Republicans vastly underperformed expectations in last night’s elections. In fact, the full extent of their failure remains unclear at this point. They may end up with the barest of House majorities (House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has already declared such a victory), but their chances at a Senate majority are currently slim to none. In the best-case scenario, everything will hinge upon a flawed candidate, Herschel Walker, performing significantly better in a Dec. 6 runoff than he did on Election Day when he enjoyed the coattails of his party’s successful governor.

But the Republican disappointments and losses of 2022 were not distributed equally. There were two different Republican parties running in various states last night, and one of them did a lot better than the other. It’s almost as if there’s one Republican Party (will call it the winner party) that has strong local infrastructure and good leaders, and then another one (the loser party) that puts all of its eggs into the basket of a single celebrity politician’s national reputation.