The midterm elections are often treated by voters as a referendum on the current presidential administration’s performance. In recent history, that has translated to the party in the White House almost always losing — and losing big — in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
But the second Trump administration has been far from typical, and, as we head into 2026, several factors make it considerably harder than usual to get a read on what to expect this November.
The administration’s months-long, Trump-pushed state redistricting crusade — an overt attempt to predetermine the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections — as well as the ongoing Supreme Court case that may weaken the Voting Rights Act have added a significant level of uncertainty to the typically far-more-straightforward question of which party will hold the upper hand in a critical election year
Gerrymandering Push Doesn’t Quite Deliver
For months now, Trump and his allies have been engaged in an unprecedented campaign to pressure red states across the country to redraw their congressional maps to favor Republicans. While the pressure campaign appeared to be a success at first, with early wins in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri, it has faltered in recent months, facing a series of setbacks that call into question the efficacy of the effort as a whole.
“I think when this started, Republicans were hoping that they would build an advantage for gerrymandering that was so big that it could withstand a wave,” Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor for the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told TPM. “And that has not happened.”
Most significantly, Indiana Senate Republicans defied the Trump administration in December and rejected a proposal for a new map that, if approved, would have likely removed Indiana Democrats from representation in the U.S. House.
Michael Li, senior counsel in the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, added that even though “in states that are very heavily gerrymandered, the maps are very unfair — particularly to voters of color” — redistricting “may not have a big effect nationally, because everything sort of offsets.”
“Democrats have fought back very resourcefully in ways that I think many people didn’t think that they would be able to do, particularly in California,” Li told TPM.
The new Democratic districts in California and new Republican districts in Texas, and Missouri exacerbate another trend triggered by the redistricting scramble: the declining number of swing districts.
Barry Burden, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Elections Research Center, noted, generally, there simply aren’t many districts that Republicans can win and that are “swingable.”
“There aren’t very many competitive districts, whether we’re looking at the period before this latest round of mid-decade redistricting or since some states have put new maps in place,” said Burden. “Either way, there just aren’t very many districts that are truly up for grabs.”
And most recently, Florida has also entered the redistricting battle.
GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced earlier this month that he is calling a special session in April to draw new maps.
While it’s true that new congressional maps in Florida will likely give Republicans a marginal advantage, experts told TPM that that, too, may not be significant enough to override the impact of historical trends — especially when considered alongside other, Democratic-controlled blue states that may still draw new maps, such as Virginia.
“Even if Florida Republicans successfully redistrict, Democrats are still advantaged nationally,” said Burden. “The historical pattern compounded by Trump’s low approval rating and the country’s meager economic performance makes it likely that Democrats will pick up additional seats. The effort in Florida might dampen the effect slightly in that state if they are careful not to spread their supporters too thinly and do not give incumbents too much unfamiliar territory.”
The Supreme Court Puts Its Thumb on the Scale
The Supreme Court has, and may still have, a say in the success of Trump’s gerrymandering crusade. In December, it greenlit Texas’ new maps. Applying the same logic, it should greenlight Democratic efforts, such as the one in California, as well. But that is not yet a sure thing.
There’s also an even more significant Supreme Court decision coming down the pike: the justices have since October been weighing whether to leave standing a provision of the Voting Rights Act that allows minority voters to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps in court. The question, which the Court is hearing for a second time, came up as a result of a redistricting case in Louisiana. The decision — from a Court that has been notoriously hostile to the Voting Rights Act — could be disastrous for representation of communities of color across the country.
In addition to weakening the Voting Rights Act, the decision could have a significant impact on the midterm elections.
“The big wild card is what the Supreme Court does in Louisiana v. Callais… and whether when that opinion comes down, there’s enough time for states to use that as the justification for redrawing maps,” Li told TPM. “And there may or may not be, it just really depends on when the Supreme Court hands down the opinion.”
He said if the Court’s opinion comes down in May or June — when the Court hands down many significant, non-emergency rulings — there may not be enough time to make changes in most places as the midterm cycle would have already started by then.
Li added that even if the decision comes down earlier than that, it will still be difficult for most states to react to it quickly enough for it to make a real impact in these midterms.
But he cautions that “it’s still really early in the election cycle … there’s a lot of politics left to happen and a lot of redistricting potentially left to happen.”
On top of all that, Li told TPM he thinks the Supreme Court decision on this case is “unlikely to be a binary decision.”
“I think many people would say the Court is likely to say ‘the Voting Rights Act is okay in certain circumstances, but we are narrowing the circumstances in which it is okay.’ And that, of course, makes it more complicated for states,” he told TPM. “They will have to sort that out, case by case, in litigation.”
Li added that even if the Supreme Court hands down its ruling in Callais early in 2026, and a state also succeeds in getting a new map — based on the Supreme Court ruling — through its legislative process relatively early in the year, that map will still face court challenges, litigation that will also have to play out before Election Day in order for the map to be used in 2026.
It all suggests that a ruling further paring back the Voting Rights Act presents far more peril for voters in 2028 than in this year’s midterms.
The Outsized Impact of Historical Trends
In terms of 2026, election scholars and analysts in conversations with TPM emphasize that the historical pattern of the president’s party losing House seats during the midterm elections could prove the most important factor in determining the outcome of the 2026 midterms — more impactful than last year’s wash of a gerrymandering crusade, more impactful than Republican efforts to redistrict further in 2026, and more impactful, at least in the short-term, electoral sense, than further gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
“I think most important is the historic pattern, which is that the president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterm election,” Burden told TPM. “It’s typically in the post-war period been about two dozen seats that swing from the in- party to the out party. So if 2026 is anywhere near that, Democrats would easily gain a majority in the House.”
David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, similarly pointed to the improbability of the midterms defying this historical trend.
“Defying pronounced historical trends is as difficult as Sisyphus rolling a massive boulder up a steep hill, only to see it roll back to the bottom,” Paleologos noted.
“The Supreme Court has, and may still have, a say in the success of Trump’s gerrymandering crusade. In December, it greenlit Texas’ new maps. Applying the same logic, it should greenlight Democratic efforts, such as the one in California, as well. But that is not yet a sure thing.”
I would not count on the Roberts Court to use logic or precedent to make any kind of sound decision.
I don’t count on the Roberts Court to apply logic or precedent, and in fact if a decision comes out on the shadow docket (where they do not have to show their work) I perceive a high risk that they will strike down the California redistricting. However, the matter has apparently not reached the Court yet.
Of course, we should expect the fascists on the court to continue to act like fascists. As a truly corrupt court, there is only one possible outcome to any challenge that the GOP brings to California.
That said they are a running advertisement for reform of SCOTUS, which is long overdue.
Politics is the sound of money talking to itself.