As the midterms loom, the commentariat is confidently predicting that the Republican House majority is all but doomed. It is of course true that history does not portend a victorious outcome for the GOP. The president’s party almost always loses House seats in midterm elections. Yet history has been confounded more than once during the Trump era. There are factors at play this year that may save the GOP majority. The Republicans enjoy a 2-to-1 cash advantage over the Democrats, mid-decade redistricting could net the GOP 10 additional House seats, and the same people who orchestrated President Trump’s historic 2024 victory are managing the party’s midterm strategy.
Read more Hong As In Wrong
In other words, the Democrats must win three-quarters of the swing seats with serious money problems and a DNC that is clearly dysfunctional.
The most daunting obstacle facing the Democratic effort to retake the House is its huge disadvantage in funding. The New York Times reports , “The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.” And it gets worse. Fox News reports, “As the Democratic National Committee (DNC) shouldered significant debt and fell behind its GOP equivalent, Democratic leadership decided to use its headquarters as collateral for a $15 million loan, according to public records.” Even Democrat-friendly MS NOW concedes,
With fewer than 100 days until the November midterms, Democrats confront an increasingly uncomfortable truth: Republicans and their allied groups have opened a cash advantage of roughly half a billion dollars over Democrats. And the party’s own Democratic National Committee is already carrying more debt than money in the bank. In their most recent filings, the Republican National Committee and its related House and Senate fundraising committees, along with super PACs aligned with President Donald Trump and the GOP leadership, reported a combined $1 billion to spend.
This Republican cash advantage was augmented by the recent Supreme Court ruling in NRSC v. FEC, which altered campaign finance law as it applies to party committees. Henry Olsen explains in the Washington Post: “The national Republican congressional committees can now leverage a big cash advantage over their Democratic counterparts to air more ads in coordination with their candidates.” The Court’s decision also made it possible for the RNC, NRSC and NRCC to qualify for lower ad rates because they will essentially be the candidate’s own advertising. The Republicans got more good financial news last week, when Elon Musk authorized his super PAC to spend $100 million to $120 million to help elect the party’s congressional candidates.
Read more Germany’s Electricity Rationing Is No Longer Unthinkable
According to a report in Axios, “America PAC will focus on door-knocking, digital advertising and direct mail aimed at turning out the conservative base, including voters who typically are less inclined to cast ballots in a non-presidential election year.” It’s difficult to exaggerate the importance of this kind of investment in turning out low propensity voters who are less likely to show up and vote in a midterm election when President Trump is not officially on the ballot. President Trump’s senior political adviser James Blair told Axios, “America PAC was an essential partner for our historic GOTV operation in 2024, and their return for 2026 is a huge boost for Republicans across the country.” And the New York Times elaborates:
Mr. Musk’s super PAC is closely coordinating with an ecosystem of outside groups that are preparing field campaigns, including Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the billionaire Koch brothers’ political network, and the Sentinel Action Fund, another conservative organization. Republican outside groups are planning to pool their field operations more than ever after a Supreme Court ruling in late June made it cheaper for party committees to work directly with candidates … To help its efforts, America PAC is lining up firms that focus on knocking on voters’ doors.
In addition to their funding advantage, the GOP won the fabled “redistricting wars,” leaving the Democrats with fewer pick-up opportunities in the House than they expected to have this cycle. As David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report writes, “In late spring of 2025, it would have been hard to believe that ten states would have new congressional maps in place for the 2026 midterms.” It wasn’t hard for the White House to believe, however. And, according to Wasserman, “the result is a 2026 House map that is more skewed towards Republicans and less elastic than before.” By “less elastic,” he means the number of competitive swing seats fell from 87 to 77 and the Democrats must win 57 of these seats to recapture the House.
In other words, the Democrats must win three-quarters of the swing seats with serious money problems and a DNC that is clearly dysfunctional. This brings us to the final Republican advantage in the midterms — the political team that orchestrated Trump’s historic return to the White House is managing the GOP’s midterm campaign. According to a report from Axios, it is led by James Blair and includes Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Tony Fabrizio, and Joe Gruters. All are veterans of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and the successful mid-decade redistricting push. They all understand the historical headwinds they are facing. Nonetheless, if it is possible to beat the midterm curse this is the crew that can actually pull it off.
Read more Was Anthony Fauci Too Powerful?
READ MORE from David Catron:
Mail-In-Voting: Appeals Court Hands Trump Big Win
Carville’s Presidential History Lesson
The Left’s Ben Franklin ‘Wealth Tax’ Fiction
About the Author
