How Democrats could take the House

For a moment, let’s set aside the race for the White House.

We have another historic close match in the battle for the House of Representatives. The chamber is the nation’s largest representative body — with 435 members.

At the moment, Republicans have a slim majority in the House. Whether they keep it or Democrats can win it back comes down to a few dozen races.

READ MORE: How Republicans could take the Senate

As part of our series mapping out the 2024 election, let’s take a closer look at the battle for control of the chamber.

The basics

• This Congress, Republicans have a 221-214 majority. (That counts current vacancies.)
• When you add in the effect of new maps, Democrats need to gain five seats to win control of the House.
• That is not a huge number and Democrats have a few paths to achieving it.

The map shifts

Democrats start with a one-seat disadvantage created by new maps.

Republican gains. North Carolina gained a House seat due to population changes. After several map proposals and court rounds, the boundaries that have stuck are a big political gain for the GOP. Both parties expect Republicans to pick up at least three Democratic House seats due to the new maps.

Democrats have map gains as well. They expect to pick up two seats thanks to court battles over maps in Alabama and Louisiana.

Overall, 21 Republican seats are competitive, with 15 of them being toss-ups or already favoring Democrats. Let’s take a closer look.

Democratic opportunity on home turf

They may have lost some ground from the maps, but Democrats like a different piece of the location puzzle: Eight vulnerable Republicans are in districts in the deep blue states New York and California.

• Which races are vulnerable? The eight Republicans are Reps. John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel in California and Reps. Brandon Williams, Anthony D’Esposito and Marc Molinaro in New York. Per the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, all eight are either toss-up races or, in the case of Williams in New York, a race that Democrats already are favored to win.
• A ninth Republican. New York Rep. Mike Lawler is also vulnerable but has moved out of the “toss-up” category into the somewhat safer “lean Republican” status. (You can see our story on that race here.)

Biden won in all but one of these districts (that’s Calvert’s in California, where Trump won by a point in 2020). That gives Democrats hope that a clear Harris win and rejection of Trump in New York and California could help with the down-ballot shifts they need for the House.

But New York and California are not the only Democratic opportunities.

Other pick-up chances

Let’s move to three races in the middle of the country.

Two Iowa Republicans are intensely fighting to keep their jobs. Those are Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn. Miller-Meeks won the seat in 2020 with one of the slimmest margins in modern history — six votes. Nunn survived in 2022 by less than a point.

Iowa has just four congressional seats and less expensive media markets, so the state is being hammered by ads in both races.

Another race to watch: Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. Republican Rep. Don Bacon is a moderate who’s well-liked on Capitol Hill. (His trademark phrase is, “Who doesn’t like Bacon?”) But his Omaha district voted for Biden by six points in 2020. Nebraska separates its electoral votes by congressional district and Bacon’s district is a single electoral vote that Democrats are determined to keep.

This district could end up determining the presidential race. Currently, Harris seems to have a wide lead in “blue dot” Omaha, which is a large problem for Bacon.

There are also four more Republicans in toss-up races: two in Arizona, one in Pennsylvania and one in Oregon. Another five Republicans are in that “lean Republican” category that Democrats see as gettable.

These races are tough to predict, full of district-specific dynamics and issues. Some have more national spending than others. Some simply have better campaigns than others.

That said, Republicans have pick-up chances too.

Where Democrats are vulnerable

Democrats have fewer races in the toss-up category: 11, compared with 15 for Republicans. But those are still 11 races that Democrats could lose.

Those toss-ups are across the map: Reps. Mary Peltola in Alaska, Yadira Caraveo in Colorado, Jared Golden in Maine (running against a former NASCAR driver), Don Davis in North Carolina, Gabe Vasquez in New Mexico, Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington state. And there are two toss-up open seats in Michigan, as well as one in Virginia.

As with the Republican seats, these Democratic front-liners are experiencing a host of different dynamics.

Peltola in Alaska and Golden in Maine both may benefit from ranked-choice voting.

But in Virginia, where Rep. Abigail Spanberger has left her seat open to run for governor, Democrat Eugene Vindman is seeing his numbers go the wrong way. Vindman, the twin brother of Trump whistleblower Alexander Vindman, also had a small role in the first Trump impeachment. He initially ran on those credentials but the district has been unimpressed and now he rarely mentions it.

What will happen?

This is all very close. It seems certain that both Democrats and Republicans will lose some of their current seats.

The ratio will determine everything.

Were the starting point even — meaning if the two parties started at a tie — Democrats would be highly favored to win back control. But starting down by five seats, including the map changes, makes it a much closer battle.

Democrats in general feel better about their chances than Republicans. But this is still anyone’s game.

And a small shift in presidential momentum could have a big effect down the ballot for control of the House.

One more note: Thanks to slow counting in California, we are unlikely to know the fate of the chamber on election night. So be ready to settle in on this one.