Trump is retaking power with a much more obedient GOP this time

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : Johnson was elected in 2016, at the same time as Trump.
54% : Ryan had already been serving in the House for 18 years when Trump took office, and the two men had different ideas for the direction of the party, with Ryan's small-government, traditionally conservative views clashing with Trump's more populist ideas.
48% : The biggest factor in that difference: Trump is dealing with a GOP that's much more friendly to him and his priorities than it was eight years ago.
48% : But over four successive election cycles -- the 2018 midterms, the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms, and this year's election -- Trump has steadily remade the party in his image.
47% : He became speaker after Trump single-handedly tanked the candidacy of the man who Republicans chose immediately before him.
46% : But when it comes to Trump the person, Republicans are likely to be far more deferential than in the past, both out of loyalty and fear.
45% : Almost all who remain are either loyal supporters or willing to accommodate Trump.
45% : Large swaths of both the House and Senate GOP conference were elected after Trump took office, and every Republican in Congress has had to run in an election cycle where Trump was the leader, officially or unofficially, of the party.
44% : "Consider the difference between House Speaker Paul Ryan, who Trump had to work with during the first half of his first term, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is expected to remain in his role if Republicans keep control of the lower chamber.
40% : In the last eight years, scores of GOP lawmakers whose tenures predated Trump, and who were dissatisfied with the direction of the party under his watch, either retired or went down to defeat.
38% : When Trump was elected in 2016, he faced substantial pockets of opposition within his own party.
37% : Dozens of prominent Republicans had called on Trump to withdraw from the race in the wake of the "Access Hollywood" tape, there were essentially zero Republicans in Congress who owed their political careers to him, and the direction of the party seemed very much up for debate.
32% : While Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's disdain for Trump is well known, his two most likely successors -- Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas -- have each gone to great lengths to forge a strong relationship with the president-elect ahead of leadership elections next week.
16% : "Trump has a much stronger grip on the Republican Party than he did in 2016," said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run, noting that Johnson is more willing to work with Trump than Ryan.

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