Tuesday’s elections revealed a lot about GOP power. (Sorry, Kevin McCarthy.)

Donald Trump — and establishment Republicans not named Kevin McCarthy — mostly got what they wanted on Tuesday night.

Elections across five states Tuesday were largely low-turnout affairs, but they’ll help shape the future of Congress. Voters who cast their ballots helped select a new U.S. representative in Ohio, picked battleground contenders whose races could help determine control of Congress in 2025 and settled safe seat grudge matches in a long-running fight over the makeup of the House GOP conference. But there was one constant across the Republican primaries: Trump remains the kingmaker.

Some of the races set Tuesday night are already drawing high levels of spending, including the huge Senate race between Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen and Republican Sam Brown in Nevada and a trio of battleground House seats in the state. And Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, the rare Trump-seat Democrat, also learned his general election opponent on Tuesday in another race where outside groups have already reserved millions of dollars in ad time for the general election.

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s down-ballot elections.

McCarthy’s revenge tour is off to a bumpy start

Millions of dollars weren’t enough to take down Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), the first of the “Gaetz Eight” to face a primary.

Outside groups affiliated with McCarthy, whom Mace and seven others voted to oust from the speakership, invested heavily in Tuesday’s primary to give Mace some payback. But that jockeying couldn’t even force her into a runoff: She easily earned a majority of the vote, finishing with an almost 30-point margin over her biggest challenger, former gubernatorial candidate Catherine Templeton.

The next stop on McCarthy’s revenge tour is next week in Virginia’s 5th District, where Rep. Bob Good is fighting for his political life against state Sen. John McGuire. And although Mace’s win in the face of such significant opposition could be a reassuring sign for the rest of the McCarthy detractors, Good doesn’t have one of Mace’s key assets: a Trump endorsement.

The former president threw his backing behind McGuire, shunning Good after he initially endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president. Plenty of Good’s colleagues aren’t on his side, either, due in part to the House Freedom Caucus chair’s habit of supporting primary challengers to incumbents. McGuire has a fundraising advantage over Good, and there is heavy spending from outside groups to oust the incumbent.

But Good does have the support of the Club for Growth — which played a part in boosting Mace to victory on Tuesday. Mace’s win also demonstrated how difficult it is to remove an incumbent: No member of Congress has been defeated by a non-incumbent challenger yet this cycle.

Republican Reps. Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.), who also voted to strip McCarthy of the gavel, also have primary challengers later this summer. Those races have yet to see any significant activity, although a group in McCarthy’s orbit has begun advertising against the incumbents.

Trump — and establishment Republicans — had a good night

Candidates who got the coveted Trump endorsement all won their races on Tuesday. And it was a good night for the national party committees, which have sought to get the former president on board with their preferred candidates.

In Nevada, Brown — an Army veteran — coasted to the GOP nomination for Senate, besting Jeffrey Gunter, the former Iceland ambassador under Trump. Brown came up short in the state’s Republican Senate primary in 2022 but was endorsed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee this time, and — after a push from Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) — got the Trump endorsement in a Truth Social post after the former president’s Las Vegas rally on Sunday.

Gunter’s campaign never got much momentum, and the easy win means Brown comes out of the primary with few bruises and $2.5 million in his campaign account as of a few weeks ago. He will face Rosen in the general election.

In addition to Mace’s victory, another endangered South Carolina Republican who was endorsed by Trump eked out a win on Tuesday. Rep. William Timmons narrowly defeated a primary challenge from state Rep. Adam Morgan, who ran to his right. Timmons benefited from more than $1 million in ads from establishment-aligned groups and relied on Trump’s backing in the closing stretch of the campaign.

In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where Republicans are again seeking to knock off Golden, former NASCAR driver-turned-state Rep. Austin Theriault cruised to victory over fellow state Rep. Mike Soboleski. Theriault was endorsed by both Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson. He will face Golden in a district that Trump won handily in 2020, but where Republicans have struggled to mount a close congressional campaign.

In North Dakota, the Trump-endorsed Rep. Kelly Armstrong won big over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Miller had the endorsement of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who has been floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Trump. But Armstrong, who has experience winning statewide in the at-large congressional seat, had the backing of Trump and the state Republican Party.

And in the race to succeed Armstrong, Trump and Burgum both backed Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who defeated Rick Becker, a former state legislator. He was supported by the Club for Growth and the House Freedom Caucus’ political arm, and was on the opposite end of spending from a super PAC looking to block potential rabble-rousers.

Democrats continue to overperform in special elections

Few expected much of a contest out of Tuesday’s special election in the deep-red Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, where Trump won by nearly 29 points in 2020.

Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli and Democrat Michael Kripchak — an Air Force veteran recently working as a waiter — faced off for the chance to replace former Rep. Bill Johnson, who stepped down earlier this year to helm Youngstown State University.

But the race looked close for several hours after the polls closed. Rulli ultimately won, with the final margin likely to be a bit more than 9 points — a Democratic overperformance of nearly 20 points.

It is the latest example of Democratic candidates dramatically exceeding expectations in down-ballot special elections this cycle. In April, now-Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.) won a special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District running about 6 points ahead of Biden’s 2020 performance in the district. In February, now-Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) flipped a seat previously held by disgraced former GOP Rep. George Santos. And Democrats have pointed to other special state legislative victories in states such as Pennsylvania and Alabama as signs of party momentum.

Of course, special elections are very different from general elections. Turnout is far lower: in Ohio’s election on Tuesday, about 60,000 votes were cast, compared with 280,000 in the same district in November 2022. Still, Ohio is a pivotal state for control of the U.S. Senate this year, as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown faces a tough reelection battle on the ballot in a presidential year.

Democrats will take any positive signs in the state, and they certainly got one on Tuesday.