Democrats face arduous math in retaking the Senate. However within the Home, it’s one other story.
Democrats maintain 213 Home seats to Republicans’ 220, with two vacancies in safely Democratic districts that can be crammed by way of particular elections later this yr. If all goes as anticipated, Democrats can have 215 seats, three shy of a majority within the chamber.
Three additionally occurs to be the precise variety of Republican-held districts that Democrat Kamala Harris gained within the 2024 presidential election, in accordance with a Day by day Kos evaluation of knowledge from The Downballot, the election-tracking web site previously often called Day by day Kos Elections. This reveals a promising path for Democrats to retake the Home in subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
Although Harris gained two of these districts—New York’s seventeenth and Pennsylvania’s 1st—by lower than 1 share level, she was additionally the primary Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years to lose the favored vote. In reality, in accordance with The Downballot, President Joe Biden fairly handily gained each districts within the 2020 election, taking Pennsylvania’s 1st by 4.6 factors and New York’s seventeenth by a whopping 10.1 factors.
That stated, as a result of Republicans nonetheless gained these seats final yr, they’re not at all a certain flip for Democrats in 2026. The get together may even should defend Democratic-held seats in 13 districts that President Donald Trump gained final yr, 4 of which he gained by greater than 5 factors—a ticket-splitting feat that Harris didn’t handle to drag off wherever.
However there was one feat that Democrats did handle final yr: They picked up two Home seats on web in comparison with 2022, regardless of Harris’ shoddy efficiency on the high of the ticket. Higher but, they’re very doubtless to enhance in 2026.
How do we all know that? Traditionally, the get together not within the White Home picks up seats in a midterm. In solely two midterm elections since 1946 has a president’s get together gained Home seats: 1998 and 2002. Each midterms had been rocked by main information occasions: one by Republicans’ overreach of their impeachment of President Invoice Clinton, and the opposite by the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults beneath President George W. Bush.
Excluding these two midterms, the worst consequence since 1946 for the get together not within the White Home was a acquire of simply 4 Home seats, in accordance with 538. And flipping 4 seats subsequent yr would put Democrats again within the majority.
In all probability, Democrats will flip greater than 4 seats. The Trump administration has been chaotic and damaging, resulting in mass protests and GOP lawmakers getting viciously booed throughout their uncommon city halls.
The Democratic Get together has additionally turn out to be excellent at overperforming in low-turnout elections. In 2025 particular elections up to now, Democrats have crushed Harris’ 2024 margin in these seats by a median of 11 factors, in accordance with knowledge from The Downballot.
Democrats are unlikely to outperform Harris by 11 factors in each Home district within the 2026 midterms, which can have increased turnout than these particular elections. But when they someway managed it, Democrats would flip 30 seats.
The final time Trump confronted a midterm, in 2018, Democrats flipped 40 seats on web. Whereas there are various explanation why the 2018 and 2026 midterms can be completely different—for one, district maps had been redrawn between these elections—Democrats don’t want to select up a further 40 seats. And even 30.
They want three.
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