The House: 11 Rating Changes in Democratic-Held Seats; Non-Presidential Party Typically Doesn’t Lose Many of Their Own Seats in Midterms

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— Because the presidential party usually loses ground in the House in midterms, it is also the case that they typically flip only a handful of seats from the non-presidential party in such elections.

— Still, Republicans have a decent chance to flip a larger-than-average number of Democratic-held seats in 2026, mainly because of redistricting.

— Beyond seats affected by redistricting, though, history and other factors suggest Republicans will have a hard time significantly cutting into Democratic districts unaffected by redistricting.

— We are moving 11 ratings this week, all in current Democratic-held districts and all in favor of Democrats.

— Democrats remain favored to win the House majority this year, although today’s changes do not impact the overall House math much.

Table 1: House rating changes

Rating changes in Democratic-held seats

Given that the president’s party almost always loses ground in the House in midterms, it stands to reason that, typically, many more seats will flip from the presidential party to the non-presidential party than the other way around in these elections.

That said, the presidential party does usually end up flipping some seats from the non-presidential party in midterms.

Table 2 shows the history over the last 70 years. This is based on data from Vital Statistics on Congress, the excellent Brookings Institution resource. On average, over the last 18 midterms, more than five times the number of presidential party seats have flipped to the non-presidential party as opposed to non-presidential party seats flipping to the presidential party.

Table 2: Presidential vs. non-presidential party seat flips in midterms, 1954-2022

Note: Districts where two incumbents ran against each other because of redistricting are not included in calculations, nor are gains as a result of the creation of new districts.

Source: Calculated by author based on Vital Statistics on Congress, Table 2.5

The only years on this list when the presidential party flipped more seats than the non-presidential party were 1998 and 2002, which were also the only two years from this timeframe when the president’s party netted seats in the midterm. In recent years, all of which were favorable to the non-presidential party to at least some degree, only a few seats flipped to the presidential party.

An extra factor in this year’s midterm, though, is redistricting, which should help Republicans win at least some currently Democratic seats.

In our current ratings, we list seven Democratic districts that Republicans are favored to flip, by varying degrees. Redistricting made nearly all of these districts more Republican. The dramatically redrawn TX-9 and TX-32, for instance, are Safe Republican flips in our ratings.

The others, however, are not quite as sure things. We do list Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D, MO-5) as a Safe Republican flip. However, that assumes that a new Missouri Republican gerrymander actually goes into effect, and that map may be paused by a looming statewide referendum on the map. The district would go all the way back to Safe Democratic if the 2022/2024 map is used in 2026. On Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for the legislature to redraw the map mid-decade, but the referendum could still put the map on hold. Stay tuned.

Democrats have an outside chance to defend a new, Republican-drawn seat in the San Antonio area (Likely Republican TX-35, where no incumbent is running). Additionally, Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D, OH-9) and Don Davis (D, NC-1) were both given new, unfriendly turf in redistricting, leaving them in seats that Trump would have carried by a little more than 10 points apiece in 2024. We have both incumbents rated as slight underdogs, putting their races in the Leans Republican category, but they could still get by on factors like their incumbency, the political environment, and how strong (or weak) their opposition ends up being. The one currently Democratic seat where our ratings favor Republicans despite no changes from redistricting is the open ME-2, where Rep. Jared Golden (D) is retiring. Republicans have a well-known recruit there in former Gov. Paul LePage (R), although Democrats do still have a chance to hold it depending on the quality of their candidate and the political environment (there is a competitive Democratic primary underway). At Trump +9, this was the reddest seat a House Democrat won in 2024. If ME-2 does indeed flip to Republicans this year, it might be reminiscent of the GOP flipping the open MN-1 and MN-8 in 2018 despite an overall Democratic wave—both of those districts, like ME-2, have become GOP-leaning in the Trump era.

In other words, this isn’t going to be a year like 2006, when the president’s party didn’t flip any seats, and the Republicans could very well end up exceeding the average presidential party seat gain since 1954 (a modest five seats), with redistricting being a major reason why. Democrats, meanwhile, are already favored in six Republican-held seats in our ratings, all but one of which—the open NE-2, from which Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring—were made bluer by redistricting, most notably by the new Democratic gerrymander in California. NE-2, at Harris +4.5, was the bluest district won by a House Republican in 2024.

But beyond these aforementioned districts, one would not expect Republicans to cut much further into current Democratic districts, particularly because this is not shaping up to be a year like 1998 or 2002, exceptionally good midterms for the presidential party. Rather, it looks more like a normal midterm, as President Trump’s approval rating is only barely above 40%, with a little bit of recent slippage coinciding with the strikes on Iran and subsequent gas price increases. Democrats generally have had the wind at their backs in elections held so far this cycle, although it’s also fair to note that their roughly 5-point lead in congressional generic ballot polling is not as robust as it was in 2018.

Since we looked above at the challenges for the presidential party in flipping seats defended by the non-presidential party, we’re going to focus on Democratic-held seats in today’s rating changes.

The most significant change comes in a seat where the incumbent was hurt but not crippled by redistricting: Rep. Greg Landsman (D, OH-1).

As part of a redistricting deal between Republicans and Democrats agreed to last year after the state’s 2022-2024 map expired, Landsman’s Cincinnati-based seat was flipped from a district that Kamala Harris had won by about 6 points in 2024 to one that Donald Trump had won by about 2.5. This prompted us to initially list him in the Toss-up column.

Air Force veteran Eric Conroy, dentist Steven Erbeck, businesswoman Holly Adams, and nonprofit founder Rosemary Oglesby-Henry are the Republican candidates in the OH-1 primary, and the eventual GOP nominee may be able to give Landsman a run for his money. But it was striking that, in a district that contains a lot of historically GOP turf, a more clearly proven candidate did not run. While Landsman would have had a much easier path in the older version of his seat—it became more Democratic-leaning in the 2022 redistricting, which gave him a path to unseating long-time incumbent Rep. Steve Chabot (R, OH-1) in what was a redistricting-assisted flip for the presidential party in that year’s midterm—Landsman does probably deserve the benefit of the doubt in our ratings in a year like this. His district moves from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. This rating change has little to do with Landsman’s most notable vote lately, which was joining just three other House Democrats to vote against a war powers resolution in response to the military strikes in Iran ordered by the president. Landsman does have a primary challenger, Damon Lynch IV, running to his left. We’ll see if there is any substantial protest vote against him, although that alone wouldn’t necessarily signify general election trouble.

Additionally, as of last week, we have both Ohio’s Senate and gubernatorial races rated as Leans Republican. Assuming both statewide Democratic nominees keep their contests relatively close, they would most likely carry OH-1, which could have downballot ramifications. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is running again this November, carried OH-1 by 2 points in 2024 while losing statewide by 3.5 points.

The other changes upgrade Democrats who were already favored to some degree in our ratings.

While Landsman was hurt by the Ohio remap, Rep. Emilia Sykes (D, OH-13) was aided by it, as her Akron-based district went from what amounted to a tie between Harris and Trump to a Harris +3 district—still clearly competitive but also now more of a Democratic-leaning district, particularly this year. Her 2024 opponent, Kevin Coughlin (R), dropped out following the remap, leaving a less proven field of candidates competing for the Republican nomination. Following the move in the redder OH-1, it makes sense to move OH-13 from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic.

Making the same move is MN-2, an open Harris +6 district that Rep. Angie Craig (D) is leaving behind in her bid for Senate. While Democrats have a multi-candidate primary field, this just doesn’t seem like a plausible Republican target in the context of this year.

Finally, several Likely Democratic incumbents move to Safe Democratic: Reps. Eric Sorensen (D, IL-17), April McClain Delaney (D, MD-6), Josh Gottheimer (D, NJ-5), John Mannion (D, NY-22), Pat Ryan (D, NY-18), Val Hoyle (D, OR-4), Andrea Salinas (D, OR-6), and Chris Deluzio (D, PA-17). In MD-6, McClain Delaney is facing a credible primary challenge from her well-heeled predecessor, unsuccessful 2024 Senate candidate David Trone (D), but whoever wins the district should also be fine in the general election.

These moves don’t change the House bottom line that much, but OH-1 moving out of the Toss-up column now means that 213 House seats are rated as Safe, Likely, or Leans Democratic and 208 are rated Safe, Likely, or Leans Republican, with 14 Toss-ups.

Redistricting can and will further impact these ratings moving forward—the changes so far have generally been a wash in terms of our ratings, but the story of 2025-2026 redistricting is not over (and we’ll need the actual November results to truly know the impact). We mentioned Missouri as a question mark above. If voters approve Virginia’s proposed Democratic gerrymander, Democrats would become favored to varying degrees in four currently Republican-held districts. However, keep in mind that, aside from the up-or-down vote on April 21, the map also has to survive scrutiny from the state Supreme Court—redistricting opponents are arguing that Virginia Democrats didn’t follow the proper process when pursuing their remap. So the ultimate outcome in Virginia is still up in the air. A new possible Republican gerrymander of Florida could improve GOP odds in several currently Democratic-held districts, but there is a good deal of uncertainty about what will actually happen. In Tuesday night’s special elections, Democrats flipped a pair of Trump-won state legislative seats in Florida—perhaps results such as these will have some bearing on how far Florida Republicans will want to go on a remap. We’re generally holding off on making rating changes based on the existing maps in Florida and Virginia for the moment, given current redistricting uncertainty.

Finally, we continue to await what could be a very impactful U.S. Supreme Court decision on the fate of majority-minority districts. But the longer we wait—another decision announcement day came and went yesterday without the decision being released—the less likely it is that the decision has a big impact on 2026, whatever the ruling ultimately says. But this is still a wild card for 2026.

Democrats remain favored to flip the majority in November, which has been our assessment of the race for the House since we released our initial ratings nearly a year ago.

Kyle Kondik is a Political Analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and the Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball.

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Views expressed in this column are those of the author, not those of Rasmussen Reports. Comments about this content should be directed to the author or syndicate.