Is a blue wave even possible? A way too early look at the midterm elections
The article provides an early analysis of the upcoming 2026 U.S. midterm elections, focusing on the ancient trends and current political landscape. Traditionally,the president’s party tends to lose House seats during midterms,with rare exceptions in 1998 and 2002. Republicans currently hold narrow majorities in the White House, Senate, and House, making them vulnerable to a potential Democratic “blue wave” that could shift control of Congress.
While Democrats gained significant ground in 2018, recent redistricting and gerrymandering have reduced the number of competitive swing districts, leading to expectations that future majorities will remain small. The article highlights how both parties have exhausted many easily winnable districts in past elections,limiting future gains.
Republicans benefit from holding many districts that strongly supported Trump and face few challenges to their redistricting efforts, providing structural advantages. Democrats, however, rely on high voter turnout among their base, energized by opposition to Trump and his policies, to make gains. Despite some internal GOP conflicts and controversies, the political map suggests that large-scale shifts like those seen in past waves may be unlikely, signaling a future of closely contested but smaller majorities in Congress.
Is a blue wave even possible? A way too early look at the midterm elections
More than 460 days away, next year’s midterm elections are approaching, but Democrats are looking hopefully toward the past.
The president’s party has lost House seats in all but two midterm elections since 1938. The two exceptions were 1998, when Bill Clinton’s party gained five seats amid an unpopular Republican attempt to impeach him, and 2002, when George W. Bush’s party picked up eight seats in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Republicans control the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives. Their congressional majorities are small, especially in the House, where the GOP currently holds 219 seats.
A blue wave could easily wash these majorities away. In the 2018 midterm elections during President Donald Trump’s first term, Democrats gained 40 House seats and a majority that would go on to impeach him. But it wouldn’t take anywhere near that big a loss to cost Republicans their House majority in 2026.
In 2022, Republicans expected a red wave. They ended up with a smaller net gain in House seats than they managed in 2020, when Democrat Joe Biden was elected president. But it was still more than enough for Republicans to take control of the House, however narrowly.
But the 2022 midterm elections are also a cautionary tale for Democrats. Both parties may have picked so much of the low-hanging fruit in past wave elections that the pickup opportunities are now extremely limited.
“I don’t foresee anytime soon here where you have a 30- or 35-seat majority,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told the Washington Examiner last year. “Because of gerrymandering and redistricting, the number of actual swing seats in the country has dwindled to a small number. It is anticipated for the days ahead that whomever is in the majority, it will be a small majority.”
For years, Democrats held seats in dozens of conservative congressional districts. Republicans seized control of these districts in the 1994 Republican wave under Clinton and then in the 2010 Tea Party election under Barack Obama. Democrats similarly vacuumed up the previously Republican-held districts with the most liberal voters in them in 2006 and 2008 under Bush, finishing the job in 2018 under Trump.
Republicans now hold just three seats in congressional districts won by former Vice President Kamala Harris last year. In 2018, Republicans held 25 seats in districts Hillary Clinton had carried two years earlier and would go on to lose 22 of them.
Before the resignation of former Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green, 134 out of 220 seats held by Republicans were in districts Trump won by at least 20 points. Another 45 represent districts Trump carried by between 12.6 and 19.9 points. There are 19 Republican districts that went from Trump by between 7.6 and 12.5 points, and another 19 where Trump won with a margin of victory of 7.5 points or less.
In 2018, Democrats didn’t win a single seat in a district Trump won by 20 or more points. Democrats scored six upsets in districts Trump won by between 7.6 and 19.9 points. However, most of their gains came in Clinton districts or districts that Trump won by 7.5 points or less.
While the map is more challenging for Democrats than it was in Trump’s first term, the Republican majority is small enough that replicating the 2018 results would be good enough to change partisan control of the chamber. So Republicans will need to do two things to defy history: squeeze more pickup opportunities out of redistricting, especially in states such as Texas and Ohio, while doing a much better job of defending the more marginal Trump districts than they did in his first midterm election.
The two biggest advantages Republicans have going into the midterm elections are that they aren’t defending many seats in districts that voted against Trump and that Democrats have few options for countering their redistricting push. The Republican majority is smaller, but much better structured for withstanding a moderately hostile political climate.
Structure matters. Republicans defied the blue wave in 2018 Senate races because they had pickup opportunities in red states. Democrats gained seats in a bad national climate in 2022 because they overperformed in the battleground states, thanks in part to Republicans recruiting lower-quality candidates in those races.
The big advantage Democrats still have, besides the historic trend, is their edge among higher-propensity voters. The Resistance will show up at the polls to register their protests against Trump, even if he isn’t on the ballot himself. Meanwhile, there are Trump supporters who don’t show up when he isn’t on the ballot or consistently vote for down-ballot Republican candidates.
FOR NOW, THE BIG FIGHT IS DEMOCRATIC ANGER VS. TRUMP ACCOMPLISHMENT
If things such as Trump’s rift with Elon Musk, the Jeffrey Epstein files, or his seemingly hawkish turn in foreign policy matter at all in the midterm elections, it will likely be among the low-propensity voters who cast ballots for the GOP in 2024. (Musk was also personally part of the get-out-the-vote operation that turned out these voters.)
Nevertheless, with few true swing districts left, we could wave goodbye to red or blue waves for the foreseeable future.
" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
