President Donald Trump’s first House midterms were a beatdown that positioned Democrats to stymie the remainder of his legislative agenda.
In 2018, Democrats flipped 41 seats — 18 more than they needed for Nancy Pelosi to reclaim the speaker’s gavel.
Plotting for Trump’s second midterms is heating up, and Democrats are eager to recreate the magic. House Republicans, though, are hungry to prevent another blue wave — and are showing confidence that they can break with history.
“This isn’t your typical first-term president going into the first midterm,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson told NOTUS.
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“I believe if we follow up on that mandate, if we put bills on the president’s desk that keep the promises he made to the voters, that they’ll reward us,” he added, referencing the GOP’s trifecta-clinching election in 2024.
Though the political landscape looks similar — with Congress taking up a Trump-approved tax package using the budget reconciliation process, the administration squabbling with the courts over immigration policies, Trump instituting tariffs against U.S. allies and healthcare rollbacks being top of mind — Republicans insisted to NOTUS that the 2026 map is more favorable than 2018’s.
“We’re in a very different place,” former NRCC chair Rep. Steve Stivers — who oversaw the 2018 midterms — told NOTUS.
“I will tell you that the administration is moving really fast this time. I think they will likely have some victories as a result of that, which means they’ll have a record to run on — and so will the House.”
In a newly unveiled target list, the NRCC outlined its offensive blueprint against 26 incumbent Democrats. A Republican strategist working on House races was particularly bullish on flipping indicted Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar’s seat in the Rio Grande Valley and said candidate recruitment efforts are underway — though they didn’t go so well last cycle. Republican campaign operatives are also eager to pick off veteran Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and a slew of freshman Democrats in California.
(The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has not released its own target list. But it has released a list of “Frontline” members that aligns heavily with the NRCC’s roll.)
Republicans say there’s some mathematical justification for optimism. Only three Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon and Mike Lawler — represent districts won by Kamala Harris in 2024. Meanwhile, 13 Democrats won districts won by Trump.
Naturally, where Republicans see vulnerability, Democrats see battle-tested incumbents who won despite the GOP’s dominant 2024 performance.
The Democrats won’t make any pick-up easy for Republicans and are already signaling with early ad spends and messaging that they’ll milk every DOGE cut and Trump-championed floor vote to bash vulnerable Republicans at home. Plus, Democrats historically have the cash advantage in House races; they outraised Republicans by millions of dollars in 2024.
Republicans know, however, that Democrats can’t just play defense if they want to retake the House — they’ll have to flip at least three seats.
That makes for a radically different map from the expansive battleground of 2018. Then, the DCCC targeted 59 Republican seats and the NRCC competed seriously for 36 Democratic seats. Since 2018, a party realignment in the suburbs and subsequent redistricting has shrunk the amount of truly competitive House seats, meaning each district in play could make or break the majority. And Democrats are quick to note that the NRCC’s 2026 target list is nearly a dozen seats shorter than 2024’s.
“I understand how political headwinds obviously work during midterm,” the Republican strategist told NOTUS. “I think that’s the narrative that everyone goes with. But if you look at the underlying data, 2018 and 2026 are so, so, so, so different. It’s night and day.”
One key similarity, however, will be Trump in the White House. The president is prioritizing House Republicans in his first official fundraising circuit of the new Congress: He’s going to headline the NRCC’s “President’s Dinner” on April 8.
“President Trump is the greatest turnout motivator in the Republican Party’s history, and we are honored he chose House Republicans as the first group for whom he will fundraise this election cycle,” said Rep. Brian Jack, who was formerly one of Trump’s longest-serving aides before entering Congress this year.
The Congressional Leadership Fund — the House GOP’s top campaign PAC — doubled down on Trump being a central part of Republicans’ strategy to level up engagement in 2026.
“President Trump did an incredible job of turning out GOP voters in 2024,” CLF spokesperson Torunn Sinclair told NOTUS in a statement. “And we’ll keep those same voters engaged throughout the cycle to grow Republicans’ House Majority.”
It’s true that Trump’s approval rating reached an all-time high in his second term — though it has taken a recent hit over economic concerns. While polling in March 2025 is hardly a predictor of Trump’s popularity in Nov. 2026, Republicans have reason to hope that engagement from the president could help juice their House prospects.
But Democrats see Trump’s involvement midway through his lame-duck term as a challenge for the GOP. The trick for their party will be ensuring vulnerable members own his agenda, rather than run from it.
“If I’m looking back to the 2018 cycle and projecting forward, Dems shouldn’t swing at every pitch, because there’s too fucking much out there,” a Democratic strategist who played a role in 2018 races told NOTUS.
This veteran strategist urged Democrats to keep their eye on Medicaid as well as any Republican attempts to limit Medicare and Social Security. But they added that laying into Trump’s tax package was also part of the Democrats’ winning formula that they have another chance to emulate.
The DCCC and House Majority PAC, the flagship Democratic super PAC, seem to be applying that strategy early, leveling criticisms over how the GOP is handling the economy and healthcare.
“The midterms are shaping up to be a referendum on who is going to help improve the lives of everyday Americans,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement.
“By all accounts, House Republicans are failing miserably,” he added. “They aren’t doing anything to lower costs, they’re destroying the economy, and they are obsessed with cutting Medicaid in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk.”
In addition to releasing its own 29-member strong target list, the HMP is placing ads in battleground districts to remind voters of rising inflation and potential Medicaid cuts that could come from Republicans’ budget bill.
In another statement, HMP communications director CJ Warnke told NOTUS “It’s no wonder why they’re avoiding in-person townhalls — Republicans know their agenda will cost them the House in 2026.”
Medicaid cuts are poised to be the Republican Party’s marquee fight this Congress. Already, tensions have emerged between conservatives seeking deeper cuts to entitlement programs and moderate lawmakers worried Medicaid cuts — which the Congressional Budget Office found will be necessary to hit leadership’s spending goals — will hurt their constituents.
Town halls have also reentered the political zeitgeist, after disgruntled voters flooded Republican town halls, creating at times embarrassing spectacles for the House GOP. Hudson advised House Republicans to make town halls virtual, insisting that online forums are a more efficient means to connect with voters anyway. Now Democrats are trying to rub it in, hosting their own town halls in GOP districts.
But if Republicans are feeling the heat from the Democrat-led narratives, they aren’t letting it on now.
“The Democrats are doing anything possible to distract from their abysmal approval ratings, but voters see right through it,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella told NOTUS in a statement.
Still, there’s plenty of time for the political landscape to change. The GOP strategist pointed to yet another Republican midterm performance — 2022 — when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overriding national abortion rights dried up the so-called “red wave” Republicans had anticipated.
“If you asked me in March of ’22 how the climate was, I’d say, ‘Oh, we’re gonna dominate,’ the Republican strategist said. “Then Dobbs happened.”
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Riley Rogerson and Daniella Diaz are reporters at NOTUS.
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