Senate Republicans blew it last year in the midterms. Six months later, things are finally going their way.

The Senate GOP’s campaign arm got good news in recent weeks when two very conservative politicians eyeing a run for the upper chamber — Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano and Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson — both decided to forgo statewide campaigns. GOP strategists had worried that the two men would complicate their path to taking back the Senate, where Democrats hold a one-vote majority. Before then, the party landed a prized recruit in West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who hasn’t even announced yet whether he will seek reelection.

No one in the ranks thinks these developments alone will result in victories. But behind the scenes, top Republicans, led by National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines, have been jubilant over the stretch they’ve had. And they expect the good vibes to keep rolling. Privately, there is a growing belief that they are close to landing even more top recruits in the critical swing states of Montana, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

“There’s good people nibbling on the hook,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “It’s just up to Daines to set that up.”

The developments have thrilled Republicans back in D.C., including many still smarting over the results of 2022, when Democrats not only held onto power in the Senate but expanded their majority. During that cycle, the NRSC took a hands-off approach to primaries, only to see ultra-MAGA nominees capture the nomination and lose in the general election.

This go-around, the committee has vowed to plunge into intraparty battles. And though it’s early, their thumb-on-the-scale maneuvering appears to be paying off.

“Every Republican in this business I’ve talked to about this is thrilled with the way this is all coming together, with the way the committee is managing things,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who has served as an adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “The reality is you take candidates like that off the board and they then can’t harm the narrative around candidates in other states or they can’t influence the national conversation about Republicans trying to take back the Senate.”

Senate Republicans began the 2024 cycle with a strong map featuring Democratic incumbents in the red states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

But there has been a persistent fear that far-right candidates would once again muck things up. Mastriano, who lost a gubernatorial election in 2022 by 15 percentage points, was arguably the GOP’s biggest concern in the country. His support of a no-exceptions abortion ban, along with his appearance at the Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 attack and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, turned off independents, swing voters and even many Republicans last year.

Worries of Mastriano running again were so pronounced that Trump made clear to Republicans in private conversations that he didn’t want to share a ticket with him in November. Trump told Republicans that he would be unlikely to endorse Mastriano as a result, a turnaround from 2022, when the former president backed him in the primary.

Asked for comment for this story, Mastriano said that he’s had many discussions with Trump and his advisers and they “never shared those ‘concerns’ with me. Because he’s never said it.”

Party operatives were also anxious about Davidson, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who they thought would struggle to win over moderate voters in the fall.

Davidson would have had the backing of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that hinted it would spend large sums of money on his behalf. Instead, the Ohio GOP field seems poised to feature two wealthy businessmen — Bernie Moreno and Matt Dolan — and, it appears, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. The NRSC doesn’t have a favorite as of now, with officials signaling that they are comfortable with the field.

In an interview, Davidson said he would have outlined sharp contrasts with establishment Republicans had he entered the race but felt that running for Senate would detract from his work in the House. “That’s one of the laments,” he said. “I think it’s important to have those kinds of races and draw the contrast. I would have loved to draw the contrast.”

For his part, Daines, the NRSC chair, said that he respected the decisions made by Mastriano and Davidson and felt good about the committee’s recruiting efforts.

“He had a very tough race in ’22,” Daines said of Mastriano. “And I think he looked at all the different factors and I think he made the right decision to stay in the state Senate seat.”

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Doug Mastriano has hinted in the past that someone else from his wing of the party may run, though it’s unclear who that could be.