{"id":8771,"date":"2026-08-06T12:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8771"},"modified":"2026-08-06T12:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:05:10","slug":"why-you-shouldnt-be-surprised-if-democrats-dont-flip-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8771","title":{"rendered":"Why you shouldn\u2019t be surprised if Democrats don\u2019t flip the House"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, left, hands the gavel to newly reelected House Speaker Mike Johnson on Jan. 3, 2025. (Ricky Carioti\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Democrats are favored to flip the House, but Republicans could still save their majority under the right conditions.<\/p>

Read more U.S.-Canada relations go up in smoke<\/a><\/p>\n

Historically, midterm elections are a referendum on the party that holds the White House, which voters are prone to punish. This year, the Democratic Party is well positioned to win a House majority, buoyed by voters\u2019 dissatisfaction<\/a> with President Donald Trump and the war in Iran that he started.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s party could defy conventional wisdom and still eke out a win, election analysts say. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n

Registered voters support Democrats over Republicans in Congress by five percentage points, according to a Washington Post average of July \u201cgeneric ballot\u201d polls that ask preferences for parties rather than individuals.<\/p>\n

Analysts estimate that Democrats need to win the national House vote by three to four points to win the majority. Democrats have a bigger advantage among highly motivated voters, who are more likely to turn out in November.<\/p>\n

But polls also show that the Democratic brand is bruised.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Party is less popular than before the 2018 midterm elections, when a blue wave delivered 41 new seats<\/a>, according to a CNN poll<\/a> released in late July.<\/p>\n

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People vote in Michigan’s primary elections Tuesday at Northwestern High School in Detroit. (Nic Antaya\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Just before that 2018 election, 46 percent of adults rated<\/a> Democrats favorably while 45 percent rated them unfavorably. Now, 30 percent rate Democrats favorably while 51 percent rate them unfavorably, almost identical to ratings for the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Much of that discontent comes from Democrats who are unhappy with their own party but unwilling to vote for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Democrats are counting on people who don\u2019t like them but are fed up with a GOP-controlled Washington to vote blue. That might be a harder sell by November if voters aren\u2019t as outraged.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans have to hope that gas prices come down and that the war fades from the news a bit,\u201d said David Wasserman, a senior elections analyst with Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan race handicapper.<\/p>\n

A party needs 218 seats to control the House, and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority with several vacancies.<\/p>\n

Aggressive redistricting<\/a> to favor parties in congressional elections has resulted in a smaller battleground for control of Congress.<\/p>\n

As of mid-July, <\/b>Cook Political Report<\/a> deemed 37 districts competitive. Eighteen were toss-ups, while 10 leaned Democrat and 9 leaned Republican.<\/p>\n

Republicans made it unusually hard for Democrats to win the majority by launching a national battle to redraw electoral maps mid-decade. While Democrats tried to gain their own seats, the redistricting gambit proved advantageous for the GOP.<\/p>\n

Because the two parties are competing on the new map, November\u2019s results could be close even in a difficult year for Republicans, Wasserman said.<\/p>\n

If Democrats win all of the most competitive districts classified by the Cook Political Report, they would win 235 seats under the 2024 map. But under the current map, they would only win 223 seats.<\/p>\n

In June, a Supreme Court ruling granted Republicans financial leverage to spend big to boost their candidates.<\/p>

Read more Trump fills ambassador posts with more donors, loyalists than any recent president<\/a><\/p>\n

The high court lifted limits on how much political parties can spend<\/a> in coordination with candidates, allowing the political parties\u2019 national committees and their House and Senate campaign committees to funnel as much money as they want in coordination with candidates.<\/p>\n

This will allow political parties to boost their candidates with more ads, probably at lower costs because candidates get cheaper rates than parties and super PACs from the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the airwaves. Republican committees have more money to spend than Democrats on those efforts.<\/p>\n

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Tour groups on July 30 in the Capitol Rotunda. (Christine Kao\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Conservatives could also benefit <\/a>from Trump\u2019s super PAC, MAGA Inc., which ended June with $400 million in the bank. It\u2019s unclear whether that money will go toward midterm races.<\/p>\n

The Republican campaign committees have also not yet detailed how they will spend their money in the coming months but said after the Supreme Court ruling that they were \u201cready to fully support our candidates and put them in the strongest position possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats\u2019 campaign operation, disputed that the GOP\u2019s financial resources would sway the midterms out of Democrats\u2019 reach. They pointed to special elections <\/a>in which Democrats won despite being outspent by Republican opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump\u2019s money won\u2019t save the vulnerable Republicans who have spent the last two years making life worse for the American people,\u201d DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said.<\/p>\n

In past elections, Republicans lost competitive congressional races after more hard-line conservatives emerged from primaries. Now Democrats have a similar problem.<\/p>\n

Primary victories by several progressive candidates<\/a> have made some in the party establishment worry about losing winnable seats.<\/p>\n

Most of these candidates have been in blue districts, but Matthew Dunlap in Maine and Randy Villegas<\/a> in California beat more moderate, DCCC-endorsed candidates in primaries. Amish Shah<\/a>, who lost a 2024 race in an Arizona battleground district, defeated a former Republican endorsed by the DCCC to run again.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday in Michigan, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence, a progressive, bested two moderate Democrats in the battleground 7th Congressional District. The DCCC did not endorse any candidate before the primary.<\/p>\n

Manny Rutinel<\/a> defeated a more moderate opponent in a beef-producing Colorado district where some Democrats fear his history of animal rights activism and liberal voting record in the state House could render him unelectable.<\/p>\n

Those districts could still go for Democrats, according to national analyses, and progressives argue that their preferred candidates are better at turning out voters even if they turn off some moderates.<\/p>\n

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said that while Republicans have a \u201cvery narrow\u201d path to the majority, they could defy expectations if the party successfully casts its opponents as extreme and out of touch. They include candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, a growing political movement<\/a> with far-left views.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith every candidate on the DSA side that succeeds, that makes that argument that much easier,\u201d Heye said.<\/p>\n

In an analysis this week, the University of Virginia\u2019s Center of Politics<\/a> said \u201cDemocratic candidates flopping is integral to GOP chances\u201d in several states.<\/p>

Read more Senate Democrats probe Korean firm\u2019s $2 million payment to Trump company<\/a><\/p>\n

Scott Clement contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats are ahead in polls, and voters typically punish the party that controls the White House during midterms. 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