There are few people, if any, who’ve tracked U.S. elections for longer or in greater depth than Charlie Cook.
Ever since 1984, when he started his eponymous political newsletter, Cook and his stellar crew of nonpartisan analysts have plumbed many thousands of races — for president, Congress, governor — following the money, sussing out the candidates, watching their ads and assaying the campaign landscape at a granular level.
Cook calls this midterm election the strangest he’s ever seen.
What appeared to be a fairly normal election for a president halfway through his term — a probable setback, as unhappy voters register their discontent — has the potential, Cook said, to turn into a disaster for Republicans. Big losses aren’t rare for the party in the White House. Democrats picked up 41 House seats in President Donald Trump’s last midterm election, in 2018.
What’s unusual, Cook suggested, is the prospect of big Democratic gains when Republicans started out this election season with so many advantages. (And that was before the GOP set off on a gerrymandering jag at Trump’s behest.)
Roughly two-thirds of the Senate seats up in November are in states Trump carried in 2024. Five of the seven toss-up races are in states Trump won, several by double digits.
On the House side, Republicans maintain control by an exceedingly narrow margin, meaning there aren’t a lot of low-hanging districts for Democrats to aim for. As Cook rightly noted, “A party cannot lose a seat they don’t have.”
But Trump’s deteriorating approval rating, an unpopular war, persistent inflation and the president’s egotistical indulgences have jeopardized a number of GOP-held seats that normally would be automatic wins, including contests in such Republican strongholds as Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and even Texas.
“I’m not a meteorologist, but it’s kind of like three competing weather fronts collided,” Cook said. “One was Iran and gasoline, diesel prices going sky high … Then there’s trade, tariffs, overall non-energy cost of living, tariff impact on farmers. And then the third is kind of the catch-all and it’s everything from ballrooms, reflecting pools, arches, vaccines, Medicaid cuts.”
We’ll get to predictions in a moment. (Patience, dear reader.)
First, let’s hear from Nathan Gonzales, another longtime election handicapper. He’s been tracking political contests nationwide for more than 25 years and edits and publishes Inside Elections — formerly the Rothenberg Political Report — another nonpartisan field guide to campaigns. Like Cook, he traffics in clear-eyed, dispassionate analysis, not partisan wish-casting or political spin.
Gonzales, too, sees a bad moon rising for Republicans.
Trump’s performance — his approval rating is flirting with record lows — “has inspired Democrats, turned off independents and created a group of apathetic Republicans,” Gonzales said, “and those are the ingredients for a good or great Democratic year.”
He noted Democrats don’t need a big wave to seize control of the House. A pickup of just three seats would flip the House, marking the seventh straight midterm election in which one chamber or the other changed partisan hands.
(For the record, there is no authoritative definition of a wave election, though it’s generally agreed the term applies to an election in which one party or the other gains a large and lopsided number of House and Senate seats.)
It’s beginning to feel a lot like 2006, Gonzales said.
“We had an unpopular Republican president, a war in the Middle East that drove up gas prices. Some members on Capitol Hill that were behaving badly,” Gonzales recalled. “I remember talking to Republicans after the fact and they admitted that, while they thought they had great research on Democratic candidates and they had a fundraising advantage, voters just didn’t care. Voters weren’t in the mood to listen to what they were saying about Democrats because they were so frustrated with what was going on with the status quo and the direction of the country.”
In that election, at the midpoint of President George W. Bush’s second term, Democrats gained six seats to take control of the Senate and netted 31 in the House, allowing the installation of Nancy Pelosi as the first female speaker in history. “A thumpin’,” Bush called it.
So, 2026.
Gonzales and his team of experts believe the House is most likely gone for Republicans, forecasting a Democratic gain of seven to 15 seats, unless the bottom falls out for the GOP and their losses climb much higher.
In the Senate, where Democrats need to pick up four seats to take control, Gonzales sees the chamber teetering on a knife’s edge, forecasting a Democratic gain of three to five seats.
“It’s too late to fundamentally change the trajectory of this election,” Gonzales said. “But if Republicans can boost Republican turnout, it might be enough to save the Senate.”
For his part, Cook agrees that Mike Johnson may be nearing the end of his speakership. The best-case scenario for the GOP would be keeping its losses to 25 House seats or less, Cook said, which is right around the average for midterm elections going back well over half a century.
“It starts getting into eyebrow-raising territory if it gets north of 35,” Cook said, “because that shouldn’t be possible with the few competitive districts we have now.”
As for the Senate, he suggested the best Republicans can hope for is a net loss of two seats, keeping the GOP barely in control. (A loss of three would mean a 50-50 split, leaving Vice President JD Vance poised to be the tiebreaker on close votes — and wouldn’t he love having to drop off the 2028 campaign trail to be on hand, just in case.)
Of course, there’s still an election to be held, votes to be cast and ballots to be counted.
Blue wave, tsunami or a pale sapphire puddle?
We’ll know in about four weeks.
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