Whole Hog Politics: 5 House races that will tell the story of 2026

[ Watch Whole Hog Politics Live : Hill Insider members can join us live today at 9 a.m. ET as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon go deep on this week’s political news. Members can join the discussion and pose their questions to Bill and Chris. Tune in! ]

In all the votes cast for the House of Representatives in 2024, Republicans won by 2.7 points. In the current average of national House polls, Democrats lead by 9 points. If that average turns out to be predictive, a swing of almost 13 points from the most recent House elections would be a wipeout for the party in power on par with Republican thrashings in 2018 and 2006.

The thoroughly gerrymandered map and the resilience of many incumbent Democrats in their party’s losing 2024 effort means that there aren’t enough competitive seats to produce the massive shifts we’ve seen in other midterm wipeouts, but there are certainly enough to put the Republicans back on their heels in the way they were for the closing years of President Trump ’s first term, or worse.

But we’ve known for a long time that the House had fallen out of play for the GOP. And while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) cares a great deal about how big his majority is (and how much leverage democratic socialists and Justice Democrats have over his agenda as Speaker), majority size isn’t too important.

But how high the blue wave reaches or how firm the red wall stands will matter to potentially hundreds of races — from the question of control of the U.S. Senate all the way down to local county commissions.

My American Enterprise Institute colleague Camille Miner and I have sorted through the competitive House races to find five — three true toss-ups, one Republican reach and one Democratic reach that, taken together, we think provide a useful snapshot of the 2026 contest overall.

These are the places you can watch on Election Day (Election Week?) to see which way things are running for the rest of the country.

Incumbent: Republican Mike Lawler (elected in 2022)

Republican seat since 2023; 2024 result: Harris +0.6 points

New York’s 17th District covers the rolling hills of the Hudson Valley just north of New York City (Rockland, Putnam and northern Westchester counties). The Republican incumbent, Rep. Mike Lawler , kept his seat in 2024 despite his college blackface photos resurfacing and the district voting for Harris by 0.6 points. The 17th District is a relatively wealthy white suburban area with significant Hispanic and Jewish populations. Lawler positions himself as a moderate despite being endorsed by Trump, and this Wednesday received $500,000 from Elon Musk .

Lawler claims that his competitor Cait Conley was connected to the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal while she was a counterterrorism official on the Biden National Security Council. Unlike Lawler, however, Conley graduated from West Point and served six overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conley ties Lawler’s agenda to Trump’s which is largely unpopular in the district.

Incumbent: Democrat Vicente Gonzalez (elected in 2022)

Democratic seat since 2017 ; 2024 result: Trump +10 (new map)

This is Texas’s easternmost border district. In 2025, the Republican-held state legislature redrew the district to include less of the western edge and more counties up the Gulf Coast, including the southern part of Corpus Christi. The old district was estimated to be 90 percent Hispanic ; the new district will be around 75 percent Hispanic. Despite the district voting for Trump by 5 points in 2024, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez secured some ticket-splitters and won by 3 points over his competitor two years ago. Under the new map, however, the district is more Republican. But whether they vote for the Trump-backed veteran, Eric Flores , will depend a lot on whether the Southern Texas Republican base is motivated to come out and vote.

Republicans understand the weight of this flip as Vice President Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson have both come to rally with Flores. Additionally, many Latino voters who once voted for the president have taken issue with his tariffs and immigration policies and may vote against Republican candidates or not vote at all.

North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District

Incumbent: Democrat Don Davis (elected in 2022)

Democratic seat since 2023; 2024 result: Trump +11.6 (new map)

Encompassing the state’s Inner Banks, North Carolina’s 1st District has now been redrawn to include more rural communities, increasing the Republican population. Trump already won the district in 2024 by 3 points; under the new map he would have won by 11.6 points. The new district has a substantial Black population: 32 percent. But that’s substantially fewer Black residents than the previous map. Democrats cite the change as evidence that North Carolina Republicans are trying to diminish the traditional power of the state’s African American vote. Rep. Don Davis , the incumbent, is the fourth Black Democrat to hold the seat. Before serving in the House, Davis was the mayor of Snow Hill for seven years and spent 12 years in the North Carolina Senate.

His opponent, Laurie Buckhout , is a retired Army colonel who served in Iraq, and was acting assistant secretary of war for cyber policy in the early months of the current Trump administration. This is a rematch from 2024 when Davis beat Buckhout, but Republicans are betting the new district boundaries will be too tough for him. One very modern wrinkle: Buckhout was banned from Kalshi for betting on her own race .

A possible avalanche warning for the GOP

Incumbent: Republican Jeff Hurd (elected in 2024)

Republican seat since 2011; 2024 result: Trump +10

Colorado’s 3rd District is vast. It takes up the entire southern and western parts of the state, including large resort towns like Aspen and Telluride. The majority of residents are white and rural. They voted for Trump by 8 points in 2020 and 10 points in 2024. In October of 2025, Trump gave Rep. Jeff Hurd his “Complete and Total Endorsement of Re-Election.”

However, when Hurd voted to repeal the tariffs Trump placed on Canada, Trump rescinded his endorsement on Truth Social, calling Hurd a “RINO [Republican in name only] Congressman” and going on to endorse the lesser-known challenger and 2020 election denier, Hope Scheppelman .

But Speaker Mike Johnson took issue with Trump’s endorsement pull, and Trump later in another post admitted that he had talked to Scheppelman about serving the country in a “different capacity.” The president then re-endorsed Hurd.

As the district is not as Trump-loving as Trump may think, it is unclear whether the re-endorsement will win Hurd the necessary votes. Hurd’s opponent, Dwayne Romero , is an attractive moderate candidate for many voters. He attended West Point, served as a combat engineer during the Persian Gulf War and was director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade under then-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D). Romero has focused his messaging on veterans, public lands, reversing Medicaid cuts and repealing tariffs.

A potential Democratic gerrymandering overreach

California’s 45th Congressional District

Incumbent: Democrat Derek Tran (elected in 2024)

Democratic seat since 2025; 2024 result: Harris +3.9 (new map)

Amid the gerrymandering of Proposition 50 , Orange County was split up, and now the district map resembles a ‘C’ shape instead of the county’s natural circular form. The district is diverse, with an Asian plurality (38.4 percent) and a significant Hispanic and white population as well (30 percent and 25 percent, respectively). But this does not necessarily translate into progressive politics. Many Asian and Hispanic voters still showed up for Trump in 2024.

Rep. Derek Tran beat the Republican incumbent in 2024, in part by criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies and foreign relations. Nevertheless, the district still maintains many Evangelical social conservatives and Vietnamese Americans who fear any socialistic policies that harken back to communism. Tran’s competitor Chuong Vo is a former mayor of Cerritos and on the campaign trail has made it very clear that he will fight against socialists in Washington.

[ Programming alert: Watch The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt — Get the latest from decisionmakers from around the country and Washington insiders, and, as always, our Best-in-the-Business Panel of Journalists, including Joe Khalil of NewsNation, Kate Andrews of The Washington Post and Paul Kane of The Washington Sun. We will also be joined by the Libertarian candidate for Texas’s Senate seat, Ted Brown and the great George Will of The Washington Post. Be sure to catch us on NewsNation at 10 a.m. ET / 9 a.m. CT or your local CW station.]

Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions, amplifications, etc. at WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com . If you’d like to be considered for publication, please include your real name and hometown. If you don’t want your comments to be made public, please specify.

Change from one week ago: ↑ 3.2 points (-31 points)

Change from one month ago: ↑ 3 points (-30.8 points)

[ Average includes: American Research Group: 29 percent approve – 67 percent disapprove; New York Times/Siena: 34 percent approve – 60 percent disapprove; Echelon Insights 39 percent approve – 60 percent disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters: 31 percent approve – 66 percent disapprove; CNBC: 40 percent approve – 59 percent disapprove ]

Change from one month ago: ↑ 1 point ( D + 8 points)

[ Average includes: New York Times/Siena : 52 percent Democratic – 41 percent Republican; Echelon Insights: 50 percent Democratic – 45 percent Republican; Reuters/Ipsos: 47 percent Democratic – 35 percent Republican; CNBC: 52 percent Democratic – 45 percent Republican; CNN: 49 percent Democratic – 39 percent Republican ]

ON THE SIDE: SCROLLING AUSTRALIA’S ONLINE EXPERIMENT

Harper’s Magazine : “Because the Australian social-media ban focuses on a single demographic, and not on overhauling companies’ products or business models, all compliance demands is that the platforms prove to regulators and the courts that they are using sufficiently advanced methods to ensure that kids can’t hold accounts. Whether that will make children happier remains to be seen. At this stage, the only outcome that can be predicted with any confidence is that more sophisticated identity-verification technology will be deployed on a mass scale. This may benefit the companies themselves, as it could yield richer data on every user that is valuable to advertisers—as well as to governments and anyone else who would like to know the true identity of anyone online. It could even lead to the erosion of online anonymity altogether and the kinds of speech that it enables, marking the beginning of the end of a version of the internet that has created so much freedom and so much trouble: the one where no one knows you’re a dog, or a dissident, or underage.”

You should email us! Write to WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — at least first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, the un-gerrymandered Camille Miner , and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!

CBC : “On vacation in Italy this summer … [ Patrick Mohr ’s] gold wedding ring slipped off and disappeared in the fast-moving water. … Still, his wife remained hopeful. She asked the other men if they would help search for the ring and exchanged phone numbers with them in case it turned up. … Nine days after losing his wedding band, Mohr was still vacationing in Tuscany and preparing dinner when a text arrived from an unfamiliar Italian number. Attached was a photograph of the ring, accompanied by a message that read: ‘Hi Sméagol , look what we found’ … To mark the unlikely turn of events, the three friends suggested that instead of returning it in Italy, they would return it in the quest-like fashion they embarked on their search: they would travel to Ireland. And they decided to stay in character, casting themselves as three of the legendary hobbits: Frodo , Merry and Sam . … ‘They approached me, all three dressed like hobbits, playing music from the Lord of the Rings to hand me back the ring,’ Mohr said.”