March 27, 2025, 6:32 p.m.
History is not on Republicans’ side as they try to defy political odds and hold on to the House during President Trump’s second midterms. Since World War II, the party that controls the White House has lost 26 seats on average. During Trump’s first midterms in 2018, Republicans lost 41 seats en route to a drubbing in the lower chamber.
Shades of the 2018 election now haunt the current cycle as the Trump administration enacts its aggressive agenda. The GOP’s budget plan threatens to cut Medicaid, and Trump’s immigration agenda is tied up in the courts all while Republicans prepare to pass a massive new tax package.
The ingredients have Democrats hoping for a big cycle as they try to hold vulnerable Republicans accountable, specifically by homing in on health care. Strong performances this year in special elections in traditionally red areas have further emboldened their enthusiasm.
House Majority Forward, the sister organization of House Democrats’ primary outside spender, has already gone on TV dinging Republicans for their budget.
Though the ingredients are there, it doesn’t mean Democrats are fully in the driver’s seat. Meredith Kelly, who directed communications for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2018 blue wave, said the best message is a disciplined one.
“If you try to tell the American people all of the 100 ways the budget is bad for them … they will hear nothing because there will be no message repetition and there will be no consistency,” Kelly said.
Kelly said that Republicans in the White House and Congress are “creating this chaos” so Democrats are “all swinging at different pitches.” She said if Democrats tailor a message that targets Republicans on pocketbook issues such as health care and cost of living, they’ll be in a good position.
To that extent, former Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, who chaired the center-left New Democrat Coalition, told National Journal the message ought to remain simple.
“I think one thing that Democrats do to our detriment is that we don’t exaggerate. We’re too specific,” Kuster said. “We use the actual names of the programs, and it doesn’t work.”
Kuster recommended using the term “health care” instead of Medicaid as the party messages on the GOP budget plan. She said that will resonate with voters more than the official program title.
Former DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos, who helmed the committee during the 2020 cycle, said the solution is “less about messaging and more about storytelling.” Democrats need to focus on who is hurt and how they are hurt, she said.
Bustos conceded that the work is “hard” but that candidates need to be clear in offering solutions.
Former Republican Rep. Steve Stivers, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 2018 midterms, said the work for Republicans will be hard but that they may be able to mitigate historical trends.
“If Republicans can keep their base excited and engaged, and get them to come out and vote, I think the midterms are to be pretty much a nothing-burger,” Stivers told National Journal.
To do that, Stivers said Republicans need to post strong fundraising numbers and remind voters of the “big things and good things” they voted for. But he acknowledged the headwinds the party in power typically faces during a midterm year.
Stivers said Republicans need to control the narrative, particularly around health care, and prevent Democrats from defining them on the issue, as they did in 2018.
“I think that’s the mistake we probably made in the first Trump midterm,” he said. “We probably made some missteps, I would argue, and the American people believed that the quality of their care was at stake.”
That’s how Democrats have approached their offensive opportunities so far this cycle. House Majority Forward ads say vulnerable Republicans have imperiled health care for millions to benefit billionaires such as Elon Musk, who has quickly become a boogeyman for Democrats. At the same time, some ads claiming vulnerable lawmakers voted to cut Medicaid have been taken down after the NRCC alleged defamation.
Some Republican operatives say the election will be less about convincing voters and more about mobilizing voters.
“The 2026 campaign is about turnout, not persuasion. The biggest challenge will be motivating and mobilizing Trump voters who showed up in 2020 and 2024 but skipped 2018 and 2022,” veteran GOP strategist and 515 Group founder Mike Thom told National Journal in a statement. “Campaigns that distance themselves from President Trump will be punished by his coalition staying home. First, deliver on the Trump agenda—then message relentlessly to his voters the need for two more years. Any candidate hearing otherwise should fire their consultant.”
Most Republicans say they are confident 2026 won’t be a wave year, citing the Democratic Party’s low approval rating, Trump’s personal-best approval rating, and a shrinking House battlefield.
But in addition to the lessons of 2018, special legislative elections in Iowa and Pennsylvania this year showed GOP vulnerabilities. Trump himself suggested the electoral ground may be shifting away from him.
The White House on Thursday pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations. Trump admitted on social media that “it is essential” the GOP maintains “EVERY Republican seat in Congress.”
“I don’t want to take a chance on anyone running for [Stefanik’s] seat,” Trump continued. Both Trump and Stefanik won the North Country, New York, seat by more than 20 points last year. In 2017, Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly lost a special House election in Georgia after a Republican member of Congress—who had departed for the administration—won the seat with 62 percent of the vote. In 2018, Democrat Conor Lamb managed to flip a traditionally Republican seat in Pennsylvania during a special election.
Kelly said House Democrats won in similar districts in 2018 because they expanded the map.
“We talked about putting surfboards in the water. We didn’t know how big the wave might be,” she said. “But if we had high-quality candidates with good teams and powerful stories, then people could surprise us, and that’s absolutely what happened.”
CORRECTION: The original version of this story misidentified a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee strategist. The strategist is Meredith Kelly.
