The desertion of the Washington press corps is perhaps the biggest culture shock that awaits House Republicans when the 116th Congress convenes in January.

With possession of the speaker’s gavel and committee chairmanships, the Republican Party has dictated the terms of legislation in the House. That majority has afforded competing factions of rank-and-file Republicans — such as the conservative House Freedom Caucus — the ability to shape or block legislation favored by GOP leadership.

All of that attracts an inordinate amount of media coverage — coverage that after the midterm elections quickly moved across the aisle to focus on House Democrats as sorted out leadership responsibilities and divvied up the spoils of their Nov. 6 victory. Even President Trump’s usual Twitter antics, usually a staple of the topics House Republicans are asked to comment on, weren’t enough to halt the exodus.

Michael Steel, who advised Ohio Republican John Boehner, first as House minority leader and then as speaker, compared transitioning to the minority to a superhero losing his powers.

“Going from the majority to the minority in the House is like going from being the Hulk to being Bruce Banner,” Steel said. “There’s just a huge drop-off in terms of influence, attention, and relevance.”

Brad Smith, a Republican operative who spent about three decades as a senior congressional aide, recalled the 1994 midterm elections and the crush of reporters who contacted him for the first time after the GOP won the House majority.

Smith had spent several years attempting to forge connections to reporters on Capitol Hill, especially those working for the Los Angeles Times, the biggest local outlet covering his boss at the time, Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., who eventually rose to become House Rules Committee chairman. Finally, after Republicans took the majority, journalists reciprocated.

“The week after the election, I had lunch with reporters almost every day because they wanted to get to know me. Mind you, for years I tried to develop relationships with them — they never paid any attention,” said Smith, who served as Dreier’s chief of staff until the congressman retired in 2013. “When you are in the majority you get your calls returned, but more important, they call you first.”

The Democratic Party is on track to capture nearly 40 House seats from the Republicans as ballots in close contests continue to be counted. An advantage of about a dozen seats heading into 2020 is not the most overwhelming of governing majorities, but it’s large enough that Democrats now possess significant leverage in negotiations with Trump — if they stick together.

That’s something House Republicans had trouble doing during an eight-year reign that began in January 2011 after a midterm rout of the Democrats the previous November. The Republicans’ internal strife offered Democrats targeted opportunities to shape legislation and, working in concert with President Barack Obama and a Democratic Senate, block conservative priorities.

But if House Democrats work as a team, there will be little their Republican colleagues can do other than stomp their feet and cry foul. The Senate operates under the rules of “unanimous consent,” not to mention the filibuster for legislation, providing even the most junior back-bencher in that chamber some modicum of power. In the House, majority rules — in committee and on the floor.

Republicans who have experienced the loss of power say most aren’t prepared for what amounts to an abrupt transition.

“Going from the majority to the minority is going to be a wake-up call for the vast majority of House Republicans who were not in Washington before the 2010 takeover,” said Ken Spain, a GOP operative and former congressional aide who served in both settings. “Unlike the Senate, the minority in the House has few tools at its disposal to affect the policy-making process.”