Democrats are poised to take control of the US House of Representatives after two tumultuous years of Donald Trump’s second presidency. A change in House control would give Democrats a perch to conduct robust oversight of the administration for its final two years.
Republicans currently hold 218 seats in the House and Democrats have 214. (There is one vacancy in a Republican seat and one vacancy in a Democratic seat, and one Republican member switched his party affiliation to independent.) Democrats need to flip just three seats to gain control of the House, something they are expected to do easily.
All members of the House run for re-election every two years. To have a majority in the House, a party must control at least 218 seats. While there is still some uncertainty about how many seats Democrats could gain, the non-partisan Cook Political Report predicts Democrats will pick up 15 to 25 seats, which could give them anywhere from 230 to 240 seats in the House.
The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, another forecaster, lists 239 House seats in Democrats’ favor.
Traditionally, the president’s party performs poorly in the midterms – held midway through the president’s four-year term. Republicans are facing significant headwinds this year with Trump’s approval rating hitting record lows . The war in Iran also remains deeply unpopular and gas prices remain extremely high.
Gaining a majority in the House would give Democrats control of the body’s committees and the ability to subpoena documents and witnesses as part of investigations. Democrats have signaled they will investigate Trump’s family business, immigration enforcement, matters related to Jeffrey Epstein, and Robert F Kennedy Jr’s handling of vaccine procedures and recommendations, among other issues.
If Democrats retake the House, Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from Brooklyn first elected in 2012, is expected to become speaker. The 56-year-old would be the first Black speaker in US history.
Democrats are expected to take control of the House despite an unusual and aggressive effort by Republicans to redraw congressional districts before the election to their advantage.
At the request of Trump, Republicans in Texas, Florida, Missouri and other Republican-led states redrew their districts to add more GOP-friendly ones. After the supreme court issued a landmark ruling significantly weakening a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, lawmakers in Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee redrew their maps to eliminate districts where Black voters had been able to elect a candidate of their choosing.
But the political environment is so unfavorable to Republicans that Democrats could win races in the Alabama and North Carolina districts that were redrawn. Some GOP-friendly districts added in Texas also appear winnable for Democrats. Overall, Republicans may only pick up a handful of the districts they redrew to their advantage.
The first polls closed in Indiana and Kentucky at 6pm ET, with more states following mostly hourly after that. Results in Kentucky’s sixth district will be closely watched, as Democrat Zach Dembo, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, takes on Republican Dr Ralph Alvarado, whom Trump has backed, for the open seat. The Cook Political Report rates the race as a toss-up despite a partisan lean towards Republicans, and a Dembo victory could indicate a big night ahead for Democrats.
Polls closed across Florida at 7pm ET; there are also several competitive House races in the state, even in districts that state Republicans recently redrew in their favor. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz easily won re-election in Florida’s 20th district, which is heavily Democratic, according to the AP.
