US media outlets projected on Wednesday that the Republican Party will maintain its narrow hold on the House of Representatives, affirming that president-elect Donald Trump will have total control of the Congress when he returns to the White House in January.
The party had already flipped the Senate chamber from Democratic control on election night, while the razor-thin margins in the lower House chamber hung in the balance.
CNN and ABC announced their official projections more than a week after US polls closed and the country decisively endorsed Mr Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Republicans' narrow hold on the House in the current Congress has led to complications in the legislature's capacity to deliver legislation, with infighting causing chaos in the party's bid to elect a speaker after the US midterms.
Under the new Trump administration and with a Republican Senate, maintaining even a slim majority in the House would give Republicans sweeping powers to enable Mr Trump's broad agenda of tax and spending cuts, energy deregulation and stronger border security controls.
Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, joined party leadership in the House as they returned to Capitol Hill this week to celebrate.
“Donald Trump and House Republicans are the solution. That's why voters delivered House Republicans a majority that sent Donald Trump to the White House in a landslide. I'm proud to have led the NRCC to achieve this victory, even after Democrats spent $550 million spreading lies about House Republicans, we went on offence to flip seats from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Colorado and beyond,” he said in Washington, behind a “New Day In America” sign.
“The American people saw through the Democrat lies because Republicans had better candidates and a better message about what we would do to prove their daily lives.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson also spoke with confidence on his party's hold on the chamber, vowing to move swiftly in the new government to accomplish Mr Trump's agenda.
“When it was all said and done, I did more than 360 campaign events in over 250 cities across 40 states, and I logged enough miles to circumnavigate the globe five and a half times. But it was worth it, and we got an extraordinary candidate, so we flipped blue seats to red, as we planned, and we kept this majority,” Mr Johnson said.
The projections came on Wednesday as Republicans in the Senate hinted they may maintain a degree of independence from Mr Trump's more radical wing of the party, moving to elect “institutionalist” senator John Thune as their new majority leader, against significant backlash from the most vocal Trump supporters.
Republicans have secured a majority of at least 52 seats in the 100-member US Senate, with some races still outstanding.
