Republicans gained edge over Democrats in redistricting battle, internal party assessment finds

The redistricting battle that reshaped the electoral maps for the 2026 midterms created 10 additional red-leaning seats in the House of Representatives, according to an internal House Republican assessment obtained by the BBC.

With the new maps set ahead of November, Democrats must now defend 23 House seats that President Donald Trump won in 2024. That is up from 13 at the beginning of the midterm election cycle.

Republicans hold eight seats that the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won, up from three at the start of the 2026 cycle.

That overall reshuffling amounts to a potential gain of five favourable seats for Republicans, according to the assessment by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the House Republicans' campaign arm.

That internal evaluation, which has not been previously reported, came after the last states that participated in redistricting finished redrawing their maps last month.

The new electoral landscape could offer some encouragement to House Republicans, who are seeking to maintain their slim majority in the chamber as polls suggest significant voter anxiety over the economy, high cost of living and the war in Iran. House Republicans have a 217-212 majority, with five vacancies.

US midterm elections historically favour the party out of power, and this year Republicans are running as Trump's approval rating sits near a record-low for his presidency. Those are conditions that would typically point to a good outcome for Democrats.

House Republicans sought to gain an advantage ahead of the elections by creating more favourable electoral maps in a bruising nationwide redistricting fight. Democrats did the same, drawing new maps in California as well as Virginia - although the changes in Virginia were later struck down in court.

The showdown led to an unprecedented partisan campaign by both parties to redraw House seats outside of the normal redistricting process that occurs once a decade after the US census.

It was also shaped by a Supreme Court decision that overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which paved the way for some states to draw new congressional lines.

Now, if the final maps remain in place, the results indicate Republicans gained an edge over Democrats in the partisan redistricting battle.

A possible five-seat swing is small but could still matter if Republicans outperform the historical norm and the November elections are closer than expected.

Democrats have conceded redistricting has given House Republicans a wider margin for error in the elections. Strategists, however, said redistricting did not give Republicans the advantage many inside the Democratic Party had feared and pointed to polls indicating that Democrats remain poised to win back the House.

Republicans insist that redistricting is not the only reason the party is in better shape than many predicted at this point in the primary season. A strong candidate recruitment effort and large fundraising advantage over Democrats have also played a role, said Mike Marinella, the NRCC's spokesman.

"Democrats are climbing an uphill battle, and their outlook for the House gets darker by the day. The math doesn't work. The map doesn't work. The money doesn't work. The candidates don't work. That's why House Republicans are on offence," Marinella said in a statement to the BBC.

The House Republicans' assessment of the battleground map after redistricting, which relied on public voter data, is roughly in line with the analysis of nonpartisan organisations.

The Cook Political Report rates 18 House races as "tossups," or highly competitive. Of those, 17 were won by Trump in 2024 when he carried every key swing state en route to a convincing win over Harris to secure a second term in office.

There are other positive signs for House Republicans, according to the NRCC analysis.

At the start of the 2018 election cycle, the last midterms when Trump was in the White House, House Republicans controlled 42 districts where Trump received less than 50 percent of the vote in the previous presidential election. Now there are only 14 Republican-held districts where Trump did not win a majority of the vote in 2024.

Democrats said they remained confident about winning back the House despite the redrawn maps.

Some of the 23 Democratic-held House districts which Trump won in 2024 will still be close this year, party operatives said. They include competitive districts in places like South Texas and Ohio where Republicans could struggle to win, said CJ Warnke, the communications director for House Majority PAC, the House Democrat's principal super PAC.

"No amount of trying to change the maps on redistricting is going to prevent House Republicans from losing this fall," Warnke said.

"Inflation continues to rise, gas prices are skyrocketing, and after promising no new wars Trump and Republicans went off and started a war with Iran that's now hurting the American economy," he added.

Democrats are betting historical trends will remain in their favour. Since 1934, the party in control of the White House has won House seats in just three midterm elections. The president's party has gained Senate seats in just six midterms, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

House Democrats flipped 40 seats in 2018. In the 2022 midterms, House Republicans flipped nine seats.