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Former Rep. Conor Lamb sees similarities between the current election cycle and President Donald Trump’s midterm election in 2018 in which Democrats romped to a gain of 41 House seats. Just like 2018, Republicans are at risk of a big drop in turnout in 2026 that could threaten their candidates across the country.
But Lamb, a Democrat who won a special House election that year in southwest Pennsylvania, also sees worrying differences between the two elections. Namely, Democratic voters are divided in a way they weren’t seven years ago, less confident now and at times as angry at their own leaders as they are at Republicans.
“I don’t think we’re starting in as good of a place as we did in 2018,” said Lamb. “We shouldn’t be OK with that. I think a lot of that is within our control, and we’re not getting ourselves in the position we need to be in.”
Voters in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and more head to the polls Tuesday, but the real test of the country’s political temperature will be the 2026 midterms. There is a raging debate about whether next year’s midterm election will be as difficult for Republicans as it was in 2018, when the GOP lost its House majority, a slew of gubernatorial races and even lost Senate races in red states like Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia.
That election set the stage for Democrats to win the presidency two years later, albeit by a much narrower margin, and still counts as the electoral lowpoint for Republicans in the ongoing Trump era.
But Republicans argue that this election is different, pointing to a series of metrics, including the polls testing which party voters hope controls Congress after the midterms and incumbent fundraising, that indicate the party is much better positioned to weather next year’s midterm election than it was 2018. More than anything, they argue that Trump’s term has been such a success that it’s motivated the party’s base and won enough moderate voters that they can have a strong election next year.
Voters “can see from their own lives that they’re better off with President Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling Congress,” said Rep. Beth Van Duyne, vice chair for finance of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s political arm.
“You know that question, ‘Are you better off now than you were last year?’” she said. “I think, overwhelmingly, just looking at crime alone in these communities, people would say yes.”
The GOP’s confidence elicits an eye-roll from Democrats, who say that all of the most important factors for next year’s races point toward a strong Democratic year. The president is unpopular, people are unhappy with the economy and there are few signs that Republicans can overcome the turnout issues that traditionally plague every party that holds the White House during a midterm election.
“They’re not behaving to me like folks that are particularly confident,” said Julie Merz, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ political arm. “If you are having to redistrict in multiple states, that’s not a sign that you’re real comfortable with the map and your ability to hold the map. So that’s a tell.”
Recent polls show Trump’s approval rating slipping into the low 40s, making him about as popular as he was during the 2018 election. The president gets some of his lowest marks from voters on the economy, as people continue to struggle with the cost of living and inflation.
Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said she sees many similarities to 2018, an election in which health care was at the forefront and voters were eager to put a check on what they saw as the excesses of the Trump administration.
“We just don’t sit down and expect history to repeat itself, but it is a Trump midterm so there are some trends that are similar,” she said.
The divide in views boils down to whether Trump, more celebrated than ever by the party’s base but bogged down by low approval ratings, is an electoral asset to Republican candidates because he can boost turnout or a drag on the party because of his unpopularity with many moderate voters.
“There is no room for Republicans at this point to separate from Trump or have any daylight,” Barber said. “That is going to be difficult for their candidates to navigate if there is a backlash to Republican control of Washington.”
The split also centers on whether voters will blame Republicans for their dissatisfaction with the economy or, as conservatives say, give the GOP a pass on pocketbook issues because they’re happy with how the party is handling matters such as crime and immigration.
“I think the broader issues that people are going to be paying attention to are things like the border and immigration,” said Jennifer DeCasper, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s political arm. “And I think those are going to be the issues that are really turning people out to the polls.”
Voters will reward a party that is doing exactly what it said it would do in power, she added.
“The mantra of the day is ‘Promises, made promises kept,’” DeCapser said. “It’s very simple: Trump came in saying XYZ, and he’s doing XYZ.”
Senate Republicans hold a three-seat edge in the legislative body and control its tie-breaking vote through vice presidency, meaning Democrats would need to gain a net of four seats to win a majority in 2026. Doing so is widely seen as a longshot. The Republican senators up for reelection next year represent only one state, in Maine, that Trump lost in 2024, even if the party is expected to face serious challenges in North Carolina and Ohio and could draw strong opponents in Iowa, Alaska and Texas.
The GOP is expected to seriously challenge three Democratic-held seats, in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire.
But Democrats are much more hopeful about the House, where the party currently faces only a three-seat deficit. Even after a redistricting process expected to favor Republicans, Democrats expect they’d need to gain a single-digit number of seats either held by the GOP or redrawn by Republicans.
Democratic officials are hopeful they can do more than just win a bare majority next year. Merz, the DCCC’s executive director, pointed to two Democratic candidates in 2018 elected in the deepest red districts: Joe Cunningham in South Carolina and Kendra Horn in Oklahoma.
“The House playing field will expand if President Trump and House Republicans continue on their current trajectory,” Merz said. “A year out from November 2018, no one thought candidates like Kendra Horn in Oklahoma and Joe Cunningham in South Carolina would flip districts, and both came to Congress.”
Before taking on Republicans in a general election, however, Democrats first need to address dissension within their own ranks. Polls show that approval of the Democratic Party is at historic lows this year, in part because dissatisfaction among Democratic voters unhappy at their party’s leadership inability to effectively counter Trump.
That unhappiness has manifested in a series of primaries next year. Candidates backed by party leaders in Washington face stiff challenges in Maine, Michigan, and Texas. House Democrats are also expected to face many competitive primaries in 2026, with as many as four or five competitive candidates running in some districts.
Merz said the party’s brand will matter in the 2026 election but added that she expects nearly every Democrat unhappy with its leadership will still vote for Democratic candidates next year.
“It’s the old saying: People don’t like Congress, but they like their member of Congress,” she said. “And I think we’re already seeing that in our data, that the right candidate and the right messenger can kind of take the sting out of those criticisms or those disappointments might have with the party writ large.”
Parties out of power have traditionally done well in midterm elections this century. The only two exceptions came in 2002, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and 2022, when Republicans struggled after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion.
Democratic strategists say all the factors that usually drive a midterm backlash are present this election cycle, centered on an unpopular Trump. The president’s approval ratings on the economy are worse than in 2018. Meanwhile, Trump has said in recent months that rising costs are no longer a problem and that he “defeated” inflation.
Asked if Republicans would repeat Trump’s message about inflation on the campaign trail next year, GOP leaders suggested they would take a slightly different approach.
“I think we’ve stopped the bleeding,” Van Duyne said. “This is triage. We stopped bleeding from the Biden administration and now are looking at solutions.”
Van Duyne and other Republicans said they care less about polls of the president’s approval rating than surveys on the generic congressional ballot, which show voters nearly evenly split on which party should control Congress. That marks a departure from 2018, when Democrats led many of those surveys by a large margin.
Republicans also point to a fundraising advantage — the NRCC outraised the DCCC through the first nine months of the year for the first time in a decade — and to a belief that Trump’s perceived success in the White House will motivate the party’s base to turn out in droves next year.
GOP officials say that many of their campaign efforts are as focused on turning out the party’s core voters, those who voted for Trump last year but often don’t vote in midterm elections.
“There’s still, of course, a component of convincing voters to side with you on issues, but it’s as much in the midterm persuading them to just get off the couch,” said Brendan Jaspers, the NRSC’s political director. “And so I think that our approach will be to adopt the methods that worked for the President’s campaign to turn out the exact same voters that we did get.”
Those voters, he added, have stayed “more enthusiastic about their support of the president and Senate Republicans, largely due to the fact that we actually took action and did something.”