We have just turned the corner, entering a new year (2025), a new Congress (119th), a new election cycle (2026), and in 2028, presumably the first presidential election since 1976 without a Bush, Clinton, or Biden on a ticket. There is a fair chance of generational change coming as well. President Biden was born in 1942 near the tail end of the Silent Generation (1928-1945), and President-elect Trump was born in 1946, the first year of the baby boomers. Will the next Oval Office occupant hail from Generation X (born 1965-1980)?
It is almost disorienting to think about the shifting partisan fortunes in Washington over the last decade. Eight years ago, in January 2017, Republicans controlled all three elected elements of our national government—Donald Trump was moving into the White House, Paul Ryan was the new speaker of a GOP-controlled House, and Mitch McConnell sat atop a GOP Senate majority.
Four years ago, in January 2021, it was a Democrat, Joe Biden, unpacking at the White House; another, Nancy Pelosi, taking over as speaker; and Chuck Schumer the Senate majority leader. Now, we have Trump moving back into the Oval Office, Mike Johnson as speaker of a Republican House, and John Thune as Senate majority leader. Democrats again have plenty of time on their hands.
Given the strong tendency for the party holding the presidency to lose House seats in midterm elections (18 out of 20 since the end of World War II and 36 out of 40 since the end of the Civil War) and Democrats only being three flips shy of a 218-seat majority, the chances of another changing of the guard two years from now look pretty good. Three seats in a 435-member chamber is practically nothing, without even considering the challenges Johnson faces. The temptation for legislative hostage-taking with such small margins makes running a government really difficult.
On the other hand, the near-term prospects for Senate Democrats look pretty dismal. While Republicans are defending 22 Senate seats in 2026 to just 13 for Democrats, several factors make the odds of a flip much lower than in the House. With just one-third of Senate seats up every two years, each of the three individual classes of Senate seats up are hardly cross sections of the country.
The correlation between the party holding the White House and the party losing Senate seats in midterm elections is considerably weaker. In the 20 post-World War II midterms, the out party gained Senate seats in just 13 midterms (65 percent). It gained at least one seat in six midterms. One election saw no change at all. If we run it back to 1913, when voters, as opposed to state legislatures, first began to elect senators, the performance of the out party looks even worse, gaining seats in the chamber in just 19 of 28 elections (57 percent).
Republicans have 20 seats up for reelection in the normal rotation in 2026. The party will also have to defend Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s Ohio seat in a special election along with Sen. Marco Rubio's seat in Florida, assuming he is confirmed as secretary of State. There has been no indication yet who Gov. Mike DeWine will appoint in the former nor who Gov. Ron DeSantis will choose in the latter, but both states have become very difficult for Democrats in recent years.
Based purely on Trump’s performance in this past year’s presidential race, the two Democratic senators at the top of GOP target lists are Jon Ossoff in Georgia and Gary Peters in Michigan. Further back on the list, but still vulnerable, are New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Tina Smith in Minnesota. It’s also worth keeping an eye on Mark Warner in Virginia, Cory Booker in New Jersey, and Ben Ray Lujan in New Mexico. All three states moved toward Republicans in the recent presidential election.
Again, using Trump’s 2024 showing as a yardstick, the most vulnerable Republican seats are those of Susan Collins in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. After those two, Democrats’ chances get considerably tougher, with targets including Dan Sullivan in Alaska and the aforementioned special election in Ohio. Beyond that, it starts getting almost impossibly difficult—Joni Ernst in Iowa, the special election in Florida, John Cornyn in Texas, and Roger Marshall in Kansas.
The precarious Republican majority in the House, coupled with the much more secure Senate, makes for a very interesting dynamic. If the roles were reversed, it would be easy to see House Republicans hell-bent for leather, pushing through a very aggressive agenda, with Republicans in the Senate tapping the brakes to slow things down.
But under the current circumstances, the Senate will be less of a saucer for cooling down what gets past the House—especially given the presence of Trump at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue with no reelection concerns to restrain him.