Democrats are still in the driver’s seat toward winning back control of the House, despite suffering a major blow in Virginia on Friday and at least three GOP-controlled Southern states scrambling to redraw their midterm maps.
The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the results of the state’s redistricting referendum from last month invalidated a new congressional map that Democrats viewed as key to countering Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts.
Party members are wrestling with the path forward to revive the map, which would likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in Virginia’s congressional delegation compared to the current 6-5 edge. But the prospects for success seem dim.
Still, Democrats remain the favorites win the lower chamber in the midterms.
Democrats have led in the generic congressional ballot for months, and their lead has gotten somewhat more comfortable recently. They currently lead Republicans in the Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) polling average by more than 5 points, a slight drop from the 6-point lead they had a week ago.
An analysis from The New York Times found Democrats would need to win the popular vote by at least 2.5 points in November to win a House majority. If the southern states of Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina go forward with redrawing their congressional lines to eliminate Democratic-held seats, that would increase to 3.9 points.
The median district likely to determine the House majority is currently rated a toss-up in Cook Political Report’s breakdown of the contests.
Cook favors Democrats to win 208 seats and Republicans to take 209 seats, while 18 seats are rated toss-ups.
But Republicans are defending more seats considered toss-ups than their opponents are, and polling suggests Democrats could score upsets in some lean-red races.
“I do think it’s reasonable to think Ds will win the bulk of the Toss-ups, though, and quite possibly more beyond that,” Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said in a post on the social platform X.
History is also strongly on the Democrats’ side. There have been only two midterm elections in modern history in which the president’s party avoided losing seats in the House, and Democrats don’t need many seats to win control compared to historical standards.
Geoffrey Skelley, the chief elections analyst for DDHQ, told The Hill's Julia Mueller that Democrats are still favored to win the House.
“This did not change that,” he said. “It just … lowers their ceiling for the seats they can gain, and it does mean that they just have to win more swingy seats to do it, instead of being sort of guaranteed pickups in a place like Virginia.”
The two lingering questions are how the map will look when the redistricting battle finally comes to an end, and whether voter opinion changes in a major way before the midterms.
Florida’s new map, in which Republicans are hoping to gain up to four seats, is facing legal scrutiny, and other GOP-led states in the south are deciding how aggressively to try to redraw their own congressional lines before the midterms. Those efforts will also likely face legal battles.
President Trump’s approval numbers have been on a steady decline as the Iran war drags down the economy, which will further blunt Republican hopes of winning tough House races. If the U.S. and Iran were to strike a peace deal soon, that could spur some economic optimism, but experts are skeptical that gas prices or voter sentiment would quickly return to pre-war levels.
The Virginia ruling almost certainly made the GOP the winner of the redistricting battle of the past year, but that hasn’t flipped the House fight in their favor.
▪ The New York Times: 10 days that shook the House map.
▪ The Hill: The southern red states moving to redistrict.
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