The Blue Wave

Line up the 220 Republican-held districts by how much Trump won them by in 2024, on the lines used this year, and the result reads like a tide chart. The national swing since 2024 is about 15 points, which on a uniform swing puts 54 Republican seats under water. Democrats have taken all 28 that Trump won by less than ten points (or that Harris carried), 7 of the 26 he won by 10 to 14, and none of the safer seats except eight.

The seats that beat the tide are the story. Of the eight flips in districts Trump won by 15 or more, six are in North Carolina and Texas, both of which redrew their maps in 2025 to add Republican seats: North Carolina's 6th, 9th, 13th and 14th, and Texas's 15th and 23rd. Spreading Republican voters thinly across more seats leaves each with a smaller cushion, so a big enough wave goes over all of them at once. Across the four states that redrew for the GOP (Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri), Democrats made 11 of their 43 gains.

• California's Prop 50 map did what it was drawn to do: Democrats took CA-01, CA-06, CA-22, CA-41 and CA-48.
• Senate: Democrats flipped seats in states Trump won by 12 points on average. The last midterm with more than two such flips was 1986.
• Polling miss: final averages had Democrats near D+9; the count is heading to D+12–14. In Texas, Talarico led by 2.6 in the polls and won by 12.