Here's a thought that's almost certainly not worth anybody's time, but if the special elections go really badly for the GOP, and the tariffs torpedo the economy, you might think there could be an opening for a very small group of Republican house members to switch parties. It sounds like West Wing style wishcasting, but I don't think it's outside of the realm of the possible. I, for one remember Jim Jeffords.
Or perhaps Ms Cheney might have an opening for a Real-GOP fraction as a splitter-punishment party supporting Free Trade, Rule of Law party (not as a permanent move but a kind of institutional coup against Trump).
That could be more palatable than a flip to a still not-de-Woked Democratic party.
I highly doubt that would ever happen. More likely would be for more GOP members of Congress to simply start pushing back on Trump as far as his more controversial policies. If the economy were to full-on tank as a direct result of the tariffs, there would probably be pretty broad, bi-partisan support for Congress to pass legislation scaling the tariffs back, without a need for anyone to actually switch parties.
If you're asking about how Dems could retake the House before the midterm, there's one other way that could happen - party switching. I know it's not common anymore, so I don't expect it. But if things go badly enough for Trump, maybe the pressure will be strong enough for one or two Republican members to flip.
This is a thoughtful and informative post. FYI, Elise Stefanik represents NY-21, not NY-19. Josh Riley (D) represents NY-19. He beat the incumbent Republican Marc Molinaro in 2024, in a rematch of their 2022 contest, which Molinaro won. Riley's ability to flip NY-19 is one of the reasons the current Republican majority in the House is so small.
The odds of the house flipping through special election this Congress are well under 10%. However, if there is a 20 point swing tomorrow night, the behavior of front line Republicans will change quickly. This would constrain Trump.
There looks to have been just over 20 point swings in both Florida Districts, at least relative to How Trump faired there in November (arguably more worth looking at than the prior congressional elections there, since these were “top of ticket” races this time and likely seen as a referendum on Trump by a lot of voters). Although Wisconsin was only an 11 point swing in comparison, in a statewide race that had a much better chance of being competitive. Still, averaged proportionally to how many people voted in each race, last night represented something like a 12+ point swing in Dems favor in total.
Being a house member in and of itself isn't particular damning (at least any more than your general politician)... but there are a lot of old timers sticking around past their due date and to the detriment of their constituency.
Their staffers do most of the legwork at that point anyway. The advantage to having a long-tenured rep would probably be that they have enough established relationships in Washington to secure more pork-barrel spending and such for their particular district/state. The obvious disadvantage is that they don’t tend to have the vigor (at least in most cases) to serve as vocal and base-energizing members of the opposition when their party is out of power, as a lot of Dem constituents are witnessing from their older reps right now.
I get the relationships angle, but that's partly what I'd like to see gone. If term-limits were set - then everyone in congress is in the same boat and can't cling to these relationships for their perpetual re-election.
The disadvantage is this could empower lobbyists (who potentially have a very long tenure). It's definitely a tricky problem.
In Stefanik's case, I think the deciding factor was that Gov. Hochul said she would hold the seat open until the November elections. Even with a little extra breathing room from those two D deaths, they figured that was too long.
The number of competitive seats has shrunk and the country is far more polarized. That said if you look at 1992, 2010, 2018, or 2022 the historical evidence is pretty clear: the party out of power in the first midterm after a new president takes office usually does pretty well.
In the House at least. In 2018 and 2022 both Trump and Biden managed to hang onto the Senate even as the House flipped.
Also keep in mind that the two parties have traded bases. Republicans used to clean up with college educated voters and educational attainment is correlated with political activity, such as voting in midterms.
Now the two parties have switched bases, so you would assume that the Democrats have a systematic advantage in "low salience" (as Matthew Yglesias described them) elections--namely special contests and midterms.
By contrast low propensity voters are far more likely to vote in presidential years. And, as David Shor pointed out recently, by his estimate if all registered voters had cast a vote last November Trump's lead in the popular vote would have grown to a +5 margin.
The Senate situation has a lot to do with the quirks of the Senate itself, some cycles there just aren’t many flippable seats. And there are increasingly fewer swing seats in general. Looking at 2026, the Dems would probably have to have a historic blue wave election to net better than +2 Senate seats (or have another really, really bad Republican candidate in a red state, a la Roy Moore in Alabama in 2018). Dems simply sweeping the seats in states generally considered to be “swing” would still leave the Republicans with a 51-49 Senate advantage, with room for one defector still since Vance gets to break ties. And the two seats they’d have lost (Tillis in NC and Collins in Maine) would have been 2 of few currently remaining GOP senators who’d have any chance to ever defect.
Also keep in mind what David Shor likes to talk about with a coming systemic advantage for Republicans in the Senate--there are just more red states than blue states.
This was cool. I actually feel kind of bad for Elise. To have your professional life be determined by the whims of a wannabe dictator is pretty depressing.
Really good article. Your style is extremely close to Nate’s. In terms of what I think: I don’t think that there’s been enough time for low information voters to see the fruits of the radical changes, good or bad.
Curious, who are the closest thing in the House majority to what Manchin was in the Democratic Senate majority ‘20-22, an R whose absence would most likely flip the seat? Of course, it’s the House so we can exclude anyone from a state with an R controlled legislature as they could be redistricted.
Speaking of which, could D’s in let’s say NY or CA force special elections in light-R districts through clever midterm redistricting? If so, it’s now called “Jonnymandering”. Put it on my tombstone.
A peeve I have about stories like this is that you (and most other analysts) judge how red or blue a congressional seat (or a state senate seat, etc) is based on the most recent presidential election. Wouldn't a more meaningful comparison be to the most recent result in that seat? If Kamala Harris won a congressional district by 15 points, and the Democratic congressional candidate won by 2 points, is that a deep blue seat, or a swing seat?
There's some subtlety to this and I love the question.
Races are going to be affected by (among other things):
- local sentiment towards the (national) party
- local sentiment towards the local government
- local candidate quality.
I think what we would LIKE is a measure of local preference towards an average local candidate of either party.
Your critique seems to be that "local sentiment towards the last presidential candidate is not a good measure of local sentiment towards an average local candidate."
I agree.
However, if the congressional candidate won by 2 points and the presidential by 15 points, is there a good way to break down how much of the 13-point difference came from local sentiments towards:
- the average local candidate (which we want)
- the (last cycle's) local government
- the (last cycle's) local candidate?
- the (last cycle's) presidential candidate
For instance, maybe the district ran a great candidate who almost clawed the district back to the Republicans, but that great candidate isn't running again.
(Edited: I asked about your preferred alternative, but you already said it. Sorry.)
Here's a thought that's almost certainly not worth anybody's time, but if the special elections go really badly for the GOP, and the tariffs torpedo the economy, you might think there could be an opening for a very small group of Republican house members to switch parties. It sounds like West Wing style wishcasting, but I don't think it's outside of the realm of the possible. I, for one remember Jim Jeffords.
Or perhaps Ms Cheney might have an opening for a Real-GOP fraction as a splitter-punishment party supporting Free Trade, Rule of Law party (not as a permanent move but a kind of institutional coup against Trump).
That could be more palatable than a flip to a still not-de-Woked Democratic party.
I highly doubt that would ever happen. More likely would be for more GOP members of Congress to simply start pushing back on Trump as far as his more controversial policies. If the economy were to full-on tank as a direct result of the tariffs, there would probably be pretty broad, bi-partisan support for Congress to pass legislation scaling the tariffs back, without a need for anyone to actually switch parties.
If you're asking about how Dems could retake the House before the midterm, there's one other way that could happen - party switching. I know it's not common anymore, so I don't expect it. But if things go badly enough for Trump, maybe the pressure will be strong enough for one or two Republican members to flip.
I came to the comments to make the very same point!
This is a thoughtful and informative post. FYI, Elise Stefanik represents NY-21, not NY-19. Josh Riley (D) represents NY-19. He beat the incumbent Republican Marc Molinaro in 2024, in a rematch of their 2022 contest, which Molinaro won. Riley's ability to flip NY-19 is one of the reasons the current Republican majority in the House is so small.
Thanks for catching that! Fixed now.
The odds of the house flipping through special election this Congress are well under 10%. However, if there is a 20 point swing tomorrow night, the behavior of front line Republicans will change quickly. This would constrain Trump.
There looks to have been just over 20 point swings in both Florida Districts, at least relative to How Trump faired there in November (arguably more worth looking at than the prior congressional elections there, since these were “top of ticket” races this time and likely seen as a referendum on Trump by a lot of voters). Although Wisconsin was only an 11 point swing in comparison, in a statewide race that had a much better chance of being competitive. Still, averaged proportionally to how many people voted in each race, last night represented something like a 12+ point swing in Dems favor in total.
Those 79+ year olds really need to retire.
Is being a house member really that demanding? maybe having a couple wise old men and women is useful to obtaining a cross section of America
Being a house member in and of itself isn't particular damning (at least any more than your general politician)... but there are a lot of old timers sticking around past their due date and to the detriment of their constituency.
Their staffers do most of the legwork at that point anyway. The advantage to having a long-tenured rep would probably be that they have enough established relationships in Washington to secure more pork-barrel spending and such for their particular district/state. The obvious disadvantage is that they don’t tend to have the vigor (at least in most cases) to serve as vocal and base-energizing members of the opposition when their party is out of power, as a lot of Dem constituents are witnessing from their older reps right now.
I get the relationships angle, but that's partly what I'd like to see gone. If term-limits were set - then everyone in congress is in the same boat and can't cling to these relationships for their perpetual re-election.
The disadvantage is this could empower lobbyists (who potentially have a very long tenure). It's definitely a tricky problem.
In Stefanik's case, I think the deciding factor was that Gov. Hochul said she would hold the seat open until the November elections. Even with a little extra breathing room from those two D deaths, they figured that was too long.
Exactly.
Interesting!
According to this article, current law is 90 days max, but the NY legislature had at least floated the idea of changing the law. https://www.semafor.com/article/03/10/2025/hochul-expected-to-slow-walk-election-to-replace-stefanik
The number of competitive seats has shrunk and the country is far more polarized. That said if you look at 1992, 2010, 2018, or 2022 the historical evidence is pretty clear: the party out of power in the first midterm after a new president takes office usually does pretty well.
In the House at least. In 2018 and 2022 both Trump and Biden managed to hang onto the Senate even as the House flipped.
Also keep in mind that the two parties have traded bases. Republicans used to clean up with college educated voters and educational attainment is correlated with political activity, such as voting in midterms.
Now the two parties have switched bases, so you would assume that the Democrats have a systematic advantage in "low salience" (as Matthew Yglesias described them) elections--namely special contests and midterms.
By contrast low propensity voters are far more likely to vote in presidential years. And, as David Shor pointed out recently, by his estimate if all registered voters had cast a vote last November Trump's lead in the popular vote would have grown to a +5 margin.
The Senate situation has a lot to do with the quirks of the Senate itself, some cycles there just aren’t many flippable seats. And there are increasingly fewer swing seats in general. Looking at 2026, the Dems would probably have to have a historic blue wave election to net better than +2 Senate seats (or have another really, really bad Republican candidate in a red state, a la Roy Moore in Alabama in 2018). Dems simply sweeping the seats in states generally considered to be “swing” would still leave the Republicans with a 51-49 Senate advantage, with room for one defector still since Vance gets to break ties. And the two seats they’d have lost (Tillis in NC and Collins in Maine) would have been 2 of few currently remaining GOP senators who’d have any chance to ever defect.
Also keep in mind what David Shor likes to talk about with a coming systemic advantage for Republicans in the Senate--there are just more red states than blue states.
Would it be possible to call a large blue wave a "bluenami"?
This was cool. I actually feel kind of bad for Elise. To have your professional life be determined by the whims of a wannabe dictator is pretty depressing.
Really good article. Your style is extremely close to Nate’s. In terms of what I think: I don’t think that there’s been enough time for low information voters to see the fruits of the radical changes, good or bad.
Curious, who are the closest thing in the House majority to what Manchin was in the Democratic Senate majority ‘20-22, an R whose absence would most likely flip the seat? Of course, it’s the House so we can exclude anyone from a state with an R controlled legislature as they could be redistricted.
Speaking of which, could D’s in let’s say NY or CA force special elections in light-R districts through clever midterm redistricting? If so, it’s now called “Jonnymandering”. Put it on my tombstone.
A peeve I have about stories like this is that you (and most other analysts) judge how red or blue a congressional seat (or a state senate seat, etc) is based on the most recent presidential election. Wouldn't a more meaningful comparison be to the most recent result in that seat? If Kamala Harris won a congressional district by 15 points, and the Democratic congressional candidate won by 2 points, is that a deep blue seat, or a swing seat?
There's some subtlety to this and I love the question.
Races are going to be affected by (among other things):
- local sentiment towards the (national) party
- local sentiment towards the local government
- local candidate quality.
I think what we would LIKE is a measure of local preference towards an average local candidate of either party.
Your critique seems to be that "local sentiment towards the last presidential candidate is not a good measure of local sentiment towards an average local candidate."
I agree.
However, if the congressional candidate won by 2 points and the presidential by 15 points, is there a good way to break down how much of the 13-point difference came from local sentiments towards:
- the average local candidate (which we want)
- the (last cycle's) local government
- the (last cycle's) local candidate?
- the (last cycle's) presidential candidate
For instance, maybe the district ran a great candidate who almost clawed the district back to the Republicans, but that great candidate isn't running again.
(Edited: I asked about your preferred alternative, but you already said it. Sorry.)
They shoulda t like they have some balls.