Nationalization of Congressional Elections and Midterm Swings

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  

 Alan Abramowitz at The Center for Politics documents how House and Senate elections have become more nationalized and polarized.  But significant seat swings are possible if the national vote margin is big enough.    

The results in Table 5 suggest that a large Democratic seat swing is possible in both the House and Senate, although we have much more confidence in the House predictions. The national popular vote results will not be known until after the election, but we can use recent generic ballot polling, averaging the results of pre-election polls asking voters which party they would support in the congressional election, to estimate the likely outcome of the national popular vote. However, the generic ballot is a much more accurate predictor of the national House popular vote than of the national Senate popular vote since not all states hold Senate elections in a given year. The correlation between the generic ballot and the national House popular vote is .89 while the correlation between the generic ballot and the national Senate popular vote margin is a much weaker .75.

A Democratic vote margin of 5-6 points, roughly what recent generic ballot polls have been averaging, would result in an expected Democratic gain of about 20-25 seats in the House and 6-7 seats in the Senate, more than enough to shift control of both chambers. However, the group of states holding Senate elections in 2026 is considerably more Republican than the nation. In 2020, the last year in which this Senate class was up for election, Democrats won the national popular vote for the House by 3.1 percentage points but lost the national popular vote for the Senate by 2.3 percentage points. A 5-6 point popular vote margin in the House elections might predict a less than one-point popular vote margin in the Senate elections and a gain of only about four seats—barely enough to shift control of the upper chamber. These results suggest that the battle for control of the Senate is likely to go down to the wire even if Democrats easily win a majority of seats in the House. Once again, we see that the peculiar make-up of the Senate, with its vast overrepresentation of sparsely populated rural states, poses a serious potential obstacle to electoral accountability in the 21st century.

 

A Day of Setbacks for Trump

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.   But there are some green shoots, too.

 Olivia M. Bridges and Valerie Yurk at Roll Call:

Three House Republicans helped thwart a White House push to block lawmakers from moving to terminate President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs until July 31, by which time the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the duties’ legality.

The 214-217 vote Tuesday evening to reject a rule that would bar use of a fast-track disapproval resolution for the tariffs came after House leaders delayed a floor vote scheduled for early afternoon while they tried to pressure Republicans to switch votes.

After the rule’s defeat, which GOP leaders expected after their whip effort fell short, the Rules Committee met again to report out a revised rule minus the tariff provision.

That would allow several unrelated bills to come to the floor this week if adopted, but also opens the door to an onslaught of Democratic tariff disapproval resolutions — starting as soon as Wednesday with an attempt to overturn Trump’s tariffs levied on Canadian goods.

GOP Reps. Kevin Kiley of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Don Bacon of Nebraska, who declared their opposition early, remained firm and voted against the rule, joining all Democrats.

Perry Stein and Salvador Rizzo at WP:

A federal grand jury in D.C. refused the Justice Department’s attempts to indict six Democratic lawmakers over their comments to military service members — the latest rebuke of the Trump administration’s push to prosecute the president’s foes, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Federal prosecutors last year launched an investigation into the lawmakers — all of whom served in the military or with intelligence agencies — after they released a short video advising current military members to reject “illegal orders.”

The lawmakers include Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut from Arizona, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst from Michigan, both of whom sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. They have criticized the administration’s attempts to deploy the National Guard to cities run by Democratic officials and conduct strikes on alleged drug traffickers’ boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

It is exceedingly rare for grand juries to reject indictments, in part because prosecutors only need to convince a majority of grand jurors that there is a probable cause that a crime was committed — a relatively low threshold. But the Justice Department’s campaign to target President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries has repeatedly been rebuffed by grand juries and judges, including in its efforts to prosecute former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).

Jeremy Roebuck and Patrick Marley at WP:

The FBI relied heavily on previously debunked claims of widespread election irregularities in Georgia as it persuaded a federal judge last month to sign off on plans to seize 2020 voting records from the state’s most populous county, court documents unsealed Tuesday show.

In a pair of Jan. 28 search warrant affidavits, authorities said they were seeking evidence that would determine whether “deficiencies” in the vote tabulation in Fulton County, home to Atlanta, were the result of intentional wrongdoing that could constitute a crime.

But many of the issues they cited — including claims of duplicate ballots and missing ballot images — have been previously explained by county officials as the types of routine errors that frequently occur, are typically corrected in the moment, and are not significant enough to sway the outcome of an election. Independent reviews have backed up that conclusion.

 

Epstein Files, Continued

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein.

Jay O'Brien, John Parkinson, and Lauren Peller at ABC:

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a key member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet, is facing bipartisan calls to resign over new revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Documents released by the Justice Department late last month show Lutnick remained in contact with Epstein as recently as 2018, years after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes including soliciting prostitution from a minor.

...

Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein for over a decade, previously suggested he had distanced himself from Epstein back in the mid-2000s prior to Epstein's conviction in 2008.

"So, I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross," Lutnick said on the "Pod Force One" podcast back in October.

"That's my story. A one and absolutely done," Lutnick said.

But one email from Epstein's schedule for May, 1, 2011, showed plans for drinks with Lutnick.

And in December of 2012, other documents showed Lutnick and his family planned to visit Epstein's private island. That same month, both Lutnick and Epstein invested in the same business, according to legal documents.

 Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns at Politico:

WHAT WE’RE ALL READING: Ten days on from the DOJ’s mass dump of Epstein files data, the revelations keep coming. The files thus far have largely exposed a murky world of conspiring elites with questionable moral standards.

Digital democracy: And we are witnessing this through the prism of an entirely new phenomenon — an internationally crowdsourced scandal, unfolding in real time across your social media feed. In many cases, citizen journalists have been nearly as capable as professional journalists and investigators at finding insightful documents within the millions of DOJ files and bringing them to the fore.

Parlor games: Washington being what it is, the universal access to raw investigative data has given rise to another new fad. People are also scouring the Epstein files for references to their bosses, their corporate rivals, their political enemies — even their own families. Gossip about some of the highest-profile revelations had been swirling in D.C. circles for days in advance, uncovered by the associates of those involved. Plenty of people are hunting not for criminal behavior, but for the intrigue.

“We are all searching the files: for colleagues, competitors, clients,” one well-connected PR operative tells POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman. “It’s shocking to see what some of the most powerful people in the world say to each other in private — and it’s also shocking how many folks we know are mentioned in some capacity, even completely innocuously.”

The House Map and the Aggregate Vote

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  

Hans Nichols and Kavya Beheraj at Axios:

House Democrats will need to overperform Vice President Harris by roughly three percentage points in swing districts to capture the majority in 2026, according to an Axios analysis of presidential margins in congressional districts.

Why it matters: In special elections over the last year, Democrats have been surpassing Harris' 2024 margins by double digits, putting the majority clearly in reach.

But the universe of competitive House seats is historically small, meaning that even an unambiguous national move toward the Democrats will result in a relatively narrow Democratic majority.

Flashback: The 2018 midterms saw a 6.5 percentage point swing in Democrats' favor compared to President Trump's 2016 margins, giving them 41 new seats for a 235 -199 majority, according to the Cook Political Report. A similar shift in 2026 would translate into 12 additional Democratic seats, giving them a 227-208 majority, according to the data, which includes redistricted maps, according to The Downballot and Sabato's Crystal Ball.

The other side: If GOP candidates fare just 1% better than Trump did last cycle, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) could add another 12 seats to his majority, putting him at a comfortable 232-204 margin.

Zoom out: Democrats are banking that the electorate will look a lot less Trumpy when the president's name is not on the ballot. Their voters, Democrats argue, are highly motivated and engaged when Trump is in office.

...

Zoom in: Presidential performance in a congressional district doesn't guarantee a predetermined outcome, but in the Trump era, the number of crossover districts is at a historic low.Thirteen House Democrats prevailed in seats that Trump carried in 2024. A total of three Republicans held on in Harris districts.

n 2008, after President Obama's first election, there were 83 crossover districts.Two of the best lawmakers at convincing voters to split their ticket — Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who won in a Harris +4.6 district, and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who won in a Trump +9 district — are both retiring.

What we're watching: After tit-for-tat redistricting in six states, Republicans appear to have drawn themselves another three seats.Democrats on Thursday proposed adding another four in Virginia (pending judicial review), but Republicans are plotting to equalize in Florida.

The Senate Is In Play

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.   The early signs in the 2026 midterms do not favor Republicans.

Alex Isenstadt at Axios:

Top Republicans are increasingly worried about private polling that paints a dire picture of the midterms — and it's not just the House they're afraid of losing, it's also the Senate.

...

Here's what's setting off GOP bells about the Senate:

1. The map's expanding

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is taking a lot of darts from his own party these days. But Republicans privately concede he's done a good job of recruiting Senate candidates in conservative states once seen as out of reach for Democrats.Schumer got former Sen. Sherrod Brown to run again in Ohio, and former Rep. Mary Peltola to run in Alaska. Ohio Sen. Jon Husted and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan are the GOP incumbents.
Even if Democrats fail to win either race, Republicans now will need to spend potentially tens of millions to defend those seats.

2. The Texas problem

If incumbent Texas Sen. John Cornyn loses the upcoming GOP primary to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, polls suggest it could open the door to a Democrat winning Cornyn's seat in November.The NRSC penned a memo this week arguing that Cornyn is "the only Republican candidate" who can "reliably win a general election matchup" against either Democratic state Rep. James Talarico or U.S. Rep Jasmine Crockett (D). (Republicans might get some help — the Democratic primary has gone harshly negative recently.)
Even if Paxton wins in November, many Republicans warn, the party will have to unexpectedly spend tens of millions of dollars more than if Cornyn is the nominee.

Democrats haven't won a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades. But Republicans aren't dismissing the possibility this year. Last weekend the party suffered a lopsided special election defeat for a state Senate seat.Particularly glaring: Trump, who had endorsed the GOP candidate, won the district by 17 points in 2024.

3. The Georgia problem

The GOP's failure to recruit popular Gov. Brian Kemp for a Senate run has been a major setback in the party's efforts to pick off the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for reelection, Georgia's Jon Ossoff.Kemp's decision not to run has left three lesser-known Republicans to fight for the GOP nomination — none with Kemp's fundraising chops.
Ossoff's has raised far more money than any GOP challenger and has over $25 million on hand. Whoever wins the bruising GOP primary will have to burn through cash before facing him.

Trump's Racist Video: "No, I didn't make a mistake."

Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display this week.

Erica L. Green, Isabella Kwai and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, but he insisted he had nothing to apologize for even after he deleted the video following an outcry.

The clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was among a flurry of links posted by Mr. Trump late Thursday night. It was the latest in a pattern by Mr. Trump of promoting offensive imagery and slurs about Black Americans and others.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump said he only saw the beginning of the video. “I just looked at the first part, it was about voter fraud in some place, Georgia,” Mr. Trump said. “I didn’t see the whole thing.”

He then tried to deflect blame, suggesting he had given the link to someone else to post. “I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t,” he told reporters.

Still, Mr. Trump offered no contrition when pressed. “No, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.

The White House response to the video over the course of the day — from defiance to retreat to doubling down — was a remarkable glimpse into an administration trying to control the damage in the face of widespread outrage, including from the president’s own party.

The clip was in line with Mr. Trump’s history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants, and he has for years singled out the Obamas. Across Mr. Trump’s administration, racist images and slogans have become common on government websites and accounts, with the White House, Labor Department and Homeland Security Department all having promoted posts that echo white supremacist messaging.

 

House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES has posted a new new video about the Trump video from Truth Social. Here is what the top House Dem said:

"This disgusting video, posted by the so-called president, was done intentionally.

"Fuck Donald Trump and his vile, racist and…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 6, 2026

Trump Disses Christians and Posts Racist Video

Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display this week.

David Gilmour at Mediaite:

President Donald Trump shared a 2020 election conspiracy video to Truth Social on Thursday night that briefly depicts former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

The 62-second video, shared at 11:44 p.m. ET, is largely focused on pushing a conspiracy about manipulated vote-counting machines that projected former President Joe Biden would win states like Georgia. But an AI clip spliced into the end of the video shows the faces of the Obamas superimposed on apes’ bodies for roughly a second, accompanied by The Tokens’ song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The clip carries a watermark linked to a pro-Trump account on X with tens of thousands of followers.