Why narrow majorities and House gridlock are here to stay in 2024

The battle for the House will be determined by a smaller number of races than it has in at least the past two decades.

There are roughly 30 truly competitive seats, split about evenly between Democratic and Republican-held districts, according to a POLITICO analysis based on fundraising data, candidate recruitment and interviews with a dozen party strategists, incumbents and challengers.

And with just over six months until Election Day, neither Democrats nor Republicans have a clear edge in the fight for control of the chamber. Anyone expecting either party to emerge from 2024 with a significant and easier-to-govern majority should think again.

“Both sides know that it's gonna be an incredibly close election,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former House GOP campaign chair. “Post-redistricting and with all the polarization in the country, both sides have a pretty high floor. Both sides have a pretty low ceiling. So I don't think we'll see majorities in the 240s and 50s.”

The smaller battlefield is partially a product of redistricting — not only the remaps before the 2022 midterms, but a handful since that have reduced the number of seats in play even further.

Democrats have sharpened a financial edge: many incumbents and candidates outraised their GOP rivals during the first three months of 2024. And Republicans are defending 16 districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. But thorny primaries, recruitment fumbles, Biden’s unpopularity and strong GOP incumbents muddle Democrats’ chances in a handful of those targets.

Republicans fixed some of the candidate quality problems that plagued them in the midterms and are zeroing in on five Democrats seats then-President Donald Trump won in 2020. But the GOP has its own complicated primaries, and at least one controversial retread candidate also obscures their path. Retirements by popular Democratic incumbents in Michigan and Virginia offer additional top-tier offensive opportunities, but much of the House battlefield lies in New York and California, two Democratic bastions that could turn bluer in a presidential election year.

Both parties started off the cycle with lofty target lists. The National Republican Congressional Committee named 37 Democratic-held districts, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee identified 31 GOP incumbents. But recruitment and fundraising have significantly whittled down the map.

Five states have new congressional maps since the midterms, with the GOP gaining a very modest edge. Republicans picked up three new seats in North Carolina, but those gains were muted by the creation of Democratic-leaning seats in Alabama, New York and Louisiana, where the map could change yet again depending on the outcome of continuing litigation.

Democrats’ remap in New York did not go as far as their initial gerrymander that the courts struck down last cycle. But it buoyed their chances in a couple of seats, especially Rep. Brandon Williams' (R-N.Y.) in Central New York.

“This map for the decade is totally different than the map of the last two decades,” said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson. “There are so few true swing seats, and that likely means we are locked into pretty narrow majorities or minorities all the way until 2032.”

A big advantage Democrats do have is money. They emerged from the first quarter of the year in a strong financial position over Republicans, who are still reeling from the loss of their chief fundraiser, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In the 30 most competitive House districts identified by POLITICO, Democrats outraised Republicans in all but four contests over the first three months of 2024. Fifteen Democratic candidates and incumbents raised more than $1 million in that period, while only one Republican did.

Democratic challengers, many of whom are making their second runs after failed 2022 bids, posted especially strong fundraising. For example, Mondaire Jones and Josh Riley in New York; Adam Gray, George Whitesides, Rudy Salas and Will Rollins in California; and Kirsten Engel in Arizona all raised more than $1 million last quarter. None of the GOP incumbents they are trying to defeat crossed the seven-figure mark.

Several endangered GOP incumbents were outraised by a more than 2-to-1 margin, a list that included one of the most vulnerable Republicans anywhere, freshman GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York. He collected less than $262,000 over the first three months of the year.

“I think the fact that I outraised D’Esposito by more than double this quarter shows that my campaign is gaining momentum, and we’re building our donor base,” said Laura Gillen, D’Esposito’s likely Democratic opponent, who raised $560,000 for the western Long Island seat. “But D’Esposito still has a cash-on-hand advantage that we have to close.”

The most endangered Democratic incumbents are the five who hold districts Trump won in 2020, and they were among those who raised the most. Four of them raised more than $1 million: Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) and Mary Peltola (D-Alaska). The fifth, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), still raised nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

Republicans scored a coup when they talked Kaptur’s failed 2022 challenger, J.R. Majewski, out of a rematch just before the withdrawal deadline. But their odds in the other districts may not have improved since the midterms.

In Washington state, Joe Kent, a far-right Republican with ties to white nationalists, appears poised to face Gluesenkamp Perez in the general election again. House Republicans have struggled to win ranked-choice elections in Alaska and Maine, where Peltola and Golden, respectively, both won in 2022 despite falling short of a majority in the initial round of voting.

Democratic strategists maintain they have a wider path to 218, in part because there are only five Trump-district Democrats — but 16 Biden-district Republicans. Some in the party liken their position to the reverse of the map they had in 2020. In the last presidential election year, they had 30 incumbents in districts Trump won four years earlier; they lost nine of those seats that cycle.

“Democrats have momentum, and are on track to win back the House,” said Mike Smith, president of the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC. “Our path back to the majority runs through Democratic leaning districts. For Republicans to hold on, they have to basically run the table on every competitive race.”

But Democrats will not be able to mount a serious challenge in all of those Biden-won districts. They stand little chance of ousting the moderate and popular Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). And few strategists believe they can knock out Rep. Young Kim in Orange County, California, this cycle. In a Biden-won seat in Virginia Beach, Democrats’ preferred candidate has lagged in fundraising compared with GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans. And in Oregon, some Democrats are trying to block their 2022 candidate from again securing the nomination. Their chances of beating Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer could depend on the primary results.

Republican Reps. Michelle Steel of California and Tom Kean of New Jersey also hold Biden districts, but they are in the two most expensive media markets in the country, New York City and Los Angeles. Other targets in both states will be far more appealing for Democratic groups.

Republicans have brushed aside concerns about playing in deep-blue turf, noting their wins there in 2022 when Democrats’ abortion-centric arguments appeared to fall flat because the states already have strong protections for abortion rights.

“I'm excited about California and New York,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the NRCC. “I think we're gonna pick up seats in both states.”

Despite the rush of Republican retirements, all of the GOP’s swing-seat members are running again. Democrats do have open seats to worry about, however. The departures of Reps. Dan Kildee of Michigan, Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who is running for Senate, left three swingy districts without strong incumbents. Privately, GOP operatives admit that Slotkin’s cross-partisan appeal was difficult to overcome in her Lansing-area swing district that she won by 5 points in 2022. They like their odds much better with her gone. An April poll of the district commissioned by the Congressional Leadership Fund found Republican Tom Barrett leading Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr., 41 percent to 35 percent, with 25 percent undecided. Trump (46 percent) and Biden (44 percent) are neck and neck in the district, the GOP poll showed.

While Democrats have benefited from the higher turnout that accompanies presidential election years, the Trump-era political realignment of both parties’ coalitions now means that Republicans are increasingly reliant on lower-propensity voters. That could boost the GOP’s chances in a place like Kildee’s mid-Michigan district, where Trump is more popular than other Republicans.

Other seats that make up the core of the battlefield: those held by Reps. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.) and Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio).

But few GOP operatives think they seriously contest a large chunk of the districts on their initial target lists, including ones in Nevada, west Michigan, Cincinnati, Rhode Island and suburban Seattle. Similarly, Democrats will struggle to flip some of their offensive targets, especially the Colorado seat that Rep. Lauren Boebert vacated, as well as seats in Florida and Texas that got more favorable to Republicans in redistricting.

Democrats have a lead — but only slightly — in the cash-on-hand race in the most competitive seats. Nearly two dozen Democratic candidates and incumbents in the 30 most competitive House races had at least $1 million in the bank at the end of March, while 17 Republicans did.

The battle for the House looks like a jump ball.

Madison Fernandez contributed to this report.