2026-02-15T11:00:47.167Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/15/politics/house-control-districts-vis
2026年众议院控制权之争将主要在”特朗普地带”决出胜负。
弗吉尼亚大学政治中心向CNN提供的最新计算结果显示，与近期其他中期选举相比，今年共和党需要捍卫的众议院席位异常之少——这些席位要么在2024年投票反对唐纳德·特朗普总统，要么仅以微弱优势支持他。这意味着民主党在中期选举中，针对明显脆弱的目标选区进行”轻松拿下”的机会，比通常情况下（即白宫反对党在中期选举的常规情况）要少。
这片”特朗普倾斜”的地形，是共和党希望打破总统所在政党在中期选举中失利的历史、并维持其微弱众议院多数优势的核心。”他们在我们的地盘上作战，”全国共和党国会委员会发言人迈克·马林内拉表示，”我们拥有根本优势。”
民主党（以及大多数独立分析师）继续认为，该党仍有希望重新获得众议院多数席位，尤其是因为要实现这一目标，他们只需赢得三个席位——这远低于反对党在中期选举中通常获得的席位数量，尤其是在特朗普目前的支持率如此低迷的情况下。
但即使如此，许多民主党人也承认，今年的战场性质将使他们难以实现许多党内活动家预期的”全面胜利”——更不用说接近2018年”蓝色浪潮”选举中他们在特朗普第一任期内净增的41个席位了。在很多方面，2026年众议院之争正在形成一场”不可阻挡的力量”与”坚不可摧的物体”的碰撞：前者是特朗普高不满意度为民主党带来的顺风，后者是共和党人被”封锁”在异常庞大的深红色选区中。
现代美国政治最强大的趋势之一是，美国人将国会选举视为更接近议会制的竞争——与其说是在两名候选人之间做选择，不如说是对哪个政党想要主导国家议程的公投。这一判断主要由选民对现任总统表现的评价塑造。其结果是，选民对总统的偏好与其在众议院和参议院竞选中的选择之间的相关性日益增强。
这种动态的一个表现来自萨巴托水晶球通讯（Center for Politics旗下）主编凯尔·孔迪克的最新研究。孔迪克及其同事最近计算了特朗普引发的中期十年一次重划选区狂潮中，两党重新划分的所有新国会选区的2024年总统选举结果（如果佛罗里达州和弗吉尼亚州也可能重新绘制地图，这些数字不包括可能的进一步变化）。
这些计算使人们能够将当前的众议院战场与该中心此前记录的总统选举结果与总统政党在下次中期选举中失利模式之间关系的研究进行比较。这一分析揭示了一个非常清晰的模式：总统政党在中期选举中的众议院席位流失，现在严重集中在总统本人在两年前的总统竞选中落后于其全国表现或仅略微超过其全国表现的选区。即使在最糟糕的中期选举环境中，两党在总统两年前表现最强的选区中遭受损失的可能性也要小得多。
例如，在2010年共和党中期选举大胜中，众议院民主党人在奥巴马在2008年的全国投票率至少低5个百分点的选区中失去了31个席位，在奥巴马的全国投票率比其全国投票率低4个百分点至高4个百分点之间的选区中失去了35个席位。相比之下，在所有这些历史性失利中，民主党在奥巴马比其全国表现高出至少5个百分点的选区中，反而增加了两个席位。2006年中期选举民主党大获全胜，虽然情况没那么严重，但也遵循了类似模式——该党主要在乔治·W·布什在2004年总统选举中相对表现较弱的选区增加了席位。
这一模式在2018年的”蓝色浪潮”选举中持续存在。与之前的中期选举一样，将民主党重新推回众议院多数席位的民主党胜选集中在那些特朗普两年前要么失利、要么仅略微超过其全国表现的选区。即便如此，这样的边缘席位比2006年或2010年要少——但民主党当时的潜在目标名单仍然比现在要大。”2018年的战场和通往多数席位的地图要比现在大得多，”当年领导民主党赢得众议院的民主党顾问丹·塞纳表示。
这段历史为民主党在2026年面临的挑战定下了基调。该中心的计算显示，与2018年相比，按照之前的总统选举结果衡量，处于高度脆弱状态的共和党人数量持续减少。这意味着，要想获得重大胜利，民主党必须比近年来中期选举中其他政党更深入地推进到敌对地形。
经过最新的重新划分选区后，孔迪克计算出，众议院共和党人正在捍卫8个特朗普在2024年失利的席位，以及25个他以不超过全国投票率4个百分点优势获胜的席位。相比之下，2018年共和党必须捍卫25个特朗普失利的席位，以及18个他以不超过全国得票率4个百分点优势获胜的席位。根据该中心的分析，共和党今年总共需要捍卫33个这样的席位，比2018年（43个）少10个，即2018年特朗普在之前总统选举中要么落后于其全国投票率、要么仅略微高于的选区数量。
今年剩余的187名众议院共和党人（占其党团的85%）所在的选区，特朗普在2024年的得票率比其全国得票率高出至少5个百分点。这一比例高于2006年和2018年共和党遭受重大中期失利前，多数党在这类安全选区中所占的比例，也高于2010年民主党在大选中惨败的情况。
政治网站Decision Desk HQ首席选举分析师杰弗里·斯凯利表示：”除非共和党这边情况进一步恶化，否则民主党很难实现接近2018年的 gains。这是因为哪个党占据哪些选区至关重要。”
更重要的是，在即将到来的中期选举中，民主党现任议员所在的席位政治上更脆弱。部分由于重新划分选区的激烈斗争，现在有16名民主党议员所在的选区是特朗普在2024年获胜的，另有约36个选区是他以微弱劣势输给副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的。
民主党人对他们在哈里斯以微弱优势获胜的选区中的现任议员并不太担心。民主党普遍持有的假设（得到独立分析师支持）是，如果在特朗普支持率达到顶峰的2024年，共和党人都无法击败这些民主党人，那么在中期选举中，当总统所在政党通常支持率下降时，他们更不可能在中期击败这些民主党人。”在总统大选中输给民主党人却在中期击败他们…历史上这是一项艰巨的任务，”孔迪克表示，”你不会期望这些议员中的很多人会输掉。”
没有人对那16名在特朗普去年获胜选区中的民主党议员的命运如此有信心。
考虑到特朗普持续下滑的支持率，其中一些议员看起来相对安全（例如代表汤姆·苏西在纽约和内华达州的苏西·李）。但他们中的其他议员有多少能在这些席位中幸存下来——特别是那些在俄亥俄州、德克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州等州被重新划分以进一步倾向共和党人的席位——仍然是11月的关键变量。共和党赢得的民主党席位越多，民主党就必须更深入特朗普的地盘才能建立多数席位，更不用说一个舒适的执政缓冲垫了。
与过去一样，民主党最容易得手的应该是8名在哈里斯选区的共和党议员。尽管其中两名议员（宾夕法尼亚州的布莱恩·菲茨帕特里克和纽约州的迈克·劳勒）曾让他们受挫，但民主党人被高度看好能拿下剩下的席位（其中四个在加利福尼亚州重新划分选区时受益于民主党，另一个是犹他州法院下令重新划分的结果）。
民主党最明确的机会是特朗普以相对微弱优势获胜的25个共和党席位。民主党国会竞选委员会（DCCC）正式将几乎所有这些共和党人列为目标，包括宾夕法尼亚州、密歇根州、爱荷华州、威斯康星州、亚利桑那州和科罗拉多州的多个席位。”民主党在这些特朗普以个位数优势获胜的选区中，有一条相当明确的路径通往多数席位，”库克政治报告高级选举分析师大卫·瓦瑟曼表示。由于哈里斯获胜的选区中捍卫的共和党人太少，瓦瑟曼表示，众议院控制权的”转折点”可能会出现在现在由共和党议员扎克·努恩（爱荷华州）和汤姆·巴雷特（密歇根州）等议员占据的席位中，特朗普在这些地方仅以微弱优势获胜。
此外，DCCC还针对了16个共和党人在2024年特朗普比其全国表现高出至少5个百分点的选区（这意味着他在这些选区至少获得了55%的选票）。正如2006年、2010年和2018年的经验所示，即使在非常有利的中期选举中，总统所在政党外的政党在这些选区中赢得的席位也相对较少。
NRCC发言人马林内拉表示，该党并不担心保住这些选区——尤其是在民主党人甚至在2018年非常有利的环境下都未能赢得很多类似选区的情况下。”他们可能无法在他们多年来最好的政治环境中做到这一点，”他说，”如果他们当时无法进入这些选区，现在又怎么可能做到呢？”
但民主党人看到了追求这些”长期机会”的几个原因。DCCC发言人维特·谢尔顿表示，特朗普不断下降的支持率为民主党人打开了这些地方的大门。”我们看到对特朗普的公众支持大幅下降，这告诉我们选民希望有人能制衡总统，”谢尔顿说。
塞纳指出了另一个理由。他指出，共和党正在建立比民主党更大的筹款优势，扩大国会战场对于防止共和党将火力集中在民主党需要扭转多数席位的少数几个边缘选区至关重要。”对抗这种资金优势的方法是迫使他们分散资源，更深入地展开防御，”塞纳说，”这使得他们很难确切地知道去哪里以及如何防御，尤其是在全国环境对他们不利的情况下。”
斯凯利怀疑民主党今天能否在特朗普的地盘深处翻转许多席位。但和瓦瑟曼等人一样，他认为如果特朗普的支持率再下降一点，可行目标的范围将会扩大。他说，这可能会引发一场更大的民主党”浪潮”，”冲击（共和党）的防洪堤并溢出”。
即使在2018年，当特朗普在选举日的支持率比现在大多数民调中的要高出几个百分点时，民主党人也意外地赢得了几个共和党人在两年前大选中轻松拿下的众议院席位，包括南卡罗来纳州、俄克拉荷马州和缅因州等州。尽管现在的地图为共和党提供了更多保护，但如果特朗普无法重建公众支持，共和党仍比民主党面临更大的风险——在11月醒来时发现意外的”惊喜”（即民主党获胜）。
These are the districts that will decide House control
2026-02-15T11:00:47.167Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/15/politics/house-control-districts-vis
The battle for control of the House of Representatives in 2026 will be decided primarily in Trump country.
Compared with other recent midterm elections, Republicans this year are defending an unusually small number of House seats that either voted against President Donald Trump in 2024 or backed him only narrowly, according to new calculations shared with CNN by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. That means Democrats have fewer easy pickup opportunities against obviously vulnerable targets than is typical for the party out of the White House during a midterm election.
This Trump-tilted terrain is central to the GOP’s hopes of defying the history of midterm losses for the president’s party and maintaining its slim House majority. “They are playing on our turf,” said Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We have the fundamental advantage.”
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Democrats (and most independent analysts) continue to believe the party remains favored to regain the House majority, especially because to do so they need to gain only three seats — far fewer than the opposition party usually wins in midterm elections, especially when the president’s job approval rating is as weak as Trump’s is now.
But even many Democrats acknowledge that the nature of this year’s battlefield will make it difficult to achieve the sweeping gains many party activists are anticipating — much less approach the 41 seats they netted during the 2018 “blue wave” election during Trump’s first term. In many ways, the 2026 battle for the House is shaping up as a collision between an irresistible force — the tailwind generated for Democrats by Trump’s high disapproval rating — and an immovable object — the unusually large number of Republicans barricaded into ruby-red House districts.
One of the most powerful trends of modern US politics is that Americans are treating congressional elections more like parliamentary contests that are less a choice between two individuals than a referendum on which party they want to set the national agenda. That judgment has been shaped above all by voters’ verdict on the performance of the incumbent president. The result is a growing correlation between voters’ preferences for president and their choices in House and Senate races.
One manifestation of that dynamic emerges from new research by Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter published by the Center for Politics. Kondik and his colleagues recently calculated the 2024 presidential results in all the new congressional districts that both parties have drawn in the mid-decade redistricting frenzy triggered by Trump. (The numbers don’t include possible further changes if Florida and Virginia redraw their maps, too, as seems likely.)
Those calculations make it possible to compare the current House battlefield with the Center’s previous studies documenting the relationship between the results in presidential elections and the pattern of losses for the president’s party in the next midterm campaign. That exercise has revealed a very clear pattern: House losses for the president’s party in midterms are now heavily concentrated in districts where the president himself lagged or only slightly exceeded his own national performance in the presidential race two years before.Even in the worst midterm environments, both parties are much less likely to suffer losses in the districts where the president ran most strongly two years before.
During the Republican midterm landslide in 2010, for instance, House Democrats lost 31 seats in districts where Barack Obama ran at least 5 points below his national vote share in 2008 and 35 seats in districts where Obama ran between 4 points below and 4 points above his national vote share. Amid all of those historic losses, by contrast, Democrats still added two seats in the districts where Obama ran at least 5 points better than he did nationally. The big Democratic gains in the 2006 midterm followed a similar, if not quite as severe, pattern, with the party mostly adding seats in districts where George W. Bush displayed relatively less strength in the 2004 presidential race.
This pattern persisted through the blue wave election in 2018. As in those earlier midterms, the Democratic gains that swept the party back to the House majority were concentrated in districts where Trump two years before had either lost or just slightly exceeded his national performance. Even by then, there were fewer of those marginal seats than in 2006 or 2010 — but the plausible target list for Democrats was still bigger than it is today. “The battlefield and the map to the majority in ’18 was substantially larger than it is now,” says Democratic consultant Dan Sena, who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the party’s sweep that year.
This history frames the challenge facing Democrats in 2026. Compared with 2018, the number of Republicans in highly vulnerable districts, as measured by the previous presidential vote, has continued to shrink, the Center’s calculations show. That means to score big gains, Democrats will have to advance further onto hostile terrain than parties usually have done in these recent midterms.
After the latest redistricting maneuvers, Kondik calculates, House Republicans are defending eight seats that Trump lost in 2024, and 25 more that he carried with a vote total no more than 4 points higher than his national vote share. By comparison in 2018, the GOP had to defend 25 seats that Trump lost and another 18 that he carried with a vote total no more than 4 points above his national percentage. In all, Republicans are defending 10 fewer seats this year (33) than in 2018 (43) where Trump in the previous presidential election either ran behind his national vote total or just slightly above it, according to the Center’s analysis.
The remaining 187 House Republicans this year, or 85% of their conference, are in districts where Trump ran at least 5 points better than his national 2024 percentage of the vote. That’s higher than the share of seats the majority party held in such secure terrain before Republicans suffered their big midterm losses in 2006 and 2018, and Democrats were routed in 2010.
“Unless the bottom drops out a bit more for Republicans, it may be difficult for Democrats to realize gains anywhere close to what they had in 2018,” said Geoffrey Skelley, chief elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ, a political website. “That’s because it matters a lot who holds what districts.”
If anything, heading into the midterm House Democrats hold more politically tenuous seats. Partially as a result of the redistricting wars, 16 of them now hold seats in districts that Trump carried and another three dozen or so are in districts he lost narrowly to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Democrats are not worried much about their incumbents in the districts that Harris narrowly carried. The Democratic assumption — generally supported by independent analysts — is that if Republicans couldn’t beat those Democrats in 2024, when Trump was at high tide, they are unlikely to do so in a midterm, when the president’s party typically recedes. “Beating a Democrat in a Harris seat that you lost for president … historically that’s a heavy lift” in the next midterm, Kondik said. “You would not expect many of those incumbents to lose.”
No one is as confident about the fate of the 16 Democrats in districts that Trump carried last time.
Given Trump’s sagging approval ratings, some of them seem relatively safe (such as Reps. Tom Suozzi in New York and Susie Lee in Nevada). But how many of their other incumbents can survive in these seats — particularly those that have been redrawn to tilt further toward the GOP in states including Ohio, Texas and North Carolina — remains a critical variable for November. The more Democratic-held seats that Republicans win, the deeper into Trump territory Democrats will have to push to establish any majority, let alone a comfortable governing cushion.
As in the past, the lowest-hanging fruit for Democrats should be the eight Republicans in districts that voted for Harris. Though two of those incumbents (Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler in New York) have frustrated them before, Democrats are strongly favored to capture the remaining seats (four of which were redrawn to benefit Democrats during the California redistricting, and another of which is the product of a court-ordered redistricting in Utah).
The clearest opportunities for Democrats are the 25 Republicans in seats that Trump won relatively narrowly. The DCCC is officially targeting almost all of those Republicans, including multiple seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Arizona and Colorado. “Democrats have a pretty defined path to the majority in these districts Trump won by single digits,” said David Wasserman, senior elections analyst at the Cook Political Report. Because there are so few Republicans defending districts that Harris won, Wasserman said, the “tipping point” for House control will likely come in seats such as those now held by Republican Reps. Zach Nunn in Iowa and Tom Barrett in Michigan, where Trump prevailed by small margins.
Beyond that, the DCCC also is targeting 16 of the Republican-held seats where Trump ran at least 5 points above his national showing in 2024 (which means he captured at least 55% of the vote in them). As the 2006, 2010 and 2018 experiences showed, the party out of the White House has won relatively few of such seats even in very good midterms.
Marinella, the NRCC spokesperson, said the party isn’t worried about holding those districts-especially after Democrats, even in the very favorable environment of 2018, failed to win many comparable places. “They couldn’t do it in probably the best political environment they had in years,” he said. “If they couldn’t go into those districts back then, how could they possibly do that now?”
But Democrats see several reasons to pursue such longer-shot opportunities. Viet Shelton, a DCCC spokesperson, says Trump’s declining job approval rating has opened the door for Democrats in these places. “We are seeing a massive drop off in public support for Trump, which tells us voters want someone to be a check on the president,” Shelton said.
Sena points to another rationale. Republicans, he notes, are building a big fund-raising advantage over Democrats, and widening the congressional battlefield is crucial to preventing the GOP from focusing that firepower solely on the few, more marginal, seats Democrats need to tip the majority. “The way you counter that money is you force them to have to spread the resources and go deeper into the map to defend themselves,” Sena said. “It makes it much harder for them to figure out exactly where to go, and exactly how to defend themselves, particularly when the national environment is moving against them.”
Skelley is skeptical that Democrats today can flip many seats deep in Trump country. But, like Wasserman and others, he believes the range of plausible targets will grow if Trump’s approval rating declines even slightly more. That, he said, could create a larger Democratic wave that “hits the (Republican) floodwall and spills over.”
Even in 2018, when Trump’s approval rating was several points higher on Election Day than it is in most polls now, Democrats unexpectedly captured a few Republican House seats that Trump had handily carried two years before in states including South Carolina, Oklahoma and Maine. For all the protection that the map now provides the GOP, if Trump can’t rebuild his public support, Republicans still face a greater risk than Democrats of waking up to unpleasant surprises in November.
