I recently read an article by Kyle Kondik for UVA’s Center for Politics about the upcoming 2026 elections. The article is titled “The House: A Big Sort Lowers the Odds of a Big Wave.” The article examines the possibility of a “wave” election, and ultimately argues that the conditions are not as good as they once were. Kondik cites three conditions, but the defining one is that districts are more “sorted” than they once were. In other words, there are far fewer “crossover districts” (that is, districts that voted one party for president and another party for the House) than there were in, say, 2010.
Now, I can’t go further without emphasizing how much I respect Kondik. He is one of the most experienced and serious psephologists there is. Furthermore, the article itself is backed by hard data. And he’s absolutely right, the House is more sorted. But I don’t think that puts a bottleneck on the possibility of a blue wave.
The Conditions
In my most recent article, I wrote about Republicans’ latest reconciliation bill. Since I wrote that, Elon Musk has come out against it, sparking an incendiary feud. Now, the bill’s passage doesn’t look so certain. Even if it does pass, it will probably have to change drastically. Reducing the deficit burden will likely result in even further cuts to Medicaid and other programs, likely making the bill even more unpopular.
The bill failing would probably be a gift for them, since Americans won’t have to suffer the deep cuts envisioned. But 2018 proved that a bill failing to pass doesn’t preclude the opposition attacking it. Notably, Democrats railed against Republicans’ plans to complicate health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions in their failed healthcare bill, and it arguably worked.
But will this legislation bring down Republicans in 2026? If it doesn’t, other legislation or executive action likely will. Midterm blues are common; the president’s party almost always suffers in a midterm, but the extent is unpredictable. Ariel Edwards-Levy of CNN said it best: public opinion is microwaveable. So Republicans will most likely lose, but where and how much is unknown.
Case in point: Trump’s approval rating seems a lot more bouncy than it did in his first term. It remained steady at around -15 in most of the first term, but in the last few months alone it has gone down and up again. At the moment it’s at around -5, which isn’t terrible, but he still has room to fall. If the United States enters a recession, it will be difficult for Trump to evade responsibility, especially if trade tensions heat up again.
But probably the most damning sign of an oncoming wave is Democrats’ performance in special elections. Democrats are outperforming the 2024 baseline by double digits, albeit focused in some states more than others, and overperformances of over 20 points are not uncommon. They have already flipped two deep red state legislative seats so far, one in Iowa, one in Pennsylvania.
And this performance is not slowing down. At the beginning of June, Democrats held onto a Harris+5, rural, majority black district in South Carolina by a staggering 41 percent. This shows that Trump’s gains among African Americans may be reversing. An even higher overperformance was seen a week later in Oklahoma, where a Democrat won by 69 percent in a district Harris won by just 19. This is a high even for Oklahoma, which has a track record of giving Democrats strong overperformances in special elections.
Perhaps most notable were the congressional special elections to Florida’s first and sixth districts. Republicans won both, but they swung by 22 and 16 percent, respectively, to Democrats relative to the 2024 presidential election. If the same swing were applied nationwide, Democrats would win two thirds of seats in the House.
The Field
The map is far-fetched, of course. But if Democrats put some effort into targeting all of them, they could feasibly aim for a ceiling of 260 seats or more. The last time they won as many as this was in 1982. It would be a wave, by any definition. But let’s not pretend that’s the most likely outcome.
A wave is often measured by the number of seats gained, rather than the raw number of seats. This makes sense from the standpoint of incumbency, but is problematic by every other metric. For one thing, it depends heavily on when the seats were last up. For example, 2010 was considered a shellacking for Democrats partly because they won so big in 2008. If they hadn’t won almost 60 percent of seats in 2008, they wouldn’t have had so much room to fall in 2010.
Democrats don’t have as much to gain in 2026 because they already have a decent number of seats. They hold 215 districts, including 13 that Donald Trump won in 2024. As Kondik points out, this is hardly a bad thing for Democrats. Incumbency matters, and it will help them defend seats that would otherwise be vulnerable.
Now let’s take a less extreme scenario and say that Democrats win every seat that Harris won, or Trump won by single digits. This amounts to a 10 percent swing, or a 2018-like Democrat+8.3 environment.
Democrats gain 30 seats in this scenario, less than the 40 they gained in 2018. But they would also have 10 seats more than they did after 2018. It looks less impressive, but it’s objectively a better outcome.
But what about the “sorting” argument? It’s valid to point to an election like 2010, where Democrats were defending 48 districts won by John McCain. Yes, the three Harris districts that Republicans are defending are laughable by comparison, but it’s not exactly accurate to say that these McCain districts were the drivers of the 2010 wave. Many of these 48 put up a fight. In fact, a dozen of them, including deep-red district members like Mike Ross, Dan Boren and Jim Matheson ended up surviving the wave.
The high degree of ticket splitting didn’t increase the number of seats Republicans could flip in 2010, it just increased the spread. They ranged from McCain+36 to Obama+15. With reduced ticket splitting, you’d probably see far fewer double digit seats, and a lot more single digit seats.
In other words, sorting bodes well for the Lauren Boeberts, but not as well for the Rob Wittmans. Boebert represents a Trump+18.2 seat, which will probably protect her from a very likely large underperformance. But Wittman, who has represented his seat for 20 years, represents a seat which is only Trump+4.9, and his personal brand might not be able to protect him against a strong Democratic environment.
Forecasting 2026
As of now, Elections Daily doesn’t have any race ratings for 2026. We can look at other prognosticators, but most show ratings that look very similar to 2024. A problem with conventional ratings is that they often start off assuming a neutral environment. For example, I was looking at the initial Crystal Ball ratings for 2018, which had several races which Democrats eventually won as Safe Republican, and several others, including Minnesota’s 3rd district, which incumbent Erik Paulsen lost by double digits, as Likely Republican.
This method isn’t without its benefits. It tampers expectations and doesn’t take a wave as a given, as it were. It also allows prognosticators to change ratings gradually as time goes by. This proved a good strategy for the Crystal Ball, which ended up having fantastic election day ratings in 2018.
But although it’s good for optics, it’s not a foolproof strategy. A neutral midterm is about as likely as a midterm which favors the “out” party by double digits. And with the warning signs for Republicans this time around, I’d put my money on the latter. I think the House is very likely to flip, and it’s not unlikely at all that Democrats might get more seats than they did in 2018.
Starting at a different point doesn’t change how volatile the election cycle will be, however. We are doubtless going to have numerous retirements, scandals, strong recruits or primary challenges, and each will impact individual races. We will be doing our best to cover these developments as they come, so follow along for more.
