Paving the Pathways to 218

A top-down look at the 23 decisive seats and where I have them ordered for a majority

Four weeks ago, I recapped my 203 to 187 Republican advantage over 390 “safe” seats, and put my assessment on the 22 seats I call leaners.

I am weighing a couple shifts between safe/leaner categories, but my combined assessment would still come out to 209 to 203 favoring the Republican Party before sorting decisive seats. Again, for the ratings system:

Safe: Seat unlikely to be competitive, normally with margins greater than 10 points in 2024.

Leaner: Competitive seat in which various fundamentals (such as a GOP-president midterm instead of a Democrat-president midterm) suggest the likely winner, although an upset could change things.

Decisive: In most cases, tight margins expected. Seats expected to align with the majority winner arranged near the tipping point. In other cases, seats like AK-AL (Alaska At-Large) are part of a decisive GOP hand, but not necessarily a decisive Democrat hand.

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Seat Rankings

I have divided the remaining 23 seats, all decisive, into three camps. They are evaluated from a Republican lens, and are ranked as bullish, neutral, or bearish:

Bullish - Seats I evaluate to have a strong chance of going Republican in November based on incumbency, previous margin, candidate quality, voter registration/trend, and quality of election laws.

Neutral - Somewhere in between bullish and bearish, with outcomes largely uncertain.

Bearish - Seats I think are likely to be lost, particularly given 2026’s positioning as a GOP-president midterm. These seats, in most cases, have terrible election laws or have found their Republicans barely holding on in much better electoral climates.

Author’s Note: The following sections do not contain final predictions. Seat colors reflect the current incumbent party, and should not be interpreted as a predicted winner.

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Bearish Seats

The good news: 5 of 7 Republican-held seats in the bearish category have an incumbent.

The bad news: With the exception of Nebraska, these states have some of the worst elections anywhere in America. Ballots will be counted in California and Washington for weeks - even into December.

CA-22: David Valadao is an incumbent Republican looking to hold on in a newly redrawn district in central California. Democrats took 59.3% of the primary vote. This is a very unlikely GOP hold and could arguably be listed as a Democrat leaner.

CA-48: Jim Desmond is the newly selected GOP nominee for this redrawn seat in Southern California. This will likely be the most competitive seat in California, and Democrats took 54.9% of the primary vote combined.

CO-8: Gabe Evans is seeking a second term as GOP incumbent. He upset his Democrat opponent in 2024 on the back of a massive Trump surge with Latinos in this district that spans three counties north of Denver. Colorado is a Universal Mail-In Voting state and a very slight shift back to the left, in line with voter registration, will flip this seat.

NE-2: Brinker Harding is replacing long-time GOP incumbent Don Bacon in a district Bacon barely held, even in good years. I am getting KS-3 vibes here in an increasingly slippery urban area that was redrawn recently, but not enough.

PA-7: First-term GOP incumbent Ryan Mackenzie defends against Bob Brooks. Mackenzie knocked out an incumbent by 1.0% in 2024 alongside a Trump statewide win. A Josh Shapiro imminent reelection blowout on the back of a serious mail collection campaign is a serious threat to this seat.

PA-10: Scott Perry ranks as one of the most endangered GOP reps in the country. Somehow he managed to nearly squander a comfortable 2022 victory and win his seat by just 1.2% in 2024, alongside Trump’s statewide win (how?). This is an area that has been shifting left by registration, so it seems like a long shot to me and the most likely Democrat flip in the Keystone State.

VA-2: GOP incumbent Jen Kiggans takes on Elaine Luria in a rematch. A flip of the coin from where I stand, perhaps with a little tailwind thanks to the redistricting referendum pissing everyone off. I don’t like the trend of Virginia Beach or the election laws.

WA-3: Polling looks bad for Democrat incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez because she’s not far enough to the left, but if you know Washington State, you’re taking any good GOP polls with a grain of salt. She has a tough GOP opponent in Senate Minority Leader John Braun, but has the mail-in ballot collection apparatus that kept Joe Kent at bay working for her in a Democrat-favorable year.

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Neutral Seats