The president’s party has lost an average of 25 U.S. House seats in Trump-era midterm elections. Given that Democrats only have an edge on the generic ballot and in party affiliation, so far, they look like they’re on track for an “average” night.
Republican redistricting wins change that calculation. The GOP is likely to bank about a dozen seats from new district boundaries drawn by Republican-controlled state legislatures, up to nine of those in Florida and Texas alone.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom scored his party an extra three to five seats after voters approved his gerrymandering referendum, but overall, the GOP won this battle in what now looks like a redistricting “forever war.”
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Together, this adds up to a small Democratic lead in the House. They start with 211 races in their categories, or seven short of the 218 they need for a majority. If they win more than a handful of toss-up races, they will have enough to flip the chamber.
There is enough room for the Republicans to maintain control on a good night for the party. Since toss-up races tend to be won and lost together, they could even improve on the slim majority they currently enjoy.
Five races that tell the story
Redistricting is at the heart of many key races this year, but the top of the ticket in each state, candidate quality and ground game are still important themes. Here are five districts to watch.
New York’s 17th district
The 17th district, up in the Hudson Valley, is the quintessential median district: a place that, on any given day, could swing in either direction.
Voters elected Republican Mike Lawler here by 6 points in 2024, but also voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.3 points, making it one of the rare ‘crossover’ districts of that election, and arguably the top target for Democrats in a more favorable political environment.
The party got moderate and combat veteran Cait Conley through the primary, despite competition from a progressive challenger, and she’s charted a center-left, anti-Trump course to flip the district. She’s one of the top 10 fundraisers in competitive districts this quarter.
Lawler won’t go down without a fight. He has Trump’s endorsement but disagrees with him at times, including over his refusal to sign a bipartisan housing bill.
This is a competitive race in a blue-leaning year, so it starts at Lean D.
Pennsylvania’s 7th district
Democrats fought hard to elect Gov. Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania in the last midterms. This time, they’re in the driver’s seat. Shapiro has the support of 53% of voters in a July poll, and the GOP isn’t likely to invest in flipping it.
The House is a different story. The Keystone State is tied only with California for the largest number of highly competitive districts: four across the state, all on the east side.
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The seventh district is notable for its candidates: Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, the Republican who flipped the district in 2024 and whose mother, Milou, is a popular state representative in the Lehigh Valley, and Bob Brooks, a local firefighter who enjoys the endorsements of both Shapiro and Senator Bernie Sanders.
The race offers a clear look at whether a Democrat who seems to have unified both wings of his party can also appeal to White working-class voters who have swung toward the GOP during the Trump era. It’s a toss-up.
North Carolina’s 1st district
Republicans took a knife to North Carolina’s district boundaries last year to make this seat, in the northeast corner of the state, more Republican.
Under the new lines, the district has fewer Black voters, and that includes the seat’s current congressman, Rep. Don Davis, a moderate Democrat whose home in Snow Hill was moved to the 3rd district.
Davis is still running in the first district these midterms (congresspeople don’t have to live in the districts they represent), where he will face Republican and retired Army Colonel Laurie Buckhout, a pro-Trump conservative who is leaning into her military experience.
It’s a close race by many measures, including fundraising, with both candidates raising $1 million in the last quarter.
Republicans will flip the seat on a good night, to be sure. But in what looks like a favorable cycle for Democrats, it’s not yet clear that the GOP has an edge. It starts as a toss-up.
Alabama’s 2nd district
Alabama’s second district is currently home to Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat who flipped the seat for the first time in over a decade after a federal court ordered the state to redraw it with a higher Black population in 2023.
He probably won’t occupy it much longer.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling to narrow a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in April, Gov. Kay Ivey restored the original map; White voters now make up nearly two-thirds of the district’s population.
Figures is still running; he’s likely to face Trump-endorsed state Rep. Rhett Marques in the general election in a race that the National Republican Congressional Committee is investing in.
It’s a redistricting win for Republicans, and a Likely R pickup in the forecast.
Florida’s 14th district
Other redistricting efforts might not yield such clear-cut results.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new map could yield up to four more Republicans in November, but it depends on what kind of night the GOP has across the country.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in April, “making a blue district more Republican means making a red one less Republican.” (Florida’s 26th district is a great example of the latter, though it’s still ranked Solid R in this forecast.)
The delicate balance has also meant creating new Democratic-incumbent districts that, yes, have more GOP-leaning voters in them, but not so many as to guarantee a flip.
Florida’s 14th district is a perfect case study. Under its new lines, it would’ve voted for President Trump by 11 points in 2024. Given Florida’s rightward drift, it would usually start as a likely GOP pickup.
That’s not the case this year. Incumbent Democrat Kathy Castor doesn’t have a competitor yet, but she has $1.5 million in cash on hand and support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, so she’s not out of this fight.
It’s a Lean R race.
Tomorrow, the full governor’s forecast, with rankings for Iowa, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin and 30 other states.
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