Despite Donald Trump’s best efforts, including extensive redistricting in red states, it’s looking like the Democrats have a very strong chance of recapturing at least one house of Congress in the midterm elections this November.
As noted by New York magazine, the Democrats have a big advantage in multiple measures of the generic ballot.
“With the midterm elections less than six months away, Democrats are beginning to open up a significant lead in the generic congressional polling that measures voting intentions in U.S. House elections,” the article said.
“Looking at Democrats’ polling over the second Trump term, they’ve hit new highs for in the generic ballot margin at both RCP (7.2 percent advantage) and Silver Bulletin (6.6 percent advantage),” the magazine said.
In the new NYT/Siena poll, Trump’s net approval is -22 and Democrats have a 10-point advantage on the generic ballot.
This is why the GOP victory laps of the last two weeks have been premature. You cannot redistrict your way out of that environment.https://t.co/BD4OZcMFFI
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) May 18, 2026
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“By way of context, Republicans won the 2024 national House popular vote by 2.6 percent and the 2022 national House popular vote by 2.7 percent. In both elections, that translated to a very small margin of control in the House (five seats in 2024 and seven in 2022). In the first-term Trump midterms in 2018, Democrats won the national House popular vote by 8.6 percent, winning control of the House by a margin of 35 seats.”
Will this be enough for the Democrats to overcome the aggressive gerrymandering in several Republican states? One expert says yes.
“Most crucially, Democrats’ polling lead in House races now looks likely to outweigh the advantages Republicans achieved via gerrymandering over the last year,” the magazines aid. “G. Elliott Morris recently estimated that due to GOP redistricting efforts, Democrats might need to win the national House popular vote by as much as 4 percent to flip control of the chamber. They’re running ahead of that benchmark at present.”
In addition, Democrats are more motivated to vote than Republicans. And Trump’s coattails have traditionally not extended to years when he’s not personally on the ballot- and he’s never going to be on the ballot again.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
