Democrats face onerous 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 will likely be crammed by particular elections later this yr. If all goes as anticipated, Democrats could 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 received within the 2024 presidential election, in accordance with a Day by day Kos evaluation of information 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 received 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 truth, in accordance with The Downballot, President Joe Biden fairly handily received 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 received these seats final yr, they’re under no circumstances a certain flip for Democrats in 2026. The occasion may also need to defend Democratic-held seats in 13 districts that President Donald Trump received final yr, 4 of which he received 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 prime of the ticket. Higher but, they’re very seemingly to enhance in 2026.
How do we all know that? Traditionally, the occasion not within the White Home picks up seats in a midterm. In solely two midterm elections since 1946 has a president’s occasion gained Home seats: 1998 and 2002. Each midterms have 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 below President George W. Bush.
Excluding these two midterms, the worst outcome since 1946 for the occasion not within the White Home was a achieve of simply 4 Home seats, in accordance with 538. And flipping 4 seats subsequent yr would put Democrats again within the majority.
In all chance, 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 Celebration has additionally turn into excellent at overperforming in low-turnout elections. In 2025 particular elections to date, Democrats have overwhelmed 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 could have greater turnout than these particular elections. But when they one way or the other 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 numerous the explanation why the 2018 and 2026 midterms will likely be totally different—for one, district maps have been redrawn between these elections—Democrats don’t want to choose up an extra 40 seats. And even 30.
They want three.
