Shell shock over midterm results is shaking up the House GOP conference ahead of internal leadership elections next week.House Republicans are still almost certain to capture control of the lower chamber, but their majority will be far smaller than anticipated and Democrats managed to capture or hold a number of key districts. While there is widespread disappointment within the GOP over an expected red wave looking more like a red ripple, there is not consensus on who or what is to blame.  

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who is tasked with getting House Republicans elected, both want to move up the ranks in the next session, but both risk becoming targets of GOP anger about the midterms. 

“This is like the epitome of overpromising and under-delivering, which is something that you do not want to do in politics,” said a senior GOP leadership staff member granted anonymity to speak candidly. “This is seriously disappointing, and it will have wide implications for people in leadership.” 

What those implications will be for McCarthy — who suggested a year ago that Republicans could flip 60 seats or more — are unclear. Few expect any serious challenge to his Speakership vote, but the right flank of the conference is starting to direct anger his way. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, said of McCarthy’s Speakership chances in an interview with former Newsmax host Emerald Robinson on Wednesday: “Not so fast.” 

“We were told we were going to have an incredible, incredible wave, and if that would’ve been the case — I mean, 20-, 30-, 40-seat margin, anywhere in there, you would say, ‘OK, Kevin’s the presumptive Republican nominee for Speaker.’ But I think we need to have a discussion. He’s backpedaled on things like impeachment,” Biggs said. 

“If we’re going to go in for eight months of performance art instead of really getting things done, then we will fail in preparing for a 2024 election where we have to win to get the White House, the Senate and the House back,” Biggs said. 

The GOP leader has given firebrand right-flank members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) a seat at the table in the hope of shoring up his Speakership bid and to avoid the exact kind of threat that Biggs forecasted.  

But some say that strategy seems to have backfired. Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen commented on Fox News that Greene being positioned behind McCarthy at a platform rollout event in Pennsylvania gave fuel to “Democrats’ anti-MAGA strategy.” 

“You’ve got to put your foot down” to prevent the “crazies” from running the conference and trying to exploit a slimmed majority, the senior GOP staffer said.  

McCarthy and members of his whip team started making calls to members on Wednesday to shore up his votes for Speaker and believe he will prevail in the election. Those arguing in McCarthy’s favor say that the GOP taking control of the House may be one of the only bright spots for Republicans in the midterms and that this is not a situation in which House Republicans missed out on a wave seen in the Senate and other statewide races. 

“Really, the top of the ticket in a lot of these states and a lot of the races really hurt us,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), who ran unopposed this year and is supportive of Emmer and McCarthy. Those suggesting McCarthy could be in trouble comes down to “saber rattling,” he said. 

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), chair of the moderate Republican Governance Group, agreed that leaders helped deliver gains in places like New York and that poor top-of-ticket candidates in some states dragged down candidates who should have won. 

Emmer officially launched a bid for House majority whip, the No. 3 position, on Wednesday. He faces two competitors for the post: Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House. 

Emmer, who was careful to not make predictions about the final House breakdown ahead of the midterms, brushed off the prospect of the majority margin affecting his level of support. 

“I don’t know how” the slimmer majority would affect his whip bid, Emmer told reporters Wednesday. “We delivered. This is exactly what we thought we were going to do. We’re going to deliver a new Republican majority.” 

Banks and Ferguson, meanwhile, could benefit from any hesitance about Emmer with the conference elections happening quickly on Tuesday. 

Banks is running on his conservative credentials that he built up in the Republican Study Committee and his relationships with influential outside conservative groups. In a letter to members formally announcing his candidacy for whip on Wednesday, Banks pledged to be a “bridge between members and leadership and committee chairs.” He noted that he would be the only veteran in leadership. 

Concerned Women for America, a right-wing Christian group, endorsed Banks’s whip bid on Monday, and Donald Trump Jr. has also expressed support for Banks while publicly criticizing Emmer. 

But strengthening and maintaining a cozy relationship with Trump World may be off-putting to some members. The former president is taking heat for boosting candidates who either lost or were perceived to drag down House candidates. 

“Letting this guy be at the helm of the ship will screw you over, it’ll screw your conference over, it’ll screw your prospects for being able to lead the party like you want to. And I hope that’s what they’re realizing,” a senior House GOP aide said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report incorrectly listed Rep. James Comer's home state.

Top Republicans on House panels, confident about the GOP’s chances of taking control of the chamber next year, have for months been planning what they’ll do with committee gavels.

Committee chairs influence hearing focus, investigations and subpoenas, in addition to legislative priorities. Lawmakers’ personal style can play a large role in a committee’s work.

The House Republican Conference’s Steering Committee will formally select most committee chairs. But while the leaders of some committees are up in the air, most current ranking members are poised to be chairs next year. 

Here are ranking members on five powerful committees likely to increase their power in a GOP majority.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member on House Oversight and Reform Committee

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) addresses the audience gathered at the Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Ky.

With many top GOP priorities unlikely to overcome a Senate filibuster or a presidential veto in the next two years, a major focus for a GOP-led House next year will be challenging the Biden administration through oversight and investigations.

Comer plans to focus the committee’s investigations into three main areas next year: the origins of the coronavirus, policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and the overseas activities of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Comer, along with House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), released emails between chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci and other top public health officials discussing the possibility of the virus originating in a lab.

He says the committee's staff has a copy of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop hard drive, which he says would allow him to look into his suspicions that some of the president’s decisions may have been impacted by his son’s business dealings — allegations President Biden has repeatedly denied.

But while his panel leads those probes, Comer says he does not want to overuse subpoena power.

“I want to hope that when my time is done as Chairman of the Oversight Committee, they will say, ‘He was fair, we didn’t try to do anything overtly political,’” Comer told The Hill in an interview earlier this year.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), ranking member on House Appropriations Committee

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington as she emerges from a closed-door session with fellow Republicans.

Granger is in line to become chair of the Appropriations panel, raising her status as a powerful negotiator for government funding deals.

The committee has broad jurisdiction over funding the government and is composed of 12 subcommittees, each of which have authority over different parts of the government.

In several letters sent last week, Granger showed a willingness to challenge administrative agencies on their authority in light of a Supreme Court ruling this year that conservatives saw as a key victory in their quest to reign in regulatory powers.

“The Constitution clearly states that Congress, not the administration, has the power and responsibility to legislate. Unfortunately, the administration continues to overstep its authority,” Granger said in a statement. 

Granger, who has been in the House for nearly 25 years and is the most senior Republican woman in the chamber, has held the committee’s ranking member post for two cycles. Before that, she led the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which is responsible for a large chunk of federal funding.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), ranking member on House Energy and Commerce Committee

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) smiles during a news conference at the Republican congressional retreat in Philadelphia.

Rodgers would be the first woman to lead the House Energy and Commerce panel. And she already has plans for the committee’s top priorities.

“Very big picture, it’s to protect Americans and to unleash innovation and technology in the United States of America,” Rodgers told Punchbowl News last month when asked about priorities for the panel in a GOP House majority.

The congresswoman has three areas of focus: unleashing American energy, holding big tech accountable and probes into health care, particularly ones zeroing in on the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the energy front, Rodgers emphasized the importance of bringing down carbon emissions and decreasing dependence on China. She said TikTok was among the “worst actors” in tech and raised concerns regarding data collected and stored in China and kids on social media.

And on the third prong, health care, Rodgers wants to dive into the U.S.’s coronavirus response, explore how to prepare for future pandemics, and bring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under congressional authorization.

She also vowed to bring Fauci before the committee, even though he will be gone from government at that point.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member on House Armed Services Committee

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers talks as a character witness during former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard ethics trial in Opelika, Ala.

One area Rogers has his eyes on if he leads the Armed Services panel next year is the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal, which then-President Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.

As part of the agreement, struck under former President Obama in 2015, Iran said it would disassemble parts of its nuclear program and allow more widespread inspections of its facilities. In return, Tehran was freed of billions of dollars' worth of sanctions.

Rogers, who previously served as ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has promised to block any attempts at bringing back the deal.

“Let me make this clear, this deal with Iran will be dead on arrival in a Republican controlled Congress and Congress will strengthen sanctions against Iran,” Rogers wrote in a statement in response to reports of the Biden administration working to bring the deal back to life.

The Armed Services panel will also likely focus on last year’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan if Republicans take control of the lower chamber. Thirteen U.S. service members died in a suicide attack outside the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021, amid the U.S.’s evacuation.

In a statement commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fatal attack, Rogers vowed to continue pushing for answers regarding the failures that led to the 13 deaths.

“We still lack answers from the Biden Administration on why military advice was ignored, why the withdrawal was based on a date and not the reality on the ground, and why no one has been held accountable for the security failures that led to the bombing one year ago,” Rogers said.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking member on House Judiciary Committee 

Rep. Jim Jordan, U.S. Representative for Ohio's 4th Congressional District, speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio.

Jordan, a founding former chairman of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, went from being a challenger to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to lead the House Republican Conference a few years ago to a steadfast supporter of McCarthy for Speaker next year if Republicans win the House.

With the subpoena power that comes with the Judiciary panel's gavel, Jordan — an ally of Trump — could have a leading role in House GOP investigatory actions.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI are top targets for Jordan, who has said that 14 whistleblowers from within the FBI have come to his committee alleging various politically motivated bias against conservatives.

“We’re going to look into this weaponization of the DOJ against the American people,” Jordan said last week at House Republicans’ event in Pennsylvania rolling out a “Commitment to America” policy and messaging platform. 

Some of that will have to do with DOJ investigations into Trump. Jordan, Comer and McCarthy earlier this month requested a hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray on the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and recovery of classified documents and asked them to preserve communications and documents relating to the raid, an indication that the committee may utilize its subpoena power in the future. 

The Judiciary panel would also have jurisdiction over any impeachment efforts. Many right-wing Republicans have pushed for impeaching Biden, and McCarthy has opened the door to impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Bonus: Open races for top slots

Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) speaks during a legislative summit featuring Nebraska's elected Congressional and House officials, in Ashland, Neb.

With Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) retiring from Congress at the end of the year, the top GOP slot on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee is up for grabs next year. Three members are seeking the position: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who is next in line on the committee; Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), the third-ranking Republican on the panel; and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the current ranking member on the House Budget Committee who announced a bid for Ways and Means chair when he opted out of running for Senate in this cycle.

The Homeland Security Committee gavel is also an open race, with ranking member John Katko (R-N.Y.) leaving Congress at the end of the year. Third-ranking Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) is interested in the slot, as are two members who previously sat on the committee: Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.). With the GOP’s heavy focus on migration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, the panel would have plenty of high-profile activity under a GOP majority.

--Updated at 10:40 a.m.

Expect a Trumpier U.S. House of Representatives next year.

House Republicans are not only forecast to win control of the lower chamber in November's midterm elections, they're also poised to bring with them a roster of new arrivals who have embraced the former president and his false claims of fraud surrounding his 2020 defeat. 

A number of Trump loyalists have bumped off more moderate Republicans in the summer primaries — a list that grew longer on Tuesday with conservative victories in Florida and New York — while a number of other centrists are stepping into retirement.

The combination foreshadows a power shift in the House GOP that has the potential to complicate any bipartisan compromise with President Biden, while creating headaches for Republican leaders who will face pressure to demonstrate their governing chops in a new majority. 

“I believe that [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy [Calif.] would have a rough time of it,” said David Mayhew, a political scientist at Yale University.

Joe Kent, a former Green Beret, defeated pro-impeachment Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in a Washington GOP primary earlier this month with the help of an endorsement from Trump. Running as an “America First” Republican, he railed against the “establishment” and publicly said that McCarthy, the House GOP leader, should not be Speaker.  

And he’s hardly alone. 

In the most recent round of primaries, winners in safe Republican House seats include former Trump appointee to the Pentagon Cory Mills, who has said that the 2020 election was “rigged.” Mills would replace outgoing Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.).

New York State GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy, who heavily touted his previous support from Trump in the primary despite not getting a formal endorsement for the race, also won a primary in a safe GOP district on Tuesday. Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.) ended his reelection bid for that seat due to blowback to his support for an assault weapons ban.

One of the starkest signs that incoming House Republicans will be friendlier to the former president is that Mills and Langworthy were considered the less extreme candidates in their races. 

Langworthy defeated Carl Paladino, a gaffe-prone Trump supporter who was endorsed by Trump allies Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). And Mills faced Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who was also supported by Gaetz and Greene and accused Mills of being a “RINO,” an acronym for "Republican in name only."

Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership that supports “governing Republicans” who are willing to work across the aisle, pointed to the defeats of Paladino and Sabatini to argue that loyalty to Trump may not be a defining feature of incoming Republicans.

“When the members sit around a table, Donald Trump is not what they discuss. They discuss Joe Biden and getting things done to help the American people,” Chamberlain said of the candidates supported by her group. “They're not against them by any means. They voted for him. But he is not a topic of conversation.”

Still, several of the candidates highlighted as “Young Guns” by the National Republican Congressional Committee have also expressed skepticism about the 2020 election, even if they did not make loyalty to Trump a key part of their candidate pitch this year.

Derrick Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL seeking to replace retiring Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), attended the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but has said he never entered the Capitol and has since distanced himself from the events of that day.

Contributing to the likely power shift, many House Republicans who were critical of Trump or did not overtly embrace him will not be returning in 2022.

Eight of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack either declined to run for reelection or lost their primaries. Others, like Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), lost in primaries against other Trump-backed members after being put up against each other due to redistricting.

Meanwhile, Trump allies like Gaetz and Greene sailed through their primaries.

The House Freedom Caucus, the group of hard-line conservatives, is likely to grow. A PAC affiliated with the group, the House Freedom Fund, is supporting Trump-endorsed newcomers Anna Paulina Luna in Florida, Bo Hines in North Carolina, and Jim Bognet in Pennsylvania.

If history is any guide, Republican leaders will have a delicate line to walk if they win back House control with a more conservative majority.

GOP leaders embraced the Tea Party movement in the late aughts, which provided the burst of energy leading directly to their House takeover in 2010. But it was those same conservative majority-makers — and eventual Freedom Caucus founders — who fought their own leadership over everything from government spending to the proposed impeachment of President Obama. 

The far-right pressure pushed former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into retirement, prevented McCarthy from rising to the Speakership in 2015 and was a thorn in the side of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) during his short stint with the gavel. 

Some congressional experts predict the new wave of Trump loyalists will create similar headaches for GOP leaders next year — unless leadership jumps on board. 

“Donald Trump was the first Republican candidate for president who truly understood what the Tea Party was all about. The Paul Ryans of this world thought it was about small government. Wrong! It was a populist uprising,” said Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Trump got it right; everybody else got it wrong. And so he has now elevated that big Trump party, which is socially conservative but economically inclined to big government that serves their interests. 

“These are not libertarians; they're anti-libertarians in all sorts of ways,” Galston added. “And that's the Republican Party now."

The influence of aggressive, Trump-loving House members and the number of headaches they create for GOP leadership next year may depend on how successful Republicans are in House races overall in this year’s midterms. Many of the newcomer GOP candidates in competitive races trying to unseat Democrats are more centrist, and largely do not talk about the former president.

The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a super PAC aligned with McCarthy, has also swooped in to support incumbent members who fought off more extreme challengers. 

The CLF deployed a last-minute $50,000 in phone calls to support Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) on Tuesday as he fended off a surprisingly strong challenge from far-right, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, who has been banned from multiple social media platforms.

It also helped centrist Republican Rep. David Valadao (Calif.), who voted to impeach Trump, and Rep. Young Kim (Calif.) advance to the general election as they faced more conservative challengers.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) first heard that he had been endorsed by former President Trump when he looked at his phone.

“I got a text message: 'You've been endorsed,’” Donalds told The Hill. 

The first-term lawmaker was surprised, but not shocked. He has been a supporter of Trump and has a good relationship with him. 

Republican candidates in contested primaries this year have lobbied hard for Trump's backing, and most who get his blessing have gone on to win the party's nomination.

But Trump’s endorsements of incumbents have often come without members seeking them, a key indication that he is running up his primary endorsement success rate by putting his stamp of approval on members almost certain to win their races.

Trump touts the success of his endorsement record in Republican primaries, his record serving as a measure of his influence on the party. He recently flaunted his “Perfect Records in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, and Missouri.”

Trump has been a kingmaker in a number of key primary races, with bold endorsements in Senate primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and with some revenge challengers to House Republicans who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill.

“Trump used his own metrics to determine who he supports. It's been pretty successful,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). “The numbers don't lie.”

Yet in keeping with his pattern as president, Trump regularly inflates his numbers. He bragged on Truth Social after Tennessee’s primary that he had a “Perfect Record of Endorsements, 8-0.” Left unsaid was that all were incumbents, of which six ran unopposed, and the other two did not have serious challengers.

Conversations with more than a dozen House Republican members who spoke to The Hill suggested that it is normal for Trump to bestow an endorsement without a member reaching out first.

“I did not seek it,” Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said of getting a Trump endorsement ahead of his primary. “I just was going about my business, you know, campaigning and representing my district. But he reached out, and — through one of his political people — and offered an endorsement.”

After notification that Trump wanted to endorse them, the former president often calls the member and has a brief chat before the official “Save America” endorsement release, several House GOP members said.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said that he did not seek endorsements because he was running in an uncontested primary but was happy to accept one from Trump.

“He gave the greatest Trump line ever, by the way,” Armstrong said, when he called the former president back after missing his initial pre-endorsement announcement call. “Like, ‘I'm sorry, Mr. President, I missed your call.’ He says, ‘Don't worry. The call is temporary, that voicemail’s forever.’”

Norman and Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Michael Cloud (R-Texas) all similarly said that Trump had reached out to them.

House GOP leadership has been involved in facilitating some of the endorsements.

Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) said that someone in House GOP leadership gave him a “heads up” that the endorsement from Trump would be coming.

And some incumbent GOP members, meanwhile, have reached out to Trump this year. 

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said he sought an endorsement from Trump through House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his political team. Guthrie had a phone chat with Trump before his endorsement was released about a week before the primary, which he then won by 60 points.

Now out of office and looking to retain a hold on the party, Trump has made more formal endorsements in primary races than ever before.

By the end of August 2020, Trump had endorsed 111 candidates in House, Senate, and governor’s races, with 109 of those advancing to the general election, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis at the time.

He is running well ahead of that number in primaries this cycle, with 20 gubernatorial endorsements, 21 Senate endorsements, and 156 House endorsements so far, an analysis by The Hill found — not counting those who dropped out before the primary election, who Trump un-endorsed, or his dual “ERIC” endorsement in the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where state Attorney General Eric Schmitt defeated former Gov. Eric Greitens.

Some of Trump’s endorsements were a clear attempt to clear the field in key races, such as when he urged “JUST ONE CANDIDATE” to run against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). But most of those were incumbent members who were likely to win renomination regardless of a Trump endorsement.

Trump has backed 134 incumbent House members, accounting for more than half the GOP conference. And 66 candidates that Trump endorsed in House races ran or are running in uncontested primaries, or in a nonpartisan primary without any other Republican candidates on the ballot.

Trump's team asserted that his endorsement helps Republicans have larger victories.

“The power of President Trump’s endorsement hasn’t just resulted in massive wins for Republicans across the nation, it also has meant bigger margins of victory and an ever-growing movement for the future," Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement. "Every candidate who earns the endorsement of President Trump benefits tremendously and has been gracious in their appreciation for his support."

A couple of the endorsements indicate a willingness to bury old hatchets.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) received Trump’s endorsement a week before his primary. That came more than two years after a testy phone call between the two men.

“The last conversation we had was on my cell phone in the Speaker's Lobby on March 27th of 2020. He was upset,” Massie said.

Massie tried to force a roll call vote on the CARES Act coronavirus stimulus bill, sending lawmakers scrambling to get back to Washington to avoid a delay in passing the legislation. The move enraged Trump, who called for Massie to be thrown out of the Republican Party.

But in his statement endorsing Massie, Trump called him “a first-rate Defender of the Constitution.”

Massie is one of 36 incumbent Republicans, 26 in the House and 10 in the Senate, endorsed by Trump who did not vote to object to certification of electoral votes from Arizona or Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.

Trump has endorsed just one incumbent member who voted in favor of creating a bipartisan, bicameral commission on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack: Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.). 

Gimenez, who said he sought Trump’s endorsement, talked with the former president about his vote for the commission.

“I explained to him why I voted for the first one and not the second one. The second one I consider to be illegitimate,” Gimenez said. “So, we had a good conversation about that.”

Challengers to incumbent House Republicans have attacked those who voted in favor of the commission in primaries this year. Republicans blocked the measure in the Senate, prompting creation of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. Reps. Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) were the only Republicans to vote for the ultimate panel’s creation.

The biggest line in the sand for Trump appears to be voting to impeach. He stayed out of some races where votes for the Jan. 6 commission became a line of attack, such as the cases of Reps. Dusty Johnson (S.D.), Michael Guest (Texas), and Van Taylor (R-Texas), who was forced into a runoff and ended his campaign after the primary over an affair scandal.

Many Republican candidates hoping to win Trump’s endorsement flocked to Mar-a-Lago ahead of the primary season, hosting events or hoping to get some face time with the former president. Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore even purchased ads early this year on Fox News in Palm Beach, Fla., hoping that the former president was watching. She was unsuccessful, with Trump later endorsing Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

But the best indicator of whether a candidate would win a Trump endorsement was usually if he or she looked likely to win.

More than 96 percent of Trump-endorsed House candidates who have had primaries so far won their primaries, not counting those who dropped out before the election.

Trump un-endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) in the GOP Senate primary and then endorsed Katie Britt, who had overtaken him in the polls. He made an early endorsement last September for Michigan state Rep. Steve Carra against pro-impeachment Rep. Fred Upton, but redistricting scrambled the map and put Upton up against Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), to whom Trump then switched his endorsement. Upton later said he would not run for reelection.

A large number of Trump’s endorsements were announced in the days before primary elections, with some of those candidates not worried about losing.

But that hasn’t put a damper on incumbent members’ thrill of getting the endorsement.

“Anytime you have an endorsement from a President of the United States, that's really cool,” said Donalds.

Paige Kupas, Stephen Neukam and Zach Wendling contributed research.

--Updated at 6:39 a.m.