Republicans soared in the recent US elections, but Democrats have reasons for optimism for 2026

This article is based on a presentation by the author to the Electoral Regulations Forum.

At the November 5 US presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the Electoral College by 312 electoral votes to 226, winning the seven key states of Nevada (six electoral votes), Wisconsin (ten), Arizona (11), Michigan (15), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16) and Pennsylvania (19).

Trump also won the national popular vote by 49.8–48.3% over Harris, becoming the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004. (Republicans won the presidency but not the popular vote in both 2000 and 2016.) In raw vote terms, Trump defeated Harris by 77.3 million votes to 75.0 million.

Turnout at this election was 63.9% of eligible voters, down from 66.4% in 2020. The 2020 presidential election turnout was the highest since 1900.

While this was a clear victory for Trump, a 1.5% win in the popular vote is not a landslide. The Electoral College system tends to produce large margins for the winner because states award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. In 2008 and 2012, Democrat Barack Obama won more electoral votes than Trump in 2024 (365 in 2008, 332 in 2012).

If all states and their electoral votes are sorted from most Democratic to most Republican, the “tipping-point” state is the state that puts the winner over the 270 electoral votes needed for an Electoral College majority.

At this election, the tipping-point state was Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 1.7%. There was only a 0.2% difference between the national popular vote and Trump’s Pennsylvanian margin.

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Electoral College by 306 to 232 electoral votes. Biden also won the popular vote by 51.3–46.8%, a 4.5% margin (81.3 million votes to 74.2 million).

However, at that election, the tipping-point state (Wisconsin) voted for Biden by just 0.6%, so there was a 3.9% difference between the popular vote and the tipping-point state. On a uniform swing, if Trump had lost the popular vote by less than 3.9% in 2020, he would have still won the presidency.

This is the main reason for optimism for Democrats: they only need a near-tie in the popular vote to win the Electoral College (and the presidency) in the next presidential election if there’s a uniform swing, not a four-point win.

The main cause for this narrowing in the Republicans’ Electoral College advantage is that Hispanics swung big to Trump. However, five of the seven key states have relatively few Hispanics as a share of overall population (Arizona and Nevada are the exceptions). Trump’s outsize gains with Hispanics meant the swings to him were lower in states with fewer Hispanics, which included most of the key states.

After the 2016 US election, I wrote that Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College by 306 electoral votes to 232, despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%. This happened because whites without a university education swung big to Trump from the 2012 election.

The swing to Trump with Hispanics at this election can be explained by decreasing racial polarisation but increasing educational polarisation in the US. Hispanics used to vote for Democratic candidates on the basis of race, but are now increasingly voting for Trump like whites without a university education.

A narrow Republican House majority

The US House of Representatives has 435 members elected in districts that are allocated on a population basis. All of the House is up for election every two years.

Republicans won the House by 220 seats to 215 for Democrats, a two-seat net gain for Democrats since the 2022 midterms. This narrow majority came despite Republicans winning the House popular vote by 2.7%, the same margin as in 2022.

Democrats appear to have a more efficiently distributed vote than in the past. For example, in 2016, Republicans won a 241–194 House majority on a 1.1% popular vote win.

This was the closest margin for either party in the House since 1930. Furthermore, in the US, people serving in the presidential administration cannot also be in Congress. Trump has selected two House Republicans for his administration, and they will need to resign if confirmed by the Senate.

In the US, “special elections” (the same thing as a byelection) will be needed to replace those House members (in addition to Republican Matt Gaetz, who resigned from his House seat when Trump nominated him to be attorney general, but has subsequently withdrawn from consideration). Until these three seats are filled in special elections, Republicans will have just a 217–215 majority.

During the 2023–24 term of the House, there was much chaos owing to the Republicans’ narrow majority. It took 15 rounds for Republican Kevin McCarthy to be elected speaker in January 2023. After his ouster in October 2023, it took 22 days for Republican Mike Johnson to become speaker. With Republicans’ margin even tighter in the incoming House, more chaos is probable.

There are two senators for each of the 50 states. Senators have six-year terms, with one-third up for election every two years. Prior to the 2024 election, Democrats and allied independents held a 51–49 Senate majority, but they were defending 23 of the 33 seats up for election, including three in states Trump won easily: Ohio, Montana and West Virginia.

Republicans gained in these three seats, and also one in Pennsylvania, to take a 53–47 Senate majority. But Democrats held their seats in four of the five presidential swing states that also held Senate elections. If Democrats had lost Senate contests in all the states Trump won, Republicans would have taken a 57–43 Senate majority.

The Senate alone is responsible for confirming presidential cabinet-level and judicial appointments, so Trump is unlikely to have trouble with these appointments for the next two years. However, the narrow Republican majority in the House could make passing partisan legislation difficult.

Democrats should do well in 2026

At the November 2026 midterm elections, all of the House and one-third of the Senate seats will be up for election again.

Trump was never popular during his first term, helping the Democrats gain control of the House at the 2018 midterm elections. With Republicans only having a slim House majority at this election, it should be easier for Democrats to win House control than it was in 2018.

Republicans will also be defending 21 of the 34 Senate seats up for election in 2026. The big problem for Democrats in the Senate is that the two-senators-per-state rule favours Republicans, as they perform well in low-population, rural states.

Of the seats Republicans are defending in 2026, one is in Maine, which Harris won by 7%, and one is in North Carolina (Trump by 3%). The rest are in states Trump won by at least a ten-point margin.

Even if Democrats win the Maine and North Carolina Senate seats and don’t lose any seats they currently hold, Republicans would still hold a 51–49 Senate majority after 2026. To win control of the Senate, Democrats would need to gain states such as Alaska (Trump by 13), Iowa (Trump by 13), Ohio (Trump by 11) or Texas (Trump by 14).

Left-wing parties worldwide have been losing ground in the last ten years among voters without a university education, but gaining ground among those who do have a university education.

However, university-educated people are more likely to vote, particularly at lower-turnout elections like the midterm elections. During Obama’s presidency (2009-17), Democrats were routed at midterm elections in 2010 and 2014.

But they performed far better at the 2022 midterm elections, only losing the House narrowly and gaining a Senate seat. This performance occurred despite Biden’s ratings being worse than Obama’s. The main explanation was that Democratic-aligned voters were more likely to vote than Republican-aligned voters. The Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that reversed Roe v Wade was seen as a huge motivating factor for Democrats.

Trump is sure to anger Democrats with many of his decisions. And midterm elections have usually been poor for the sitting president’s party. If Democrats benefit from higher turnout among their voters and Trump is unpopular, they could heavily defeat Republicans in 2026. If this occurs, Republican Senate seats that appear safe may not be so safe.

Despite the six-point swing in the national popular vote margin between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Democrats outperformed Biden’s 2020 margins by an average of 3.5% in federal and state special elections held in 2023 and 2024. This was due to these elections having very low turnout and Democratic advantages with high-engagement voters.

In December 2017, Democrats gained a Senate seat in Alabama at a special election during Trump’s first term, despite Trump winning Alabama by over 25 points in his three presidential elections.

The closest of the three House seats that will hold special elections in 2025 is New York’s 21st district, which Republicans won by 24%. It’s unlikely Democrats will gain any of these seats despite their advantages in special elections.