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Republican leaders who for a time focused heavily on recruiting and electing more Black candidates appear to have allowed those efforts to flag during the second Trump presidency, as the president has denounced and eliminated diversity programs, fired Black officials while installing an overwhelmingly white senior team and presided over an administration that routinely circulates material echoing white-supremacist references, including a racist meme he posted himself. With the president's gains with Black men dwindling, there are few Black Republicans running for Congress this year, and none regarded as likely to win.

That threatens to make the freshman class photo next year look more like the stodgy country club that Mr. McCarthy described as a major political problem for the G.O.P.

"The more diverse the party is, the more opportunity we have," he said in an interview. "You want to expand the opportunity for more people to come in."