They hold down their losses, retaining control
Having won the hearts and minds of the voters, could Ronald Reagan also count on their giving him a House of Representatives with which he might feel comfortable? In the Republicans' year of optimism, many of their leaders had expected a happy answer. "If the tide is strong enough," Michigan's Guy Vander Jagt, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, had predicted, "we could get 33 seats." A pickup of 30 G.O.R seats, agreed Illinois' Robert Michel, the House Republican leader, was "not unrealistic." The presidential tide...