We wanted to take this opportunity to review the ever-shrinking battleground for the House majority, a phenomenon that will have massive implications in Washington over the next year and a half.
Republicans currently hold an extremely slender three-seat majority in the House. Democrats are seen as favorites to win back control of the chamber, given the historical trends that normally favor the party out of power.
But let’s be clear: 2026 is unlikely to be a rerun of the 2018 anti-Donald Trump blue wave. House Democrats picked up a whopping 41 seats that year, propelling Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) back into the speaker’s chair.
Consider that in 2016, 23 House Republicans won in districts that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also carried. This batch of vulnerable GOP incumbents paved the way for major Democratic gains two years later.
But in 2024, just three House Republicans won in seats that Vice President Kamala Harris carried. As polarization and redistricting have whittled down the number of competitive House seats, wave elections become less likely.
In good news for the GOP, there are essentially the same number of Democrats in Trump seats now as there were eight years ago — 12 Trump-seat Dems in 2017 versus 13 Trump-seat Dems currently.
“We have a very lopsided map,” Speaker Mike Johnson told us last week at Punchbowl News’ The Conference. “It’s a very favorable one for us from a political standpoint and we’re going to go play offense, not defense.”
The Trump factor: We’re confident that barring a major shock, the 2026 midterms – naturally – will be a referendum on Trump. But Trump is in a drastically different political position than at the same point in his first term.
For starters, Trump won the popular vote in 2024. Trump’s electoral success came on the heels of significant rightward shifts from young voters, Hispanic and Asian voters. While pulling off a stunning political comeback, Trump may have kicked off a major realignment in American voting behavior.
But the 2026 midterms will prove a massive test of whether these new converts to the GOP will turn out in an election without Trump on the ballot. The new bedrock of the Democratic base — well-off, college-educated white voters — loves voting in special elections and midterms. With Trump riling up the base, Democrats are so engaged that they’ve dumped more than $9 million into a longshot House special election in an R+14 Florida seat.
The economy: Voters backed Trump and Republicans in the fall because of a deep dissatisfaction with the state of the U.S. economy under former President Joe Biden. As a result, we’re already seeing pocketbook issues dominate the House messaging battle.
A potential recession could cause voters to sour on Trump very quickly. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell warned on Wednesday about “uncertainty” in the economic picture.
And if Republicans push a tax cut package that skews toward the rich along with social safety net cuts, that’s a huge problem for the party. Perhaps sensing this vulnerability, Trump’s White House is pushing hard for enactment of his campaign promise to cut out taxes on tips and Social Security recipients.
Democrats argue that the very voters Trump flipped to his cause in 2024 — non-ideological working class Americans — may not be motivated to turn out if the first thing they see from the president and Republicans in Congress is Medicaid cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy, continued inflation and a slumping stock market.
“The midterms are shaping up to be a referendum on who is going to help improve the lives of everyday Americans,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement. “By all accounts, House Republicans are failing miserably. They aren’t doing anything to lower costs, they’re destroying the economy and they are obsessed with cutting Medicaid in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk.”
The history: We may be moving past the days of major swings in the House. After the 41-seat gain in 2018, Democrats lost 13 seats in 2020.
In 2022, the GOP picked up just nine seats, even as Biden was deeply unpopular and inflation soared. The overturning of Roe v. Wade played a big role in blunting an anticipated red wave.
And in 2024, Democrats picked up two House seats while Republicans maintained their majority, another surprising outcome.
Redistricting has turned formerly competitive districts into safe seats. Plus, ticket-splitting’s decline in popularity is cutting down on the number of crossover districts.
The targets: The NRCC dropped its list of 26 Democratic targets on Monday, following the 26-member DCCC Frontline list release earlier in March. There’s overlap of 23 Democratic incumbents on the two lists.
The NRCC hasn’t put out its list of vulnerable members yet and the DCCC hasn’t identified its top targets either. But in December, House Majority PAC laid out 29 House Republicans they planned to target.
We’ll note that it’s still very early to be talking about targeted seats for an election that’s 19 months away. A lot can and will change between now and then.
Where the map is expanding: There are a number of districts with significant Latino populations, from Texas to New Jersey, where Republicans are increasingly competitive. Extreme examples occurred in New Jersey’s 9th District and Texas’ 34th District — both held by Democrats — where Trump gained 20 points in four years. But Democratic Frontliners nationwide outperformed the top of the ticket by an average of three points in 2024, winning in some places where Trump made massive strides.
Also: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said this Wednesday night per NPR when asked about whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should step aside: “It’s important for people to know when it’s time to go.”
