🔵 🔴 The Key House Seats in 2026

First of a three-part series breaking down the U.S. House situation and which seats look likeliest to decide the majority in November

Will blue eclipse red in the U.S. House of Representatives?

🍺 What’s on tap 🚰

Today’s newsletter features:

Opening Bell: Must-read items about elections and politics.

The Frontrunner: An initial look at the U.S. House map in 2026.

Blake Burman on Prediction Markets: Blake Burman, Chief Washington Correspondent for NewsNation, runs a Substack where he tracks political prediction markets. This week, he looks at tariff refunds, State of the Union guests, and…aliens!

Around the Corner: Upcoming elections we’re tracking at DDHQ.

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🔔 Opening Bell 🐏

Must-read items about elections and politics.

• Under-fire Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem could be looking for an offramp: a run for office in her home state. The Atlantic reported last week that Noem might mount a primary challenge against Sen. Mike Rounds, a fellow Republican, in South Dakota’s 2026 Senate race. She could also run for the state’s open at-large House seat, which she previously held from 2011 to 2019.

• Wisconsin state House speaker Robin Vos announced he would not seek reelection in 2026. Wisconsin’s longest-serving speaker, Vos played an influential role in passing many conservative measures, particularly during Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure from 2011 to 2019. But he came into conflict with President Donald Trump over certification of the state’s 2020 election results. Trump endorsed Vos’s primary opponent in 2022, and Vos only narrowly won renomination.

• Redistricting nuggets:

  • A New York state appeals court refused to block a ruling ordering the state’s redistricting commission to redraw New York’s 11th District, a solidly red Staten Island-based seat held by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in, Malliotakis is likely to find herself running in a far more competitive seat this year.

  • Utah’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Republican-led legislature to overturn a new congressional map drawn by a state district court — lines that are all but certain to move one GOP-held seat into Democratic hands. The last hope for Utah Republicans is a federal lawsuit. However, that case rests on the “independent state legislature theory,” which the U.S. Supreme Court mostly rejected in a 2023 decision regarding redistricting in North Carolina.

  • Virginia Democrats’ redistricting effort hit a snag when a state circuit court judge ordered state officials to halt preparation for the state’s April 21 redistricting referendum. Among the arguments offered by the GOP plaintiffs was a claim that the ballot question’s wording is misleading and designed to favor a pro-redistricting outcome. The decision will likely be appealed and end up in front of the state Supreme Court.

  • Want more redistricting? Last week, the Decision Desk HQ Podcast did a redistricting refresher with Nathaniel Rakich from Votebeat. We dug into some of the latest developments in the national clash over congressional lines.

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📈 The Frontrunner 🥇

A first look at the House playing field

Quick summary:

• The main U.S. House seats to watch are 25 Republican-held and 20 Democratic-controlled districts. The good news for the GOP is that only four of their 25 seats voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Still, the 2026 electoral environment looks like it will be at least somewhat blue-leaning, which could be enough for Democrats to win back the House.

• Editor’s note: This is Part One of a three-part series. Check out Part Two and Part Three for a deeper dive into the 2026 House picture.

The 2026 midterm elections are about eight months away. A lot can and will happen in that time. More states might redistrict; attitudes about President Donald Trump’s job performance and the GOP-controlled federal government could shift; and the parties will pick their nominees in key races in which a stronger or weaker contender could affect the margins just enough to matter to the outcome.

Despite that timeline, we already have a decent idea about which congressional districts will most likely determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans hold a razor-thin 220-215 majority, if we include the three (relatively) uncompetitive vacant seats with the party that held them previously. That means Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to gain control. The mid-decade redistricting clash has scrambled the seat-by-seat math to some extent, but it’s clear that a group of around 45 competitive seats will probably decide control of the House in 2026.

Here then is a first look at the state of the House playing field. I will refresh this analysis multiple times between now and November. The numbers could and almost certainly will change some as we get new information. And the second and third parts of this series will focus on the most vulnerable Republican- and Democratic-held seats. Still, many aspects of this analysis will remain relevant even eight months from now. Using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative measures, including district-level electoral data, race ratings by election handicappers, and party target lists, I have broken down the House into some broad categories. Let’s take a look.

The marquee contests

At this point, the 2026 electoral environment looks like it will be at least somewhat Democratic-leaning. After all, the president’s party usually loses ground in the House in midterms, and voters’ attitudes toward Trump do not look likely to ameliorate that presidential penalty. As of Sunday, the president’s approval rating was just shy of 43% in Decision Desk HQ’s average, a position historically associated with roughly a 30-seat loss.

All in all, Democrats appear fairly likely to win the House. They have held a consistent (but not large) lead in the generic ballot, a measure that tends to trend in the direction of the party out of power as the election nears. And prediction markets give Democrats slightly better than a 4 in 5 chance of taking control. None of this means Democrats are on track to win a large majority. But they are favored to claim more seats.

Knowing this information, we can begin to sort the House’s 435 seats into broad categories of competitiveness. Here are my groupings and the number of districts that fall into each one.

The core seats of interest are 25 Republican-held and 20 Democratic-controlled districts that we describe as most clearly “in play.” Suffice it to say, if Democrats win around half of these GOP-held seats and hold onto most of their seats, they will win a narrow majority. Still, if Republicans make inroads into some of the key Democratic-held seats and hold onto many of their own, they might just barely lose control of the chamber — or even find a path to keep it.

The good news for Republicans is that only four of their 25 seats voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Fact is, Democrats have only a few Republicans to target in competitive seats that Harris carried. That’s a very different reality from the 2018 midterms, when the Democrats could pursue a large number of light-blue or purple seats held by Republicans that had moved toward Democrats in the 2016 presidential election.

Still, 17 of these seats voted for Harris or backed Trump by 5.5 percentage points or fewer. That figure is a back-of-the-envelope threshold that points to the potential vulnerability of these seats. Trump led the national popular vote by about 1.5 points in 2024, but Democrats have slightly better than a 4-point edge in our generic ballot polling average — all told, that would amount to about a 5.5-point swing to the left from 2024.

We will go into more detail about these seats in the next part of this series, but here are a couple of potential wrinkles to monitor. First, redistricting could change district lines in Virginia, home to two seats on this list. Should Democrats convince voters to support an April 21 referendum temporarily allowing the legislature to redistrict, the Democrats’ proposed map would likely leave Rep. Rob Wittman with no good options for his reelection bid. An amended version of the map would also make Rep. Jen Kiggans’ seat somewhat bluer, hurting her chances.

Additionally, Republicans could have more trouble defending Colorado’s 3rd District thanks to a recent Trump intervention. On Saturday, Trump withdrew his endorsement of Rep. Jeff Hurd after Hurd backed a resolution disapproving of Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to raise tariffs on Canada. Trump endorsed Hurd’s primary opponent, former state party vice chair Hope Scheppelman. Although Trump carried this seat by nearly 10 points in 2024, it almost flipped to the Democrats in 2022. In that race, controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert barely won reelection; she ran in the far-redder 4th District in 2024 and Hurd won the open 3rd by about 5 points. Should Hurd lose renomination, Scheppelman might prove to be a weaker general election candidate.

Democrats do have 20 vulnerable districts to defend, some of which could prove especially tough to retain thanks to redistricting and retirements. Trump carried 12 of these districts in 2024, five by more than that 5.5-point threshold mentioned above. New Republican-drawn maps in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas made four Trump-won seats redder, with each having a margin of at least Trump +10. And the retirement of Rep. Jared Golden opened up a Trump +9 seat in Maine, which the GOP could very well flip in November.

Reflecting the blue-tinged electoral environment, ratings outlets mostly view the other seats in this category as leaning toward the Democrats. Still, circumstances in some of these districts could change in ways that might more clearly open the door to a GOP flip. For instance, in New York’s 4th District on Long Island, Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen recently attracted a primary challenge on her left from former state Assemblymember Taylor Darling, who is attacking Gillen for voting in January to increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security. A more left-leaning candidate could have trouble in this swingy seat, especially against the GOP’s potential candidate, former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (whom Gillen defeated in 2024).

The rest of the map

Beyond these core districts of interest, 18 other GOP-held seats are more peripheral targets for the Democrats. In other words, these are not the seats that will decide the majority, but if Democrats were to flip some of them, that would indicate a potential blue-wave type of election.

All of these are seats that Democrats are definitely pursuing, even if it might take a sizable swing for the party to flip any of them. In some cases, the GOP incumbent might have a history of underperforming the district’s lean (e.g. Eli Crane in Arizona’s 2nd) or have scandals that could endanger the seat (like Cory Mills in Florida’s 7th and Andy Ogles in Tennessee’s 5th). Other seats could be vulnerable if Latino voters swing back toward Democrats after Trump’s big gains in 2024 (Florida’s 27th, Texas’s 15th and 35th). Some are seats that might shift more if the turnout and Democratic swing among college-educated voters are especially high (Missouri’s 2nd, where close to half the population has at least a bachelor’s degree).

Redistricting uncertainty continues to hang over some races, so the analysis places a group of eight seats in limbo. Two are Republican-held seats in Virginia that could be endangered if Democrats manage to implement their proposed gerrymander. Another five are Democratic-held seats in Florida, where the GOP-led legislature may redistrict in an April special session. It remains to be seen how aggressive Sunshine State Republicans might be, but a 25-3 GOP map that nets them five seats seems like a safe upper bound. Lastly, a series of state court decisions in New York could lead to a redraw of the state’s solidly red 11th District, making it a highly competitive seat.

Lastly, 364 seats — more than 4 in 5 in the chamber — appear very likely to vote for one party or the other. Of those, 190 fall into the Democratic column. Those seats are either solidly blue seats or districts that are unlikely to be competitive in a blue-leaning midterm year. Plus, four of the seats in this group — three in California and one in Utah — are likely to flip to the Democrats thanks to redistricting. Conversely, 174 seats are sufficiently red to likely fall into the Republican basket. Of those, two are redistricted seats in Texas that are all but certain to flip to the GOP.

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We will publish a more in-depth look at the key Republican-held seats in Part Two of this series. However, we first plan to preview the March 3 primaries in our next newsletter, so look out later in March for our next piece on the House playing field.

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🟢 No Red Or Blue, Just Green 📗

Blake Burman on prediction markets:

💸 Show Me the Money?

One of the first things I said on air Friday after the Supreme Court’s ruling was to remind people that tariffs aren’t going away. Back in 2018 and 2019 during the “Trade War” between the U.S. and China, the main tariffs being used then involved what are known as Section 232 and 301. Well, they are still in play, and President Trump reminded Americans (and the world) of that once he hit the podium, adding as well he has other tools at his disposal to continue his tariffs policy.

Key Democratic leaders immediately began laying out their own argument: refund the money to Americans now.

Courtesy: Kalshi

That prediction market shows the belief right now in a court order potentially by this summer, with a roughly 8-in-10 shot by the end of the year. Of course, a court order and an actual refund of some kind are two totally different things.

As you might remember, President Trump last year also talked up the idea of a “tariff dividend” for this year. He was saying one of the benefits, as he saw it, of tariffs is that he would be able to send payments out to Americans.

Courtesy: Kalshi

Prediction markets are now bearish on that happening at all, as its down to a 21% chance of happening this year. At its height, markets had that priced in at a 68% chance of happening.

Here’s the fascinating political dynamic: President Trump had been laying out the case to return money to the people. Well, now you have Democrats saying the same thing, except for different reasons. California Governor, and likely 2028 Democratic presidential frontrunner, Gavin Newsom is calling for tariff refunds to be paid back… with interest.

Talk about a role reversal.

You can read the rest of Blake’s post on his Substack!

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📆 Around the Corner 📌

Notable upcoming elections:

• March 10, 2026

  • GA-14 Special Election (runoff possible)

• April 7, 2026

  • Wisconsin Supreme Court General Election

  • GA-14 Special Election Runoff (if necessary)

• April 16, 2026

  • NJ-11 Special Election

Check out our 2026 Primary Primer for more information about the regular primaries happening in 2026!