In next week's midterm elections, Democrats are projected to win back the House of Representatives, while the Senate is still rated a toss-up between the two parties. According to poll averages calculated by RealClearPolitics, Republicans would lose control of the lower chamber of Congress even if they won all 25 toss-up races. Only 183 seats are projected as solid or likely Republican wins – too few to reach the House majority of 218.
The Cook Political Report, with a similar approach to aggregating polls, calculates that 198 seats are safe or likely Republican wins – also not enough for a majority even if all 17 toss-ups projected by the source would end up decided in Republicans' favor. This would be a tighter win prognosis for Democrats nevertheless.
RealClearPolitics sees only four House district currently or previously held by Democrats likely flipping Republican: Three in Texas and Tennessee affected by voluntary redistricting and AL-02, which is being taken over by a Republican incumbent from a different district after the weakening of the Voting Rights Act by a Supreme Court decision in June allowed an embattled 2023 election map to take effect. The Cook Political Report list another voluntarily redrawn district, FL-09, as potentially flipping Republican as well as the original one affected by the aforementioned Supreme Court decision (LA-06) and one in Maine where a long-term Democratic incumbent retired.
However, as of September, there had still been seven districts redrawn by voluntary redistricting that were expected to flip Republican. Now only three to four of these are expected to succeed, while another one in Missouri was returned to its original form, diminishing Republican gains through district redrawing. Democrats redrew fewer districts in their favor but are still projected to flip all four that were rated as such in September, all of them located in California. In addition to one more gain in Utah where a previous Republican-leaning map was thrown out in court and another retirement-induced projected pick-up in Nebraska, Democrats are seeing almost a dozen races in currently Republican districts that have been turning in their favor without map interference, for example in states like Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Pennsylvania.
In the Senate, Republicans are expected to lose one seat in North Carolina to Democrats as a two-term Republican incumbent is not seeking reelection. There are also six Senate seats held by Republicans that are listed as toss-ups, including a closely watched race in Texas where Democratic challenger James Talarico is leading the race against his Republican opponent Ken Paxton who beat incumbent John Cornyn in the primaries. A win by Talarico would be the first time a Democratic senator hailed from Texas since 1999.
