WASHINGTON, DC, USA (AP) — Republicans retained their lock on the House for two more years early this morning as GOP candidates triumphed in a chequerboard of districts in Florida, Virginia and elsewhere that Democrats had hoped Donald Trump’s divisive comments about women and Hispanics would make their own.

Democrats, who had envisioned big gains in suburban and ethnically diverse districts, instead seemed on track for modest pickups. Republican contenders were buoyed by the GOP presidential candidate’s tight battle against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

While expectations were nearly zero that Democrats would win the 30 seats they’d needed to capture House control for next year, both sides had anticipated they’d cut into the historic GOP majority by perhaps a dozen seats. Republicans currently hold a 247-188 majority, the most the GOP has commanded since their 270 in 1931.

By late yesterday evening, Republicans had won at least 218 seats — guaranteeing control — and just four of their incumbents had lost. The GOP retained seats in Minnesota, New York, Colorado, Iowa, and Wisconsin that Democrats sought to grab, and Republicans prepared to build on their current six-year run of House control.

“This could be a really good night for America,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, who won a 10th term, told supporters in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin.

In Florida, freshman GOP Representative Carlos Curbelo won a race that underscored how Trump’s damage to Republicans would be limited. With around seven in 10 of the Miami-area district’s voters Hispanic, Democrats targeted it and the race became one of the country’s most expensive, with a US$18-million price tag. But Curbelo distanced himself from his own party’s nominee and held on.

Virginia freshman Representative Barbara Comstock kept her seat in the Washington, DC, suburbs despite Democrats’ relentless attempts to tie her to Trump. The two sides spent more than US$20 million on that contest in a district of highly educated, affluent voters that both sides had viewed as vulnerable to a Democratic takeover.

Democrats defeated two Florida GOP incumbents, but those results seemed due to local circumstances.

Representative John Mica, 73, a 12-term veteran from the Orlando area, was criticised by GOP strategists for a lacklustre campaign and lost to Democrat Stephanie Murphy, a political neophyte. Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, once the state’s Republican governor, defeated Representative David Jolly in a St Petersburg district that had been redrawn to favour Democrats.