Elections Forecaster Says Both Parties’ Midterms Prospects a Mixed Medley

BOSTON—President Donald Trump’s 2024 electoral victory was buoyed by a surge in support from independents, Latinos, and “sporadic voters”—especially young men—casting their ballots to return him to the White House with Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

For the GOP to retain the Congressional advantages needed to shepherd Trump’s agenda from aspiration to action, those are the voters that Republicans must continue to court, The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter publisher and editor-in-chief Amy Walter maintains.

“It’s really about who turns out,” Walter said during an Aug. 5 presentation at the National Conference of State Legislatures’ 2025 Legislative Summit in Boston’s Thomas Michael Menino Convention & Exhibition Center where 9,000 attendees, including more than 4,000 state lawmakers, are discussing policy and practices.

And while midterm primaries don’t begin until March 3—starting with Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas, and the Nov. 3, 2026 general election itself still 454 days away as of Aug. 5—Walter said there are early indications this coalition may not be as robust next year as it was last year.

That would not be unusual, she said, noting only twice since 1950—1998 and 2002—has the sitting president’s party gained House seats in the midterm elections cycle. During the 2018 midterms in Trump’s first term, the GOP lost 40 House seats, losing the chamber to Democrats, while gaining two in the Senate.

“While Trump has proven he can defy the laws of political gravity, midterms tend to be driven by gravity,” Walter said.

Entering the midterm cycle, Republicans have a precarious 220-213 House majority. “Switch 6,000 votes nationally [in key districts] and the House is in Democrats hands,” she said.

The GOP’s 53-45 Senate advantage appears secure with an electoral “map decidedly more favorable to Republicans,” Walter said. “Most of the seats on 2026 ballots [are] in solidly Republican states.”

She said potential Senate race wildcards are Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), seeking reelection as the only GOP senator on the 2026 ballot in a state that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in 2024, and the race for the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Thom Tills (R-N.C.) in “perennially purple North Carolina.”

The real 2026 battle will be for the House despite an ever-winnowing playing field of competitive districts, even if “the [congressional district] map remains as it is,” with Republican legislatures in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Florida seeking “mid-decade redistricting” that would cement their advantages.

Of the chamber’s 435 midterm elections, only about 60 are regarded as competitive by The Cook Political Report and other district/elections rating services, such as Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

“There are few incumbents representing districts that are different from their party,” Walter said, referring to the three Democrats elected in districts that Trump won and 13 Republicans elected in districts that Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.

“When I started covering politics in the ’90s, there were 60-70, maybe even more, ‘crossover districts,’” she said. “So it is a very, very narrow playing field and [chamber majorities] will be decided by a very small number of seats.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified 35 Republican-held congressional districts it considers “in play,” while the National Republican Congressional Committee has a “target list” of 26 “vulnerable” incumbent Democrats that it believes GOP challengers can unseat.

Good News, Bad News, For All

Walter said there is good news and bad news across a range of indicators for both parties when assessing their 2026 prospects, although, as always, how voters feel about the sitting president will be a defining factor.

While varying polls have Trump “five to nine points underwater” with voters after his first six months in office, she said “the good news is, that is a lot better than where he sat in 2017,” when he was 15-to-18 points underwater in the polls.

“The reason why he is more popular is because the Republican Party is more cohesive, more aligned under Donald Trump than at this point in his first term,” Walter said.

However, she said, Trump is not faring well with independents, a rapidly growing constituency nationwide and the majority electorate in key states such as Nevada.

“Independents feel more negative about the president now by about 30 points” than they did in the 2024 election, Walter said. “It is not a great place to be going into the election.”

Of course, the president isn’t the only one suffering in the polls.

“Nobody likes Democrats. Even Democrats don’t like Democrats,” Walter said. “In the history of our polling, we have never seen people feel so negatively about Democrats—driven by the fact that the Democrats don’t like themselves.”

Yet, she said, a recent Wall Street Journal survey that asked likely voters if they would vote for a generic Democrat or a generic Republican in 2026 House races, “despite having the lowest favorable ratings since the late 1990s, Democrats were favored on the generic ballot by 3 points.”

The most common response was, “I really don’t like the choices,” Walter said.

Turnout is always key, even more so in off-presidential election year races, she said, and ultimately, how the economy fares between now and November 2026 will be the deciding factor in who turns out to vote.

In 2024, Walter said, a significant component of Trump voters were people who “don’t traditionally show up to vote … or are more sporadic voters who don’t show up consistently.”

She cited a Pew Research Center poll that showed that, of people who “sat out” the 2020 election but cast ballots in 2024, Trump won that “sporadic” constituency by more than 12 percentage points.

Of those that did vote for Trump in 2020, 87 percent voted for him again in 2024, while only 77 percent of those who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 “came out to vote for Harris in 2024,” Walter said.

Trump also garnered significantly more support from Latino voters, Walter said, noting 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won the Latino vote by 39 percent, Biden won it by 25 percent in 2020, Democratic midterm candidates won it by 21 percent in 2022, but in 2024, only 3 more percent of Latinos cast ballots for Harris than for Trump.

It is a critical trend considering that more than a quarter of the 60-or-so 2026 House races considered competitive have more than 39 percent Latino populations, she said.

The shift of Latino voters away from the Democratic party “has been a pretty consistent trend—it is not just a one-off,” Walter said. But that doesn’t mean many of these voters are committed Republicans. “More Latinos are identifying as independent” than enrolling in either party.

Trump also benefited by boosts in under-30 voters casting ballots for him and other Republicans in 2024, she said—especially young men.

How Republicans fare in the 2026 midterms will largely depend on whether independents, Latinos, and young men show up in 2026.

Meanwhile, Democrats believe they have a base geared for winning midterms, special elections, and other non-presidential year contests, Walter said.

“Democrats are more reliant on folks who show up election-after-election,” she said, referring to them as “super voters.”

“They tend to be older, less diverse, whiter, higher educated,” Walter said, and that they are a cadre that traditionally voted Republican but now vote Democrat.

“This is why Democrats do better in lower turnout elections—special elections, midterms—because their voters are more consistent,” she said.

Will the coalition of voters who elected Trump in 2024 show up for congressional Republicans in 2026?

There are indications that not enough will, Walter said, referring to a Cook Political Report survey that asked voters, “How motivated are you to vote” in 2026?

Among those who voted for Harris, 86 percent said they were motivated, while among those who voted for Trump, only 67 percent said they were motivated, she said.

Of course, Walter said, with the midterms still 15 months away, many things can change. The economy is always a top issue but sometimes, other pressing matters become chief concerns for voters.

“The last three elections, something crazy has happened that nobody expected in the middle of the campaign—COVID 2020, the Dobbs’ decision in 2022, Biden dropping out in 2024,” she said. “I’m expecting anything to happen—anything.”