Midterm elections in the United States House of Representatives have been very predictable for almost a century. I have been sounding the alarm long before the right-wing doom squads on social media soured on the Trump administration. Since 1934, the president’s party has lost seats in the House in 20 of 23 midterm elections, with an average loss of 27 seats.
Roughly one in eight midterms sees the president’s party gain seats. This hasn’t happened since 2002, but this year’s midterm affords Republicans a far greater chance to hold the majority than a standard cycle because of the massive redistricting efforts undertaken by many states that have pulled about 90% of seats completely out of competitiveness. Even Ronald Reagan’s GOP lost the 1986 midterms when the President enjoyed a 63% approval rating. History tends to do what history does.
Polymarket bettors follow the historical pattern and heavily favor Democrats (albeit by too much given the state of the map):
As I wrote in my estimate for the Senate:
I’m here to give you what I believe is a balanced view free of polling noise and narrative propaganda.
ENTRY POINT
The House is the more volatile chamber of Congress. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who is fighting for her political life in IA-1, won her seat by 6 votes in 2020 - out of roughly 400,000 cast. There will be races this year that are decided by potentially hundreds (if not fewer) of votes. For this reason, my running scale of House estimates is more turbulent than my Senate estimates (which more closely resemble the presidential disposition of an entire state rather than a district voting on local issues).
The map below, where marked for a party, does not mean a seat is 100% safe and out of range for an upset. This is just a starting point for which seats I consider highly likely to align with Democrats or Republicans:
201 Democrat, 198 Republican
Remember, these solid reds and blues do not all align with a predicted margin. They simply create the initial boundaries for the overall assessment. They include some seats on the periphery of being flippable in a wave environment, such as AZ-2 (Eli Crane, Republican), MI-4 (Bill Huizenga, Republican), and KY-6 (open).
While I would not consider 201 seats the floor for Democrats, who as the out-party have the tailwind in competitive seats, I would say 198 seats is the absolute bottom of the barrel for the Republican Party. This is not my prediction, but it should help you understand that I view the insane betting market projections showing Democrats over 240 seats as implausible, if not fundamentally impossible. This is because of the strength of redistricting done by both parties. Obama took office in 2009 with 257 Democrats in the House; Trump took office in 2017 with 241 Republicans in the House. Those days are long gone, because parties are fighting for small majorities until at least the next reapportionment.
LEANERS
207 Republican, 204 Democrat