The report tracks how each of the 435 House districts votes for president compared with the country as a whole, a measure it calls the Partisan Voter Index. A district that voted 5 points more Republican than the national average is scored R+5. One that voted 8 points more Democratic is scored D+8. Districts within 5 points of the national average in either direction are the ones both parties usually have a real chance of winning.
That group shrank this year. Ten states redrew their congressional maps ahead of the midterms, and afterward the number of districts in that competitive range fell from 87 to 77.
Because there are fewer of them, Democrats have to win a larger share. The report calculated that if each party carries the districts that strongly favor it, Democrats would need 57 of the 77 competitive seats, or about 74 percent, to reach the 218 needed for a majority. Under the old maps, they would have needed 59 of 87, or 68 percent.
The typical district also became more Republican-leaning. After the 2024 election, the middle district in the country was California’s 22nd, held by Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), which voted about half a point more Republican than the nation. Under the new maps, the middle district is Pennsylvania’s 10th, held by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), which votes about 2.5 points more Republican.
Analyst David Wasserman, who wrote the report, said that puts the map roughly where it was between 2012 and 2017, and described it as “more skewed towards Republicans and less elastic than before.”
Wasserman offered a hypothetical to show the size of the change. If Democrats won every district that leans less than 3 points Republican and nothing more, they would have ended up with 235 seats under the old maps. Under the new ones, the same performance would produce 223—both still constituting a majority and a change in control for the House.
Florida, Missouri, and Texas accounted for three-quarters of the increase in strongly Republican districts. California accounted for more than half of the national drop in competitive ones, cutting its own number of swing districts from 12 to six. Wasserman attributed the difference to California Democrats replacing a map drawn by an independent commission with a more favorable one, while Republicans in the other three states redrew maps that were already favorable in their direction.
He also wrote that Republicans fell short of the 10 to 12 seats their strategists initially expected to gain, and that Democrats remain favored to win the House this year. Picking up districts that lean 3 to 5 points Republican is realistic in a strong midterm year for the party out of power, he wrote, but the new maps lower how many seats Democrats can gain overall.
The Crystal Ball revised 13 of its race ratings that day, raising the number of contests it considers a coin flip from 15 to 20. That is a separate measure from Cook’s.
Cook is describing how districts lean over time, no matter who runs in them. The Crystal Ball is predicting who wins this November, which takes into account the candidates, their fundraising, and the national mood. A map with fewer naturally competitive districts can still produce more close races in a given year.
Kondik wrote that he made the changes to bring the ratings in line with a view he already held, that Democrats are favored. The revision left 208 districts rated at least leaning Republican and 207 at least leaning Democratic. He put his best estimate at a Democratic majority in the low-to-mid 220s and wrote that Republicans still have a path to keeping control.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out the ratings changes the same day, saying the map continues to move in its favor with fewer than 100 days until the election.
“All of the momentum is behind Democrats in the fight for the House,” DCCC spokesman Viet Shelton said, adding that the committee’s candidates are running on an affordability message.
The National Republican Congressional Committee cited the Cook analysis in its response. In a statement to The Epoch Times, national press secretary Mike Marinella said Republicans are running on a more favorable map, record fundraising, and stronger candidates, and said Democratic nominees and policies leave “their path to the majority far more challenging than the pundits suggest.”
The committee said 23 Democrats are running in districts President Donald Trump carried in 2024, including 21 where he won an outright majority, while eight Republicans are running in districts former Vice President Kamala Harris carried. It said Democrats must win Republican-held seats where Trump averaged 53.2 percent of the vote, compared with 46.6 percent in the districts the party flipped in 2018, and that it is targeting 36 Democratic-held seats.
Kondik’s analysis raised two of the same points independently. He wrote that candidates backed by the DCCC have lost primaries in three districts, in Arizona, California, and Maine, and that a contested Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th District on Aug. 4 could produce a nominee national Democrats did not want. He also pointed to the $400 million held by a pro-Trump super PAC as a Republican advantage, while noting that Democratic House candidates have continued to raise money at a strong pace.
The biggest single changes to any district came in the South. Cook found that the Memphis seat held by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who is not seeking reelection, went from 23 points more Democratic than the nation to 9 points more Republican. A Houston seat held by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) moved by a similar margin after mapmakers relocated it.
The largest moves toward Democrats elsewhere were a Utah seat redrawn under court order and a Northern California seat, each of which flipped from solidly Republican to solidly Democratic.
