Gaetz last year with no criminal charges, and Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing. However, there is still a pending Ethics Committee investigation against him over the same claims.

But the lack of confidence from GOP senators is telling. They’ve wanted to give Trump wide authority to pick his selected Cabinet and have largely praised other picks the president-elect has made.

One House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, had a theory of the case: “Sometimes a president appoints to reward a person. All the while, knowing that it will not go through. When it does not go through, they can appoint the back-up and they have cover for doing so.”

Other House Republicans had concerns about the pick too, especially after watching Gaetz lead the ouster effort against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy that threw their chamber into chaos last year. Centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he had “no good comment.” Trump and McCarthy ally Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) called it “a reckless pick.”

“I think he has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate,” Miller added.

Rep. Michael Guest, chair of the House Ethics Committee and a former prosecutor, said he was “surprised” by the Gaetz news, but he added that he has “faith” in the choices Trump makes in filling out his Cabinet. The Mississippi Republican added that any concerns about Gaetz, who is being investigated by the Ethics Committee, would be addressed by a Senate confirmation hearing. The investigation would cease if Gaetz left the House.

Many Senate Republicans are vowing to keep an open mind heading into the confirmation battle, even those who’ve done battle with the Florida firebrand — and staunch Trump ally — in the past.

“I think he’s probably got his work cut out for him to get a good, strong vote. I mean, we’re not going to get a single Democrat vote, right?” asked Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “Presumably, the folks that have put them forward have gamed that out. But I’m sure it’ll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing.”

“We don’t get to choose. It’s the prerogative of the president,” Cornyn said after he was told about the pick. “I don’t know the man beyond his public persona.”

Gaetz had at least one Senate Republican backer: Marco Rubio, a fellow Floridian who has been nominated as Trump’s secretary of State.

“I’ve known Matt for a long time. I think he would do a good job,” Rubio said.

Even staunch conservatives wouldn’t venture a guess as to whether Gaetz could muster the votes for confirmation. “We’ll go through the process. Can’t make any predictions,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said simply that Gaetz “has his work cut out for him.”

What’s abundantly clear is that Gaetz is unlikely to receive any Democratic support.

“There’s a lot of folks that would be excellent attorney generals, uphold the rule of law,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Judiciary Committee who served with Gaetz. “I don’t think Gaetz is on the short list of that group.”

“You can record me as speechless,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).

Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill, Nicholas Wu, Ursula Perano, Katherine Tully-McManus, Daniella Diaz, Benjamin Guggenheim, Chris Marquette, Olivia Beavers and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.