Though all eyes will be on the presidential race on Nov. 5, every seat of the House of Representatives is also up for election. Our fundamentals forecast utilizes national political trends, as well as outlying factors distinctive to individual districts, to predict the winner of each of these races.
Unlike a purely quantitative forecast, our qualitative approach from a fundamentals perspective takes into account factors such as incumbency, historical voting patterns, demographic and regional trends, and the specific contexts of individual elections. Allan Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House, one of the most well-known and often-cited fundamentals forecasts, has demonstrated perfect accuracy in predicting the winner of the national popular vote. Fundamentals forecasts consider elements of the electoral process that polls alone cannot. In our predictions, we paid particular attention to 2022 House results, President Biden’s 2020 performance in certain regions of the country, and the impact of mid-decade redistricting in Alabama, Louisiana, New York, and North Carolina.
Overall, we predict that the Democrats will regain control of the House with 222 seats to the GOP’s 213. Below, we outline each projected flip seat and the rationale behind our predictions.
The Fundamentals in Question
The coattails effect, the phenomenon describing the strong correlation between presidential and congressional candidate performances in a given district, played a significant role in our projections. Underdog victories are more common in midterm elections, since the absence of national party leaders at the top of the ticket can cause different regions of the country to vote with a high degree of variance from the norm. House elections held simultaneously with presidential elections tend to feature returns to the norm, with the previous midterm cycle’s most unpredictable flips often flipping back to the typical dominant party in a given district. For example, Democratic advances in Utah’s 4th Congressional District and Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District in 2018 were undone by Republican comebacks in those districts in 2020. In districts like Washington’s 3rd, we predict similar reversals.
Local concerns can also play a significant role in House elections. In New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, which shares a 180-mile boundary with Mexico, the border crisis is a critical issue for voters. Debates over immigration likewise tend to dominate races in Texas and Arizona, shaping the political landscapes in these border states.
And similar to the national race, the state of the economy will impact the House elections. With high levels of inflation for much of the Biden Administration and a disappointing August jobs report, voters may rebuke Democratic House candidates in favor of Republicans who promise solutions.
Recap: 2022 to the Present
In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans narrowly regained control of the House. Despite forecasts overwhelmingly projecting a “red wave,” reflecting a common pattern of the party opposing the president winning a large number of seats in midterm elections, such an electoral victory failed to materialize. Democrats, many incensed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned the issue of abortion to the states, turned out in high numbers.
Voters across the country roundly rejected prominent Trump-endorsed candidates, including media personality Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and former Dallas Cowboys player Herschel Walker in Georgia. Many analysts attribute this to Republicans’ hard-line positions in favor of strict abortion limitations, legislation restricting the teaching of critical race theory in schools, and promoting strict border security — all of which failed to resonate with voters. A similar trend could emerge in 2024, with voters potentially repudiating Trump-endorsed candidates, and possibly the former president himself, by wider-than-expected margins.
Democrats have performed well in special elections since the midterms. Following Republican Rep. George Santos’s expulsion from the House in December 2023, former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi won the election to fill Santos’s Long Island seat. We have taken Suozzi’s eight-point win into consideration in crafting our forecast for this swing district: Frustration with Santos, we believe, may offset Long Island’s rightward lurch since 2022, keeping the district narrowly in Democratic hands come November.
The Republican margin of victory in the 2024 special election in rural northeastern Ohio’s 6th Congressional District was considerably smaller than expected, shrinking to 9% from over 35% in the 2022 contest. This district is expected to remain in Republican hands according to our forecast, but this 26-point shift could be a sign of polls’ underestimation of Democrats in areas traditionally viewed as solidly Republican.
The Impact of Mid-Decade Redistricting
Control of the House is currently divided between 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats, and redistricting in four states alone could shift the balance of power, as just 218 seats are needed for a party to win control of the chamber. In Alabama and Louisiana, recent court rulings have required these states to redraw their maps to better represent their Black populations. Each state is projected to gain one safe or likely Democratic district as a result of this mid-decade redistricting.
In February, the New York State Legislature approved new congressional maps that significantly favor the Democratic Party, especially in the Hudson Valley of Upstate New York. Democrats lost six seats in New York between the 2018 and 2022 elections, but the new map, according to our forecast, will grant Democrats control over 20 of the state’s 26 congressional districts.
Conversely, in North Carolina, a gerrymander drawn by the Republican state legislature could provide the GOP with up to four additional seats. North Carolina’s 6th District’s new lines have swung the region from a 13-point Democratic advantage to a 15-point Republican advantage, making it highly likely that Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Manning will be ousted from her seat. Voters of color in Charlotte were packed into the overwhelmingly Democratic 12th District, and the Piedmont Triad — the cities of High Point, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem — was divided among four separate districts to provide Republicans with pickup opportunities.
Swing Districts Beyond Redistricting
Beyond New York, North Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana — the states where mid-decade redistricting is expected to significantly alter the outcome of certain House races — our forecast only predicts a few districts will change hands.
Washington State’s 3rd Congressional District, located in the southwestern corner of the state and encompassing the city of Vancouver and its metropolitan area, flipped from red to blue in 2022. However, this area tends to lean Republican in general elections, and the likelihood that Trump will repeat his 2016 and 2020 success in this region this year means this district may narrowly flip back into Republican hands. This forecast anticipates 2022 second-place finisher Republican Joe Kent narrowly winning over current Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
South of the Columbia River lies Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, which spans from the southern outskirts of Portland to the fast-growing city of Bend east of the Cascades. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer won this district by just over two points, but this forecast predicts a win by Democratic candidate Janelle Bynum. Biden would have won this district in 2020, and the city of Bend has grown increasingly Democratic-leaning in the last decade. Again, since the 2024 House elections will take place concurrently with the general election, results in the presidential race will likely reverberate down-ballot.
In California, two districts are projected to flip from Republican hands to Democratic ones: the 13th District, located in the San Joaquin Valley, and the 27th District, in northern Los Angeles County. Both of these districts would have been won by President Biden in 2020 had they existed in their current configurations, and both parties have hotly contested them in every House election cycle in the last decade. Republican John Duarte’s 564-vote margin of victory over Adam Gray in 2022 in the 13th District might tempt some to call Democratic success in the district a foregone conclusion, but recent rightward shifts in the Central Valley since 2020 have complicated forecasts of this race. A Democratic flip in the 13th is favored, but it is by no means certain.
Incumbent Republican Mike Garcia’s 6.4-point win over former Rep. Christy Smith in the 27th, on the other hand, should not invite an overestimation of Republican chances in the Santa Clarita-based district, as Democratic candidate George T. Whiteside, former Chief of Staff of NASA and former CEO of Virgin Galactic, has mounted a serious effort to unseat Garcia.
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, which Republican Juan Ciscomani flipped in 2022 by just under 6,000 votes, is another district predicted to flip blue on Nov. 5. Ciscomani only garnered 60% of votes in the Republican primary this year, betraying a lack of confidence in him among Republicans. Democratic candidate Kirsten Engel, who lost in 2022, won a crucial endorsement from the Arizona branch of the AFL-CIO, and prominent Arizona Republicans like Megan McCain, widow of former Sen. John McCain; and former Sen. Jeff Flake have not publicly endorsed Ciscomani. Furthermore, the presence of Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake on the ballot, whose inflammatory comments on election fraud are often cited as one factor why she lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Katie Hobbs, may turn voters away from congressional Republicans in the state. Northwest of the 6th, Arizona’s 1st District is also expected to be decided by just a few thousand votes this year, though incumbent Republican David Schweikert’s 11-year tenure may shield him from down-ballot effects.
In New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, Biden’s success in the region in 2020 and the rapid leftward trend in North Jersey since 2018 has favored Democratic candidate Sue Altman’s victory in the district over another win by incumbent Republican Thomas Kean Jr.
The last projected flip in a state not subject to mid-decade redistricting is Michigan’s 10th Congressional District, centered in Macomb County in the northeastern suburbs of Detroit. Republican John James emerged victorious in the district in 2022 by under 2,000 votes, and Democratic success in Michigan’s statewide races for president and senator could spell an early end for his tenure in Congress. Michigan’s 10th is likely to go the same direction as the state in the general election.
This prediction is based on predicted margin of victory (0/5/15)
Final margin: 222-213; D FLIP
