Democrats have already completed the first step toward taking back the House: They believe they can

Large numbers of high-quality candidates are launching campaigns, the surest sign of confidence

Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie (at left), one of the strongest candidates Democrats could have recruited against Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (credit: Bob Harvie Facebook)

Jacob Smith is an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University.

When Democrat Scott Wallace announced that he would run against first-term Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the Philadelphia suburbs in early 2018, he did what almost every modern congressional candidate does: He released a launch video.

There was something unusual about that video, though. Wallace—a wealthy attorney and the grandson of FDR's second vice president, Henry Wallace—began by acknowledging that he'd tried to convince someone else to run in his stead. The target of Wallace's recruitment efforts was a much more prominent local Democrat, longtime Bucks County Commissioner Dianne Ellis-Marseglia.

Ellis-Marseglia also spoke in the video, saying that she was honored by the vote of confidence but wanted to remain in her current position. Instead, she said she encouraged the lesser-known Wallace to run.

Wallace wound up giving the incumbent a serious scare and lost by a narrow 51-49 margin. Fitzpatrick, however, won his next three campaigns by double digits, earning a reputation as a particularly tough target and drawing weaker opponents as a result.

It was a surprise, then, when Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie announced in early April that he would challenge Fitzpatrick. Harvie's kickoff came with the endorsement of a wide range of local elected officials—including his senior colleague on the county commission, Ellis-Marseglia.

Harvie first won a seat on the board in 2019—a victory that flipped control to Democrats for the first time in nearly 40 years—then won reelection in 2023. With the possible exception of Ellis-Marseglia, Harvie is one of the strongest Democratic candidates who could run for this swingy House seat.

The pattern in Pennsylvania's 1st District reflects broader early trends when comparing this election cycle to the midterms during Donald Trump's first term in office—trends that should hearten Democrats.

Why Doom & Gloom Was the Wrong Take During Trump's First Term

In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 elections, it appeared quite possible that Democrats would struggle to win back the House in 2018. With Republicans holding a 241-194 majority, Democrats needed to flip 24 seats to retake the chamber.

What's more, just 23 Republicans at the time occupied districts Hillary Clinton won in 2016. To reclaim the House, Democrats had to defend all of their seats—including 12 carried by Trump—and win the seats held by Clinton-district Republicans and flip some outright red districts.

It looked like a tall order—and to some pundits, an impossible one. At The Downballot's predecessor site, I published an analysis in early 2017 explaining why projections of doom and futility from party leaders, such as then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, were particularly unhelpful for Democrats' prospects of winning back the House.

Research I later updated and published in my 2021 book, Minority Party Misery, showed that strong, experienced candidates are less likely to run when it looks like their party will lose the next election because of how unpleasant it is to wind up in the minority. In other words, expectations of a bad House election could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And while it seemed like Democrats faced long odds in 2018, the party actually had fewer tough seats to defend than it did during the previous time it had flipped the House in 2006. The naysayers ultimately proved wrong: An unpopular president could (and did) yield a blue wave, as Democrats defied expectations to gain 40 seats, more than enough for a majority.

Eight years later, Democrats again head into a Trump midterm with serious concerns facing the party and American democracy as a whole. But there's one old worry you won't hear much: that the House is unflippable.

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How the Conventional Wisdom Has Flipped

If anything, the conventional wisdom already holds just the opposite. As Kyle Kondik recently wrote at Sabato's Crystal Ball, "History suggested Democrats would be favored to flip the House in 2026 as soon as Donald Trump clinched the presidency in 2024."

Additionally, my forthcoming book, Waves of Discontent, examines the persistently low level of satisfaction with the direction of the country since 2005, which has typically doomed the president's party in recent midterms. Based on that pattern, a flip in the House majority in 2026 is very likely.

Crucially, however, it isn't just pundits or academics who think that Democrats can win back the House—it's Democratic politicians themselves.

Political scientist Gary Jacobson, an expert on congressional elections, found that candidates with political experience—what he terms "high-quality candidates"—are more likely to run for Congress when political conditions favor their party.

I extended this research in Minority Party Misery and discovered that when majorities are up for grabs, high-quality candidates are more likely to run in swing seats when their party is likely to come out on top. The decisions these candidates make are a good proxy for how parties perceive the national environment because running carries the risk of a loss and sometimes requires that high-quality candidates give up their current office.

High-Quality Candidates Are Lining Up for Democrats

An important difference between this cycle compared to this same point eight years ago is that far more high-quality candidates have announced for Congress in swingy seats currently held by the GOP, despite the fact that Democrats go into this election already holding more House seats than eight years ago.

In 2017, through the end of April, 24 seats held by Republicans had at least one declared Democratic candidate, but only five of these seats featured a candidate who had previously won elective office. This year, there are 17 seats held by Republicans with an announced Democratic candidate, but 10 of these races have at least one challenger with elective office experience.

In addition to Pennsylvania's 1st District, other tossup districts with Democratic candidates who would qualify as "high quality" under Jacobson's metrics include New York's 17th, Pennsylvania's 7th District, and Colorado's 8th.

That these candidates have political experience is not an endorsement of any candidate, nor does it mean that they are all necessarily the strongest candidate for that seat. Indeed, 2018 featured many first-time candidates such as Josh Harder in California, Andy Kim in New Jersey, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan—all of whom lacked prior electoral experience but flipped seats that year and have won tough races since then.

But the emerging patterns for 2026 do demonstrate that a number of Democratic politicians believe that their party can succeed in the upcoming midterm election. For these candidates, the risk of a potential loss is worth it. They see that they have a real chance to be part of a Democratic majority that serves as a bulwark against the final two years of Trump's second term.

It's also still incredibly early. Many more Democrats with political experience may well run if Trump's popularity continues to drop as economic conditions deteriorate and the House battleground expands.

None of this is to downplay the grave threats Trump poses to American democracy, nor does it mean Democrats are guaranteed to flip the House. But Democrats are now showing that they believe they can win it back, a crucial first step on the road to victory.

Views are the author's own and do not reflect the views of his employer.