WASHINGTON — House and Senate Republicans picked their new campaign chiefs Tuesday, tasking Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno and Georgia Rep. Brian Jack with leading the GOP campaign arms for the 2028 election cycle.

In their new positions, both will spearhead Republicans’ push to win back majorities on Capitol Hill after Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress by flipping more than 40 House seats and at least seven Senate seats in last week’s midterm elections.

Republicans returned to Capitol Hill this week still reeling from their losses but resisted calls to delay Tuesday’s leadership elections. In the Senate, South Dakota’s John Thune was reelected Republican leader without any opposition, while Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan defeated Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise in a closed-door, secret-ballot election to lead House Republicans next year.

Moreno will succeed South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“Republicans must enter this next election clear-eyed: the road ahead back to a Republican Senate majority will by no means be easy but the fight has never been so important,” the Ohio senator said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Moreno described his new role as “a hell of a job.” He said Republicans would be “absolute savages” on ending government corruption and continuing “to work for the American people.”

“I suspect the best tailwind we’ll have is that the Democrats will learn all the wrong lessons,” he told reporters.

Moreno, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is currently serving his first term. He first ran for Senate during the 2022 cycle but dropped out of a crowded GOP primary eventually won by JD Vance. Two years later, buoyed by an endorsement from Trump, he won a contested primary for the state’s other Senate seat and went on to oust Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown that fall.

Brown is poised to return to the Senate after defeating appointed Republican Sen. Jon Husted last week in a special election for the remaining Senate term of Vice President Vance. While Ohio has swung heavily toward Republicans over the past decade, Democrats scored big wins in the Buckeye State last week, winning several statewide offices and flipping three seats in the U.S. House.

But assuming he runs again for a full term, Brown will be on the ballot in 2028, setting up what’s likely to be a tense home-state fight.

In an apparent reference to the returning Brown, Moreno offered some Washington advice Tuesday: “Make sure you rent. Do not buy.”

The 2028 Senate map gives Republican pickup opportunities in a handful of swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The party will also be defending battleground seats in Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Also on the Senate ballot are races for Republican-held seats in Kansas and South Carolina, where Democrats scored surprise wins last week.

On the House side, Jack defeated Indiana Rep. Rudy Yakym III to become the next chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He takes office after one of the worst elections for the GOP in recent decades and will succeed outgoing NRCC Chair Richard Hudson, who lost his own North Carolina seat last week.

House Republicans face the tough task of cutting into Democrats’ 40-plus-seat majority next cycle. But the party will have a slew of pickup opportunities, given the sheer number of seats Democrats won in historically red territory this year.

Like Moreno, Jack was first elected to Congress 2024, leveraging a close relationship with Trump to win an open seat outside Atlanta. He previously was White House director of political affairs during Trump’s first term and was a senior adviser to the president’s 2024 campaign. Over the past two years, he served as the NRCC’s recruitment chair.

(Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.)

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