The demographic and geographic specifics of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in 2024 mean the next battle for the House will be fought mostly in districts that Trump carried, giving Republicans hope they can buck historical midterm trends and expand their majority in two years.
The National Republican Congressional Committee’s chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., told NBC News that there are now more than a dozen Democrats in districts Trump carried, with just three Republicans in districts Vice President Kamala Harris won.
“So that tells me we’re going on offense,” Hudson said.
It’s a very different House picture than what emerged after Trump’s first win in 2016, when roughly two dozen Republicans found themselves in districts that Hillary Clinton won, and around a dozen Democrats won seats that Trump carried. Democrats ended up cleaning up in the Clinton districts and then padding their majority in the Trump districts in 2018. But even though Republicans won just a three-seat majority this year (220-215 in a full chamber), any path to a meaningful Democratic House majority has to run through Trump’s 2024 territory.
Democrats, though, don’t believe these new Trump districts are firmly in the GOP’s column, pointing to their downballot candidates who performed better than Vice President Kamala Harris in November and how close they came in the House despite losing the national popular vote.
“I think we got our message out to voters. We need to do more. Clearly, I want to make sure that we have the gavels,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said in a phone interview. “But I think we did a lot of things right in a tough environment across the country because we connected with voters.”
Republicans held the House this year but had a net loss of one seat, even as Trump swept competitive battleground states and made gains in Democratic areas. Democrats need to net just three seats to flip the House in 2026, and they will also have midterm trends on their side. In the last six midterms for a second-term president, the president’s party on average lost 20 House seats, according to data from the American Presidency Project.
The next midterm battles will also be the first tests of how both parties will navigate a world where Trump will never again be atop the ballot.
Republicans, defending a razor-thin majority, are looking to turn the Trump coalition into a durable bloc for other GOP candidates and continue the trends he helped stoke. And Democrats, buoyed by downballot overperformance, are looking to win back working-class voters and voters of color who have backed the president-elect but also have history of backing their party.
A shifting battlefield
This year, just three House Republicans are in seats that Harris carried — Nebraska’s Don Bacon, Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, and New York’s Mike Lawler — according to campaign strategists and an analysis from the National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT).
“I think we’ve all shown an ability to win in Democratic districts in tough environments,” Lawler, who is also weighing a run for governor of New York in 2026, told NBC News.
Three Democrats who had been sitting in Trump districts — Maine’s Jared Golden, Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur and Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — won re-election. And 10 or 11 other Democrats won their House races even as their districts flipped from backing President Joe Biden in 2020 to supporting Trump this year.
“I don’t know the last time we’ve had more obvious crossover targets coming out of a successful cycle like this,” said Adam Kincaid, the NRRT’s president and executive director, noting there could be 11 Democrats in districts that flipped from Biden to Trump depending on split precinct results in Ohio’s 13th District.
“Democrats are going to have to go into Trump territory to flip the House,” Kincaid said.
Some Democrats in new Trump districts, such as Rep.-elect Adam Gray of California, Rep. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico and Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, represent seats with sizable Latino populations, underscoring Trump’s gains among this group of voters. This also includes one election-night surprise, with Rep.-elect Nellie Pou winning a closer-than-expected race in New Jersey’s 9th District, which is 44% Hispanic according to census data.
The districts also reflect Trump’s gains among working-class voters. In all but one of those districts, less than 36% of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is below the national average. A majority of the Trump/House Democratic districts have a median household income of less than $65,000, which is also below the national median of $78,000.
For Republicans, Trump has shifted their coalition to include more working-class voters and voters of color.
“That changing coalition for us reshapes the battlefield and creates opportunities in places like Texas-28 or Nevada-3,” said Hudson, referring to Cuellar’s seat and Democratic Rep. Susie Lee’s Nevada district, which also flipped to Trump.
But Democrats say their House candidates’ overperformance gives the party a playbook for the midterms. Democratic candidates in battleground districts outperformed Harris by an average of 2.4 points in counties where less than 30% of voters have a college degree, and by an average of 0.2 points in majority-Latino counties, according to a DCCC analysis shared with NBC News.
DelBene and other party strategists touted Democrats’ individual brands as key to withstanding some broader political forces.
“Both our incumbents and our candidates running to flip seats, really have always been authentic, independent-minded folks focused on their districts,” DelBene said.
“I feel like I know my district and my constituents know me,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., whose district flipped from Biden to Trump. “And I know that Donald Trump’s not going to be on the top of the ticket in 2026 and midterms are often very different. And whatever happens, I’ll be prepared.”
Mike Smith, president of House Majority PAC, the main Democratic super PAC involved in House races, also said that candidate quality is key to success, along with leveraging demographic shifts and running on a compelling message.
“When we have that, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether it’s suburban, rural, working class or not,” Smith said. “We have candidates that resonate and can win. And we proved that in ’22 and ’24, and I think we’re going to see that in a much bigger way in ’26.”
The super PAC announced Wednesday that it is launching a new recruitment fund, looking to help with research and outreach to potential candidates in key House races. It also released a list of 29 midterm targets, plus 16 additional GOP-held seats that it said could be competitive with the right Democratic candidate on the ballot.
The targets include some Trump seats that were not on this year’s battlefield, like Michigan’s 4th District, represented by GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga. Smith noted that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer carried the seat in 2022, and that Ottawa County, while heavily pro-Trump, has been moving toward Democrats.
Hudson said he had not seen the target list, but he said Democrats tend to target some “reaches” given the small House map. Only a small handful of the 435 seats have flipped in the last two election cycles.
“We’ve got more opportunity to pick up seats than they do,” Hudson said. “So they can spin it however they want.”
Party challenges
Despite downballot bright spots, some Democrats acknowledged that their party has more work to do to win back key groups of voters, particularly working-class voters and Latinos, and make the case that the party is not singularly focused on opposing Trump.
“The reality is [that] in voters’ minds, for the past eight years we’ve been the party of opposition. And we’ve got to stand for something,” said one Democratic strategist who has worked in House races and requested anonymity to speak candidly about party strategy.
DelBene said Democrats should continue to focus on issues affecting working families, like the child tax credit.
“Our focus is on making sure we’re getting things done and making a difference for our communities,” DelBene said.
Republicans, meanwhile, will try to ensure that Trump voters become reliable GOP voters, and some Republicans acknowledged those voters are not in their camp yet.
“Just because you vote for Trump does not make you a Republican,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership.
Hudson said Republicans should focus on delivering on key issues to win over those voters and continue to study how to best reach voters who don’t normally show up at the polls.
“It starts with: Why did they vote for Trump in the first place? And I think it’s because they wanted change, and they were concerned about the cost of things for their family. They’re concerned about crime in their neighborhood and the open border,” Hudson said. “And so I think step one is: Deliver on our promises.”
Hudson said Trump will be a key messenger for Republicans in the midterms. Hudson was also not concerned about the prospect of clashing with Trump or his allies in upcoming primaries, noting Trump and the NRCC were often aligned on key races.
“He understands the importance of holding the House,” Hudson said.
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