With rare exceptions, the political party of the president of the US has always lost seats in the Congressional mid-term elections. The Republicans, though, are going into the 2026 mid-terms with certain advantages, and they have done everything they could in the states they control to magnify those advantages. The Democratic opposition also suffers from important liabilities. Yet as election day approaches, some pundits predict a Blue wave that will catapult the Democrats back into control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republicans have made things much worse for themselves than it would have been in a business-as-usual scenario.

Retaining control of the House was always going to pose a tough challenge to the Grand Old Party (GOP). The partycurrently holds 218 seats, the absolute minimum needed to organise the chamber. Some Republican members won in districts that Trump himself lost in 2024 and were vulnerable from day one.

In an effort to tilt the playing field in their favour, Republicans in states such as Texas and Florida engaged in off-cycle redistricting to increase the number of seats they were likely to win. (Redistricting usually follows the decennial census.) But the Democrats countered with their own redistricting schemes in several states they controlled, helping neutralise the potential Republican gains.

Although, on paper, the Republicans face a greater risk in the Senate mid-terms because they have more seats up for re-election (22 versus 13 for the Democrats), many of the GOP seats are in solidly red states that Trump won in 2024, with substantial margins. With 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, the Republicans have enjoyed a seemingly safe margin, enhanced because any 50-50 tie vote would be broken by vice-president JD Vance. This means the Democrats would need to hold their current........

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