Takeaways from the latest special election and what it means for control of the House

There was yet another sign this week of a potential 2026 wave that could hand control of the House of Representatives to Democrats.

Republicans won a special congressional election in Tennessee, but only by 9 points in a district the Republican candidate last year won by 22 points.

That’s in line with the double-digit overperformances by Democrats in elections this year.

On average, Democrats have done 14 points better than candidates in 2024 (including comparing the presidential results in 2024 to the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia last month).

Here’s how that breaks down:

• FL-1 — 2024: R+32, 2025: R+15; Difference: D+17
• FL-6 — 2024: R+33, 2025: R+14; Difference: D+19
• VA-11 — 2024: D+34, 2025: D+50; Difference: D+16
• AZ-7 — 2024: D+27, 2025: D+39; Difference: D+12
• VA-GOV — 2024: D+6, 2025: D+16; Difference: D+10
• NJ-GOV — 2024: D+6, 2025: D+14; Difference: D+8
• TN-7 — 2024: R+22, 2025: R+9; Difference: D+13

Supreme Court gives GOP a redistricting boost

Republicans hope unprecedented mid-decade redistricting will help them keep control of the House. And this week, the Supreme Court gave them a boost this week with a 6-3 decision, divided along partisan ideological lines with conservatives in the majority.

It allowed a new congressional map to move forward in Texas despite a lower-court ruling that Republicans’ redistricting efforts in the state were an illegal racial gerrymander. The high court’s conservative majority instead indicated the new map appears to be a legal, partisan gerrymander.

President Trump hopes the redrawn map nets Republicans five seats and solidifies the GOP’s very narrow majority in the House. It’s just a three-seat margin, meaning a light electoral breeze in one direction or the other can change or strengthen control.

But Republicans might not net as many seats as they hope.

Democrats are trying to offset GOP gains by redrawing maps in California and possibly in Virginia. They are also likely to get an extra seat from Utah after a judge approved a map that created a new House seat in an area that leans Democratic. 

Plus, weakening a small number of Republican strongholds in favor of a greater number of Republican-leaning districts could backfire if next year’s elections are a wave in Democrats’ favor.

Watch places like South Texas, where Republicans were hoping Trump’s gains with Latinos would stick. It’s not at all clear that will be the case anymore after polls have found Latino voters have soured on Trump because of his handling of the economy and how his administration is conducting deportations.

That’s born out in election results this year, too. In those New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, Latinos voted 2-to-1 in favor of Democratic candidates. The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found 54% of Latinos disapproved of the job Trump was doing.

An even larger study by the Pew Research Center found 70% disapproving of Trump’s job with those who voted for Trump sliding 12 points since his swearing in for this second term.

Views of the economy imperiling Republicans right now

Republicans’ best chance at retaining the House would be if views of the economy improve.

But, so far, surveys are finding people have a grim view. Gallup found, for example, that economic confidence has dropped to a 17-month low. Only 27% of respondents in the Gallup poll said the economy was getting better, four points lower than the previous month. Two-thirds (68%) said it was getting worse.

Trump isn’t helping

Trump is viewed negatively when it comes to his handling of the economy. A Politico/Public First poll found that many Americans, including almost 4-in-10 Trump voters, are saying the cost of living is the worst they can remember it being, that the president owns the economy and that he’s not doing enough to fix it.

Trump also isn’t helping Republicans’ cause when he continues to downplay affordability as a problem, as he did this week. He dismissed it as a “con job” invented by Democrats.

“This fake narrative that the Democrats talk about — affordability,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. “They just say the word, it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it, affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability, nobody could afford anything.”

But people know what they pay at a grocery store or whether they can afford a house or health care. The party in charge often gets more of the credit and blame for the economy, but in Trump’s case, people view his policies as making things worse.

People have a dim view of Trump’s tariffs, for example. Three-quarters in a recent Economist/YouGov poll said they have paid higher prices because of tariffs, including a majority of Republicans. Only 13% of respondents said they think tariffs should be increased.

And most say they are paying more, especially for groceries and utilities – 7-in-10 in an ABC/Ipsos poll last month said they’re paying more for groceries, for example.

Republican candidates are not echoing Trump’s language. The Republican candidate in Tennessee, Matt Van Epps, made specifics about the cost of living a key part of his closing message. But that messaging didn’t stave off double-digit Democratic gains in what was a high-turnout election.

The economic tide is clearly against Republicans right now. That’s one big reason there have been a high number of Republicans not running for reelection in the House — another indicator of a potential change election.