Here's Why Democrats Are Basically a Lock to Win the House of Representatives in 2026

Photo by marcos mayer on Unsplash

This may surprise you, but Democrats are basically a lock to win the House of Representatives in 2026. There are six main reasons for this:

1. The current margin in the House of Representatives is very narrow

Republicans currently have a 220-213 majority in the House of Representatives. When two currently vacant, deep blue seats are filled by special elections in the coming months, that margin will shrink to 220-215. This means that Democrats need to only flip a net of three Republican-held seats in order to take back control of the chamber in 2026.

2. Parties in control of the White House almost always lose seats in the House of Representatives in midterm elections

Over the last 36 midterm elections, going all the way back to 1882, there have only been four instances where the party in control of the White House did not lose a net of three seats in the House: 1934, 1962, 1998, and 2002. (For more on this, see my article, “You’re Probably Not Aware How Bad Midterms Have Been to the Party in Control of the White House.”)

All four of these years have pretty obvious explanations for why the party in the White House outperformed midterm election trends:

• 1934: The severe consequences of the Great Depression resulted in voters wanting to punish Republicans for longer than just the 1930 and 1932 elections.

• 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the second half of October of that year, ending just days before the midterm elections. This probably was a key factor in reducing Democratic losses that year, as many Americans rallied around JFK during a major world crisis.

• 1998: Newt Gingrich's ill-advised and unjustified push to impeach a popular sitting president created a backlash against Republicans that prevented them from padding their House majority.

• 2002: The 9/11 attacks caused many Americans to rally around George W. Bush, resulting in the only instance where Republicans gained seats in the House during a midterm election with a Republican president in the White House.

Barring an historic event of similar magnitude, there is no precedent for the party in control of the White House not losing at least a net of three seats in House midterm elections.

3. Turnout in midterm elections is lower than in presidential elections, and Democrats now perform better among high propensity voters than Republicans

Turnout in midterm elections is always lower than it was in the preceding presidential election. Always. This is very bad news for Republicans, as for the first time in decades—and possibly ever—Democrats have the advantage among high propensity voters who are more likely to turn out in midterm elections. This means that, at least right now, the lower turnout an election is, the more likely it is to favor Democrats.

This is an important change in American politics that I have been harping on for a while now, as you can see from my February 22 article, “It's Time to Enjoy Surprising New Realities in the Democratic and Republican Coalitions.” Since this is such an unexpected development, many folks have been resistant to my argument on this topic. However, new information from Pew Research, released only this week, provides further evidence to support it:

When asked how they would have voted, people eligible to vote who did not do so were fairly evenly split in their preferences: 44% said they would have supported Trump, while 40% said they would have backed Harris.

Hopefully this new research will help recalcitrant political commentators come to accept what I believe to be fairly obvious at this point: Trump won in 2024 primarily by persuading low propensity voters who normally vote Democratic to back him.

But really, without even looking at any research, there is actually a straightforward reason why lower propensity voters are swinging toward Republicans, while higher propensity voters are swinging toward Democrats. Over the past decade, there has been a broadly-based international trend of voters without college degrees moving toward nationalistic/nativist/”populist” conservative parties, while highly educated voters have moved significantly toward a more left-wing politics. Because education is a humongous determining factor in how likely someone is to vote, it follows that left-leaning parties supported by educated voters will be favored when turnout is low.

In practice, this means that midterm elections, which practically always go against the party in control of the White House, will also now have a built-in pro-Democratic advantage. This makes 2026 doubly bad for Republicans.

4. Special elections are going extremely well for Democrats

According to data compiled by The Downballot, across the 31 special elections for state legislative and House of Representatives seats held so far in 2025, Democrats have outperformed Kamala Harris's vote share in November 2024 by a mean of 15.4 points, and a median of 13 points. When you consider that Harris only lost the national popular vote by 1.5%, and the tipping point state in the Electoral College (Pennsylvania) by 1.7%, these numbers give you a good sense of where the current political climate stands.

Democrats only need a uniform national swing of 1.1% from the 2024 national House results in order to capture the House in 2026. Special elections are currently providing Democrats with an average swing over ten times that size. It’s anyone’s guess how Republicans turn that around while furiously working to pass unpopular bills and as Donald Trump's approval rating continues its almost inevitable decline.

5. Democrats will out fundraise Republicans—again

A key part of the newfound Democratic advantage among college educated voters is that Democrats now also enjoy an advantage in fundraising. People with money to give to political campaigns overwhelmingly have college degrees. If the pool of potential political donors skews Democratic, so will political fundraising.

When all the money from campaigns, political parties and outside groups is taken into account, Democrats outraised Republicans in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024¹ It wasn't really all that close, either. Until Republicans can improve their standing among well-to-do college educated voters, there is every reason to expect they will continue to face a fundraising deficit in 2026 and beyond.

6. Any attempt to make voting more difficult will just hurt Republicans, not Democrats

For decades, low propensity voters who are less likely to turn out have skewed toward Democrats, while high propensity voters who are more likely to turn out have skewed toward Republicans. Over the last twenty years, this has resulted in a pattern where Republicans, when they are in power, enact public policy designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot, while Democrats, when they are in power, enact public policy designed to make it easier to cast a ballot.

Now that the preferences of higher and lower propensity voters have changed, in an act of true political stupidity Trump is continuing to engage in the long-term Republican practice of trying to make it more difficult for low propensity voters to cast ballots. The thing is that engaging in this kind of voter suppression now hurts Republicans. Hopefully, for the good of our democracy, Republicans will finally catch on to this, and join with Democrats in making it easier for American citizens to exercise their right to choose their own leaders. However, I doubt this will actually happen.

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All told, I really just don't see a way for Republicans to hold on to the House of Representatives in 2026. Based on history, the composition of the two major party coalitions, the narrow margin in the House of Representatives, and the current political climate, there really doesn't seem to be any way for Republicans to keep the House in 2026 other than with some truly unpredictable world catastrophe that for whatever reason causes people to rally around Trump.

Margins matter, though. In terms of being able to serve as a check on Trump in 2027-2028, and eventually to pass legislation in 2029-2030, a House of Representatives with 250 Democrats would be very different from a House of Representatives with 225 Democrats. It also matters if Democrats control the Senate, and have an expanded presence with statewide elected officials and in state legislatures.

In this environment, the goal should be not just to win, but to run up the score as much as possible in as many different parts of the country as possible.

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1. Apologies for the lack of supporting links on this claim—I researched this using Google's AI Mode rather than specific websites.