Dem
47
GOP
53
The race for the House in 2026 will be extremely competitive. The current margin is just five seats, 215D, 220R. In the first midterm election, the president's party usually gets hit hard, so the Democrats have a decent shot at taking back the House, especially if Trump v2.0 is chaos, with many resignations, firings, adverse court decisions, etc. So for each party, a key figure is the person running the committee in charge of winning House elections.
Both parties decided to go with an experienced hand. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) will run the DCCC again, for the second time, and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) will lead the NRCC again, also for the second time. DelBene gets credit for negating Donald Trump's coattails completely and actually picking up a seat in the House. Hudson gets credit for holding the House, even though he lost a seat. Both are popular in their respective parties. Running the House committee is tougher than running the corresponding Senate committee because the chair has to worry about 435 races instead of only 33 or 34. Furthermore, Senate candidates are major figures in their own right and many are good at fundraising, sometimes from out of state. House candidates, even incumbents, need more help generally. This means the DCCC and NRCC chairs need to be good at fundraising, and having done it recently means they are well-plugged-in with donors.
Which seats will be the critical ones next time? One thing to look at is which seats flipped in 2024. They went one way in 2022 and the other way in 2024, and they could go back again in 2026. This is especially true of seats the Republicans just flipped because if the "normal" anti-president wave happens in 2026 due to people being unhappy with the president, these could be the most vulnerable seats. So let's look at the seats that flipped partisan control on Nov. 5, from Democratic to Republican. These will all be top targets for the Democrats in 2026:
| District | PVI | Democrat | Dem Pct. | Republican | GOP Pct. | Notes |
| AK-AL | R+8 | Mary Peltola (D) | 46.4% | Nick Begich (R) | 48.4% | |
| CO-08 | EVEN | Yadira Caraveo (D) | 48.2% | Gabe Evans (R) | 49.0% | |
| MI-07 | R+2 | Curtis Hertel Jr. (D) | 46.6% | Tom Barrett (R) | 50.3% | Elissa Slotkin (D) ran for the Senate |
| NC-06 | R+11 | (None) (D) | 00.0% | Addison McDowell (R) | 69.2% | Kathy Manning (D) retired due to redistricting |
| NC-13 | R+11 | Frank Pierce (D) | 41.4% | Brad Knott (R) | 58.6% | Wiley Nickel (D) retired due to redistricting |
| NC-14 | R+11 | Pam Genant (D) | 41.9% | Tim Moore (R) | 58.1% | Jeff Jackson (D) retired due to redistricting |
| PA-07 | R+2 | Susan Wild (D) | 49.6% | Ryan MacKenzie (R) | 50.5% | |
| PA-08 | R+4 | Matt Cartwright (D) | 49.2% | Rob Bresnahan (R) | 50.8% |
Here are the nine seats the Democrats flipped compared to the current Congress. Note that compared to the 2022 election, the Democrats are +2, not +1, because Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) flipped the seat of "George Santos" (R-NY) in the special election after "Santos" was expelled from the House on Dec. 1, 2023:
| District | PVI | Republican | GOP Pct. | Democrat | Dem Pct. | Notes |
| AL-02 | D+4 | Caroleene Dobson (R) | 45.4% | Shomari Figures (D) | 54.6% | Barry Moore (R) retired due to redistricting |
| CA-13 | D+4 | John Duarte (R) | 50.0% | Adam Gray (D) | 50.0% | Gray won by 187 votes |
| CA-27 | D+4 | Mike Garcia (R) | 48.7% | George Whitesides (D) | 51.3% | |
| CA-45 | D+2 | Michelle Steele (R) | 49.9% | Derek Tran (D) | 50.1% | |
| LA-06 | D+8 | Elbert Guillory (R) | 37.7% | Cleo Fields (D) | 50.8% | Garret Graves (R) retired due to redistricting |
| NY-04 | D+5 | Anthony D'Esposito (R) | 48.8% | Laura Gillen (D) | 51.2% | |
| NY-19 | R+1 | Mark Molinaro (R) | 49.2% | Josh Riley (D) | 50.8% | |
| NY-22 | D+3 | Brandon Williams (R) | 45.5% | John Mannion (D) | 54.5% | |
| OR-05 | D+2 | Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) | 45.1% | Janelle Bynum (D) | 47.7% |
Of course, there are other vulnerable seats as well, especially Democrats in districts Trump won and Republicans in districts Harris won. The latter may be especially vulnerable because without Trump on the ballot in 2026, marginal voters who came out of the woodwork specifically to vote for Trump may stay in the woodwork in 2026. In a district that is fundamentally Democratic (i.e., one that Harris won), a strong Democrat may be in a good position to flip the seat.
What is also noteworthy here is how stable the House is. Only 17 seats changed parties. That means that 418 seats stayed with the same party. In other words, 96.1% of the House seats stayed in the same party. There were 45 House retirements in 2024, but in the vast majority of the cases, either one Democrat was replaced with a different Democrat or one Republican was replaced by another one. Partisan flips occurred in only 3.9% of the seats. This effect is largely due to state legislatures that have gerrymandered districts to be unwinnable by the other party. (V)