With all the chaos surrounding the presidential election, one big win for Republicans has gone mostly unnoticed. Who wins Arizona and Pennsylvania is the biggest story right now, as Trump has far outpaced predictions on just how close this race would be. But there was another prediction that bit the dust on Tuesday night and continues to look worse.

That would be that the Republicans were going to lose more seats in the House, setting up an even more dominant majority for Nancy Pelosi to play with. To be frank, that not only didn’t happen, but Republicans are now in position to take over in 2022.

“Political handicappers…projected GOP losses of between five and 20 seats, and the ultimate results left some within the GOP stunned by the unexpected success and with how the party significantly broadened the conference’s diversity and increased the number of female members” https://t.co/qk9ihkkWGk

— Chris Pack (@ChrisPack716) November 5, 2020

As per usual, political handicappers are terrible at their jobs. Cook Political Report would have had you believe that Pelosi’s caucus was going to cruise to victory. In the last two weeks of the election cycle; they were moving races to lean D that were clearly competitive. In the end, Republicans pretty much ran the table as far as their labeled toss ups go, while pulling upsets in places like Florida.

Of note is that Fox News “called” the House early on Tuesday evening, proclaiming that Democrats would pick up around five seats. Right now, Republicans sit at +6, and that’s with other races still showing Republicans leading in swing districts. We could see an even more significant narrowing of the Democrat majority as the days move forward.

Republican Rep. Dave Schweikert, who had been trailing his Democrat opponent, just pulled ahead in AZ-6 following the most recent vote dump from Maricopa County, per NYT. pic.twitter.com/Oj4toZcb7c

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 5, 2020

The above lead should grow, as Republican votes are coming in at a higher rate than Democrats in Arizona right now. That’s because almost all the votes left to cast were day-of early votes, which sounds weird, but simply means that people chose not to stand in line to submit their ballots.

All of this spells big things for the GOP regardless of who wins the presidency. With the Senate being held all but assured, blocking a potential Biden administration will be job one, but by 2022, there’s no reason to suspect Republicans don’t retake the House and make more gains in the Senate. That would set them up nicely for 2024 as well.

None of this is to downplay a possible Trump loss if Democrats dig up enough ballots in GA, PA, and AZ to pull this out, but there should be a recognition of reality that not all is lost. In fact, the inroads the president has made with minorities is big for the future. That’s if the GOP continues to follow the path Trump has laid out. If they run back to the Mitt Romneys of the world, then they deserve what they will get, but I do not foresee that.

Regardless, congratulations to all the new GOP House members. Meanwhile, the “experts” ended up with more egg on their face.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)