Showdown for the House: Democrats, Republicans brace for high-stakes midterm clash

Democrats, energized by their convincing victories earlier this month in the 2025 elections, are betting those results foreshadow a House flip in next year’s midterm showdowns.

The party out of power needs a net gain of just three seats to grab back the majority from the Republicans, who’ve controlled the House for nearly three years. And the party in power, which nowadays is clearly the Republicans, traditionally faces political headwinds in the midterm elections.

At stake: the success of President Donald Trump‘s second-term agenda.

“We’ll take back the House in 2026,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state told Fox News Digital.

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But for Republicans, aiming to protect their fragile majority, the magic number is also three.

“The only number I’m concerned about is three. We have three Republicans in seats Kamala Harris carried,” said Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He pointed to districts carried during the 2024 presidential election by then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

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And Hudson, in a Fox News Digital interview, highlighted that Democrats have “13 sitting in seats Donald Trump won. They’ve got 21 more sitting in seats that Donald Trump barely lost. So there, there are only a few seats up for grabs this time, most of them are Democrat seats.”

The most recent national polls indicate Democrats with the upper hand in the 2026 battle for the House majority.

But DelBene cautioned, “We take nothing for granted.”

And Hudson was optimistic that Republicans would “grow our House majority.”

High prices and out-of-control cost of living were key issues that boosted Trump and Republicans in the 2024 elections, as they won back the White House and Senate majority and kept control of the House.

But what a difference a year makes.

Democrats, with an across-the-board focus on affordability, overperformed at the polls as they enjoyed sweeping ballot box success earlier this month. Democrats scored double-digit gubernatorial wins in blue-leaning but competitive New Jersey and Virginia, and convincing victories in high-profile showdowns in battlegrounds Georgia and Pennsylvania and left-tilting New York City and California.

“It was clear that when folks are talking about the biggest issues affecting their communities, and right now, affordability, with the rising costs people have seen as a result of the policies put in place by this administration and Republicans in Congress, they rejected that,” DelBene said as she pointed to the 2025 election results.

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“Absolutely, we saw that in governor’s races like Virginia and New Jersey, but [also] in races across the country,” she added.

The most recent Fox News national poll was another warning sign for Trump and the GOP.

Three-quarters of voters questioned in the survey viewed the economy negatively, and large numbers of respondents, including Republicans, said their costs for groceries, utilities, healthcare and housing have gone up this year.

The poll indicated that voters blame the president, with nearly twice as many pointing fingers at Trump than former President Joe Biden, when asked who is responsible for the current economy.

Only 38% of those questioned gave the president a thumbs-up to how he’s handling the economy. And Trump’s overall approval rating, at 41%, was the lowest of his second term in office in Fox News polling.

“Affordability is still the number one issue for families. Housing, food, health care, child care, energy costs all going up directly as a result of policies put in place by Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump. And they promised to lower costs on day one,” DelBene said.

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Pointing to last year’s elections, she said, “That was their big message. They were going to lower costs. It has been a big broken promise, and people are feeling that and and that’s had a big impact and will continue. People want folks who are going to stand up to them for them, not just be blindly loyal to the president.”

Hudson, asked about the political impact of the cost of living, took aim at the former president.

“There are challenges out there with the economy, because Biden broke it, and House Republicans, working with President Trump, are going to fix it, and we’re working very hard to do that,” he said.

“Certainly, we could always improve the way we communicate with our voters about it,” he added. “But we are laser-focused on the issues that matter to them. You know, it’s the cost of things, it’s the security in their neighborhood, it’s a secure border. We are very focused on that, and we’ve delivered a lot of things that are going to make their lives better.”

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And looking ahead to next year, he added, “Come tax season, a lot of families are going to be really happy to see they’ve got a lot more take-home pay, and that’s because of Donald Trump and House Republicans.”

The DCCC, in its messaging, has tied vulnerable House Republicans to Trump.

DelBene argued that it’s “Republican policies that are hurting American families, the tariffs that Donald Trump has put in place that have raised costs for families across the country, their ongoing work to gut healthcare across this country.”

And she charged that the “policies that they have prioritized have been favoring the wealthy and the well-connected, tax breaks for the wealthy and the well-connected, but hurting working families across the country. People are feeling that, and we’re going to continue to call that out.”

Hudson called the 2025 elections a “wake-up call” for GOP voters and that he wants Trump “out there on the trail” in next year’s midterms.

Plenty of Republicans have downplayed the Democrats’ high-profile victories, noting they largely took place in blue-leaning states.

Hudson noted the top elections took place in “Democrat states,” but added, “I think our big takeaway as Republicans is the Democrats were energized. They turned out at record levels. Republicans turned out in normal levels.”

“I think there’s a wake-up call there to conservatives and Republicans who are happy with the direction of the country. They’re glad President Trump’s back in the White House. But if they want to keep this momentum going, they’ve got to show up and vote,” he said.

Many of Trump’s MAGA supporters are considered low-propensity voters, who head to the polls only when Trump is on the ballot. But Trump won’t be on the ballot in the 2026 midterms.

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Hudson, who noted that “House Republicans are very closely aligned with President Trump, and we’re supporting his agenda,” said that “we want him out there on the trail, campaigning with our candidates. I think he brings a lot of energy.”

Pointing to “a lot of folks who don’t vote when he’s not on the ballot,” Hudson said, “I don’t need all of them to show up, but I need some of them. And so having President Trump out there will be a big benefit for us.”