Outside the Beltway

Voting Without Democracy

Only 32 of 435 House seats are competitive.

James Joyner · Monday, May 4, 2026 · 4 comments

Reuters (“How redistricting and the Supreme Court have cut voters out of US House races“):

The number of competitive U.S. House of Representatives districts in this fall’s midterm elections was already near historic lows before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday opened the door to even more aggressive efforts to draw district lines for political gain. The court’s ruling, which arrived amid what was already an unprecedented national fight over congressional redistricting, may usher in a new era of nakedly partisan gerrymandering ​that results in still fewer competitive elections, leaving voters with less power than ever, experts said.

The lack of competitive races means that control of the U.S. House of ‌Representatives will likely be determined in November’s midterm election by fewer than 10% of Americans, with the winners in the vast majority of districts all but assured before a single ballot is cast, a Reuters analysis found. Only 32 of the House’s 435 seats are currently considered competitive, according to the analysis. Those districts were rated either toss-ups or leaning toward Democrats or Republicans by three leading independent forecasters: Cook Political Report, the University of Virginia’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections.

Most other districts ​are simply out of play. Cook, for instance, rates 375 seats, more than 85% of the House, as either “Solid Republican” or “Solid Democrat,” which means its analysts do not expect them to be ​seriously contested. Another 28 races are “likely” Republican or Democratic, according to Cook, meaning they are not competitive at present but might become so under new conditions.
This ⁠year boasts the fewest competitive House races at this stage of the election cycle since at least 2008, according to an archive of prior Cook ratings.

Democrats need to gain just three seats to win ​a House majority, giving them the power to block President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda and initiate investigations into his administration.

The shrinking House battlefield is the result of several factors, including increased political polarization. But the weaponization ​of congressional redistricting, or gerrymandering – which has gone into overdrive since last year, when Trump began pushing Republicans to draw new maps – is a critical element that is only going to accelerate after the Supreme Court’s ruling, according to experts.

Because of partisan sorting, most states are now reliably “blue” or “red.” We have 50 states, of which 25 have two Republican Senators and 21 have two Democratic Senators. That means only four states have a split delegation. Arguably, that’s simply democracy in action.

At the presidential level, there are only six or seven “swing” states. That’s highly problematic, in that California’s 54 Electoral votes go to the Democrat despite a third or more of the state’s voters going Republican. Still, that’s been baked into our system so long that we accept it as normal.

But the House should be different. The “reddest” state at the Presidential level is Wyoming, which last voted Democratic in the landslide 1964 election. Some 30 percent of its residents consistently vote Democratic. The bluest state is likely Massachusetts, which last voted Republican during Reagan’s 1984 re-election landslide. Other candidates are Hawaii (ditto) and Vermont (1988). All likewise have roughly a third of their citizenry consistently voting Republican.

The upshot, then, is that the dominant party primary is effectively the election, barring some extraordinary happening. Which leads to predictable results.

The lack of competitive districts can have consequences for Congress, said Matthew Klein, a House analyst ‌with Cook. If ⁠House candidates only need to appeal to their base voters to win elections, rather than moderates or members of the opposing party, they are more likely to move toward the extremes instead of the political middle.

“If you look at Congress and how it acted 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even farther back, you see a Congress that is both less acrimonious and also more productive,” he said. “There used to be bills that passed with huge majorities on major issues. We just don’t really see that anymore.”

But, hey, nobody’s stopping anyone from voting, so all’s good.