By Grant Lemmenes, Guest Writer

As November approaches, millions of Americans will cast their ballots, electing their future representatives in Congress.

Using the Race to the WH forecast, the 2026 midterm picture starts with a clear Democratic advantage in the House and a much more unsettled Senate. The current projected House model gives Democrats a 79.1% chance of winning the majority, compared to 20.9% for Republicans. 

The Senate forecast is tighter, with projections showing Democrats at 49 seats, Republicans at 47 and four toss-ups, meaning control still runs through a small number of high-impact races. 

“The most common expectation right now is that the House will flip while the Senate will have Republicans retain control. If we begin to see new trends in the economy or ongoing international conflict, we may see the polls favor the incumbents,” first-year finance and marketing major and political economy minor Ben Norton said.

The biggest House-side update is Virginia redistricting. Virginia voters approved a Democratic-backed congressional map that could flip four Republican-held House seats and potentially move the state’s delegation from a six-to-five Democratic edge to something closer to ten-to-one. 

The change is part of a broader mid-decade redistricting fight, but it remains legally uncertain with Republican challenges still active and courts able to affect whether the map is used. For a House forecast already giving Democrats a strong majority chance, Virginia is one of the clearest reasons the party’s path has widened. 

The cycle is also being shaped by scandal-driven vacancies. Rep. Eric Swalwell resigned from Congress amid multiple sexual misconduct and assault allegations, forcing California to schedule an Aug. 18 special election for his vacant 14th District seat. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s special victims bureau also opened a preliminary investigation into a sexual assault allegation from 2018.

 Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas also resigned amid backlash over sexual misconduct allegations tied to an admitted affair with a former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later died by suicide. These departures add special-election uncertainty, ethics pressure and candidate-recruitment complications in a House environment where even safe seats briefly matter. 

In the Senate, Texas is one of the most consequential races on the map. Ken Paxton leads John Cornyn in the Republican runoff, 48% to 40%, with 11% undecided, according to a Texas Public Opinion Research poll reported by KERA. 

The same polling suggests that even a President Donald Trump endorsement of Cornyn might not fully close the gap, while a Trump endorsement of Paxton could strengthen Paxton’s position. Texas is normally a Republican-leaning state, but the runoff result could affect how competitive Democrats can make the seat in November.

 Michigan is the other Senate race drawing national attention. The open-seat Democratic primary is shaping up to be increasingly messy, with Abdul El-Sayed, Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens competing for the nomination, while Republicans look to former Rep. Mike Rogers as their likely nominee. Republican outside groups are preparing major spending in Michigan, seeing it as a possible hedge against Democratic gains elsewhere. 

The national backdrop is volatile as well. U.S. military strikes on vessels in the eastern Pacific killed four more people, bringing the reported total killed in those boat strikes to at least 174 since the administration began targeting alleged “narcoterrorists.” 

Combined with the Iran War economic concerns, shutdown-related funding fights over the Department of Homeland Security, resignations and redistricting litigation, the midterms are shaping up less as a normal referendum and more as a cycle defined by unstable maps, contested primaries and sudden vacancies.