Democrats face hard math in retaking the Senate. But in the House, it’s another story.
Democrats hold 213 House seats to Republicans’ 220, with two vacancies in safely Democratic districts that will be filled through special elections later this year. If all goes as expected, Democrats will have 215 seats, three shy of a majority in the chamber.
Three also happens to be the exact number of Republican-held districts that Democrat Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential election, according to a Daily Kos analysis of data from The Downballot, the election-tracking site formerly known as Daily Kos Elections. This shows a promising path for Democrats to retake the House in next year’s midterm elections.
Though Harris won two of those districts—New York’s 17th and Pennsylvania’s 1st—by less than 1 percentage point, she was also the first Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years to lose the popular vote. In fact, according to The Downballot, President Joe Biden pretty handily won both districts in the 2020 election, taking Pennsylvania’s 1st by 4.6 points and New York’s 17th by a whopping 10.1 points.
That said, because Republicans still won those seats last year, they are by no means a sure flip for Democrats in 2026. The party will also have to defend Democratic-held seats in 13 districts that President Donald Trump won last year, four of which he won by more than 5 points—a ticket-splitting feat that Harris didn’t manage to pull off anywhere.
But there was one feat that Democrats did manage last year: They picked up two House seats on net, despite Harris’ shoddy performance at the top of the ticket. Better yet, they are very likely to improve in 2026.
How do we know that? Historically, the party not in the White House picks up seats in a midterm. In only two midterm elections since 1946 has a president’s party gained House seats: 1998 and 2002. Both midterms were rocked by major news events: one by Republicans’ overreach in their impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and the other by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks under President George W. Bush.
Excluding those two midterms, the worst result since 1946 for the party not in the White House was a gain of just four House seats, according to 538. And flipping four seats next year would put Democrats back in the majority.
In all likelihood, Democrats will flip more than four seats. The Trump administration has been chaotic and destructive, leading to mass protests and GOP lawmakers getting viciously booed during their rare town halls.
The Democratic Party has also become very good at overperforming in low-turnout elections. In 2025 special elections so far, Democrats have beaten Harris’ 2024 margin in those seats by an average of 11 points, according to data from The Downballot.
Democrats are unlikely to outperform Harris by 11 points in every House district in the 2026 midterms, which will have higher turnout than these special elections. But if they somehow managed it, Democrats would flip 30 seats.
The last time Trump faced a midterm, in 2018, Democrats flipped 40 seats on net. While there are many reasons why the 2018 and 2026 midterms will be different—for one, district maps were redrawn between those elections—Democrats don’t need to pick up an additional 40 seats. Or even 30.
They need three.
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