Outside the Beltway

Some good news, such as it is, from the Cook Political Report. Note that all the races listed below have shifted toward the Dems and away from the Reps. I cannot stress enough that this is good news because we have basically a pro-democracy party (the Ds) and a pro-authoritarian party (the Rs) in the US at the moment, so a vote for the Democrats is a vote for democracy.

Note, too, that in the full report, the vast majority of “toss-up” seats are red, not blue, meaning the Rs have far more territory to defend.

I understand ongoing anxiety about election interference by the current administration, but I continue to be of the view that elections will be held and that the capacity of the Trump administration to interfere wil be limited. Still, the fact that I have to even bring this up is chilling in and of itself.

I do expect some significant repudiation of Trump at the ballot box this November. And I do fear that there will be attempts to interfere with specific races. I will note that the higher the level of repudiation, the harder it will be to successfully achieve interference.

2026 Election, US Politics

democracy

8 responses to “House Races Shifting D-ward”

Sleeping Dog

January 26, 2026 at 12:49 pm

Indeed, good news.

I expect election day interference will be minor, the test will be in close, recount eligible races that R’s lose and even some that are clearly Dem upsets, outside the recount window. Seizing ballot boxes will be the order of the day.

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Rob1

January 26, 2026 at 1:10 pm

@Sleeping Dog:

Seizing ballot boxes will be the order of the day.

I keep hearing about “seizing ballot boxes” but seriously, how would that work? Other than to delay the count, or force a re-vote. Has that ever been done? Are there regulatory provisions for such? Wouldn’t it be more expedient and less unlikely that Trump would declare martial law and suspend elections altogether? Which has never been done, and for which there is no established procedure to address. More likely are phone calls of coercion to election officials, as Trump did into Georgia in 2020. I’m not ruling out “seized ballot boxes” or even “martial law,” but for the former to work there has to be a process to follow that can be signed off by our clunky democracy. And for the latter to work (martial law), well, we will have descended the very last stair of this democracy.
gVOR10

January 26, 2026 at 2:20 pm

That Cook report is encouraging, but I heavily discount anything more than six months before the election. The GOPs still have 9 months for ratfracking, and for Trump to pander.

@Rob1: I’d take ballot “box” as a bit generic. In 2020 Trump talked a lot about seizing voting machines. He may well try this year. Noem has offered to pull out of MN in return for election data including voter rolls. He may or may not have people who can crack them, but in any case once proper custody is breached, they’re open to challenge. We can expect to see pressure on local voting officials. There may be ICE hanging around polling places in immigrant neighborhoods in swing districts. And GOPs will challenge everything in court, which eventually winds up with John Roberts and his accomplices. And they may see inescapable harm if GOPs aren’t seated temporarily until the case is finally decided when they get around to it.

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gVOR10

January 26, 2026 at 3:16 pm

@gVOR10: I made a snarky comment about the Roberts court above. I’ve been known to allege corruption on their part. But I’d forgotten this guy, Reverend Bob Schenck. He’s now joining the enemy-of-my-enemy list. In his past life he set up, ““Operation Higher Court,” which trained wealthy couples as “stealth missionaries” to befriend Supreme Court justices to preserve, in his words, a Christian nation.” Some of the justices seem to have an awful lot of wealthy friends.

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Rob1

January 26, 2026 at 4:01 pm

@gVOR10: Yeah, “generic,” a metaphor. But for what collection of actions that would be sustainable or supportable? I’d like to hear from someone in the know, what that metaphor could exactly stand for, because it has been tossed around for awhile.

MAGA loves intimidation and coersion. That would be their likely path, no?

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Kathy

January 26, 2026 at 5:18 pm

IMO, it’s a mistake to ask what legal, quasi-legal, formal mechanism the Degeneracy may use to subvert the 2026 midterms.

Think of DOGE. The consensus view at first was that it would be some kind of commission which would issue recommendations that would never go anywhere.

Instead they destroyed chunks of the government, including whole agencies like USAID.

Or suppose elections take place, the results are respected, and the Democrats take the House and Senate. What then? Will the Degeneracy abide by appropriations, or simply use money as it wants? A traditional Treasury Secretary wouldn’t authorize or make payments or use funds not approved by Congress. Would Bessent? Is the Pope Catholic? Does the bear trump in the woods?

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Jay L. Gischer

January 26, 2026 at 6:51 pm

@gVOR10: That’s quite a remarkable little piece. Thanks!

“We made this terrible deal with Donald Trump because we were already demoralized,” he told Mother Jones in 2018. “He didn’t demoralize us—he is the evidence of our demoralization.”

Well, I feel better. In some sense, this was always my take. Latching on to Trump was an act of desperation. It was reaction to Obergefell and to the demographic shift that had the proportion of the country identifying as “white Christian” drop below 50 percent.

That desperation has been playing out over the last decade. Thing is, when you think disaster is going to strike, but then the only disaster that strikes is the one of your own making…it might have an impact on your thinking.

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Michael Cain

January 26, 2026 at 6:52 pm

@Kathy: I don’t anticipate shenanigans in 2026 beyond lawsuits over blue states redistricting and a bunch of Republican candidates challenging state laws on procedures and counting before the election (a power recently granted to them by SCOTUS).

2028 is an entirely different thing, since I expect the SCOTUS will have granted the President additional powers by then, and the Republicans will do anything to keep a Dem out of the White House. Assuming no changes, >90% of votes cast in 2028 in the 13 states of the American West will use ballots distributed by mail. I expect an out-and-out war on that by Republicans at the federal level. At the state level? I note that for the last couple of years the Republican-controlled legislature in Arizona has very carefully assigned any bills that would significantly change their mostly vote-by-mail system to committees where they die quietly.

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