Democrats shouldn’t start counting their chickens before they’ve hatched in the 2026 fight for control of the House of Representatives.

Yes, midterm elections are often challenging for the president’s party, and that could be doubly the case this cycle given President-elect Donald Trump’s confrontational style. The Republicans’ very narrow majority in the House also creates additional challenges for the GOP. 

But Trump’s ability to mobilize his base in November and the small number of Republicans representing Democrat-friendly seats could limit Democratic House gains next year.

Historical trends

History strongly suggests Democratic gains are likely in 2026. The sitting president’s party has lost House seats in 17 of the last 19 midterm elections going back to 1950, with the two outliers, 1998 and 2002, largely explained by the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In addition, only two of those 17 midterms saw the president’s party losing as few as five seats: in 1962 (four seats) and 1986 (five seats).

But looking at net seat changes focuses only on part of the political equation. Results often depend on how many opportunities exist for the party that doesn’t hold the House.

If the president’s party holds a huge House majority, it almost certainly includes dozens of seats that his party normally wouldn’t win. On the other hand, if the House is narrowly divided, the president’s party is likely to have fewer seats and a smaller number of potentially vulnerable members.

For this cycle, Republicans control the House, but only by a handful of seats: 219-215 currently, with one vacancy. Neither party won large numbers of seats that normally should have been won by the other party.

The demise of ticket-splitting has produced a Congress in which only three Republicans — Nebraska’s Don Bacon, New York’s Michael Lawler and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick — represent congressional districts carried by 2024 Democratic presidential nominee and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris. On the other hand, 13 Democrats represent districts that Trump won in November.

Who votes?

Midterms generally bring out voters who are unhappy with the president’s (and/or Congress’) performance. They may think that the president did not deliver on promises he made, or they may simply disagree with his agenda or rhetoric.

Between now and Trump’s second overall midterm election, Republicans will have to deal with the debt ceiling and appropriations concerns — just the kind of issues that in the past divided the GOP and caused voters to turn to Democratic candidates.

Since the president isn’t on the ballot during a midterm, the only way for voters to express their displeasure with the president is to vote against his party’s nominees for other offices — particularly for Congress. Voters who are angry are more likely to express their feelings than those who are content with the current state of affairs, or who don’t spend much time thinking about politics.

Midterms also tend to turn out more upscale voters rather than voters who have less education and lower income. That could benefit the Democrats in 2026, as they have recently been winning the votes of college graduates comfortably while Republicans are winning over non-college graduates easily.

Republican strategists argue that their House members are “battle tested” and know what it takes to win, as National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson of North Carolina told Fox News Digital in a mid-December interview.

There may be some truth to that, but it’s also a fact that Trump has one midterm election under his belt and he didn’t do so well, losing 42 GOP House seats in 2018.

What to consider in ’26

Next year’s midterms will be affected by everything from party and candidate fundraising to candidate recruitment (on both sides of the aisle), the public’s mood, and the performance of Congress and Trump.

Will there be a government shutdown or more Supreme Court decisions that will anger and energize Democrats, suburbanites and casual voters? How will Trump handle Russia’s war with Ukraine? Will Trump really impose high tariffs on friends and foes alike? And how will that affect the U.S. economy?

It’s likely that the Trump administration will cause plenty of chaos. That’s how the president-elect likes to operate. But it’s far from clear how the country will react.

The House, like the country at large, is almost evenly divided. That’s not necessarily a prescription for dramatic change for the chamber in 2026. But Democrats need only small gains next year to make House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York the speaker, which is why next year’s midterms will be interesting and worth watching.