Speaker Johnson seems to be very optimistic these days, saying the GOP will “defy history when we grow the majority in the House” in 2026.
The Speaker is clearly referencing the announcement of the new Texas GOP redistricting plan for the U.S. House seats in Texas, which was announced recently and could change a 25 Republican to 13 Democrat House delegation edge to a 30 Republican to 8 Democrat edge. This would be a net gain of 5 seats, if the five new seats that are all pro-Trump by double digits vote Republican. But a lot depends on whether the Hispanic voters in those districts continue their electoral march towards the GOP.
This is not the only redistricting plan that Johnson may be relying on. We are also waiting on the Ohio GOP to redistrict, which may net 2 or 3 more seats. It is also possible that Republicans will redistrict in Indiana, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire and Florida. Only in Florida could the GOP pick up more than one seat, although it is unlikely to be as big as the possible shift in Texas, as the Republicans currently have a 20 to 8 edge in the Florida delegation.
Democrats, of course, are squawking in fake partisan outrage about the gerrymandering, but, in Texas, the new districts are actually more compact and geographically logical than the old districts were, and the new map includes more Hispanic majority districts as well. Further, the Democrats themselves have instituted ridiculous gerrymanders in California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada, sometimes by serendipitous means, so it is hard to take their objections seriously.
While Democrats have vowed to respond in their own states, that seems unlikely to accomplish much, with only Maryland’s one GOP district in any real danger.
Anyway, this clearly shows that the GOP is taking a page from the GOP experience in 2002, one time in recent years when the majority party bucked the mid-term curse, by making redistricting a crucial part of the Trump campaign team’s plan to hold the U.S. House.
The entire Trump plan now seems to be:
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Push GOP redistricting – see above;
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Minimize retirements – the Trump team has “steered Republican candidates in House races in Iowa, Michigan and New York” from running for other offices and thus opening up their potentially vulnerable districts;
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Spend big – the GOP continues to spend large amounts of money to protect its majority, although not quite as much as the Democrats. It is unclear how much the affiliated outside groups are spending, though;
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Take primary challengers off the table – by endorsing members for their House seats early, Trump is making it hard for another Republican to challenge the incumbent;
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Raise gobs more money – the GOP has outraised the Democrats at both the relevant national committees;
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Ramp up recruiting;
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Push certain issues – taking a page from 1998, the only other recent time the majority party bucked the mid-term curse, the GOP plans to attack House Democrats on impeachment (I am glad I suggested that 😊). Considering the great hatred emanating from Democrats regarding Trump, it seems likely that many individual Democrat candidates will come out for another impeachment, even though the Senate will never remove the President.
Outside factors also seem to be playing into Speaker Johnson’s optimism.
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The “U.S. economy grew at a 3% rate in Q2, a better-than-expected pace…” If this keeps up, and if the U.S. does not get engaged in a long-term conflict – despite the desires of the leftists and the woke right – this makes it unlikely for any blue wave in the House.
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Circling back to the RCP average, Donald Trump’s approval rating has moved back up to 46.3 percent approval to 51.4 percent disapproval. So much for the supposed backlash on the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Epstein Scandal, the Iran attack, the firings of federal government workers, the deportations of criminals, etc. And, as Hot Air and I commented before, the left-leaning pollsters are still up to their old tricks when it comes to polling, so the real average certainly is more favorable to President Trump.
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The Democrats can’t stop fighting Donald Trump on every issue, including the ‘80/20’ issues that favor him. The GOP should continue to take advantage of that, especially on immigration issues and deportations.
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The Democrats also can’t stop hating/ranting against Trump in public, and castigating their own party leadership for not acting as belligerently, despite how off-putting it looks to moderates and non-partisans. I have belabored this point multiple times in my doom loop series of columns, but here is a Democrat consultant saying the same thing and begging his party to stop acting like loons. I suspect the Democrats won’t learn this lesson in 2026, however (It took them 12 years to learn to stop running outspoken and weak leftists against the GOP in the 1980’s).
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Strangely enough, after claiming that he was going to challenge Republicans and Democrats with a deficits-do-matter third party, Elon Musk has decided to give much of his money to GOP super PACs. This is the smart play, although at this point I have no idea what Musk is going to do next, so he certainly could change his strategy again.
Keep in mind that the GOP needs only to limit their losses to two seats in the House to retain control of that chamber (Any additional seats are simply gravy). If the Republicans do pick up a sizable number of seats in redistricting, and there is no recession, considering that the GOP is not in a bad place in the boom-and-bust cycle of the House, this is very doable.
