Oct.28

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Could We Have a Trump Presidency and a Democratic House?

Since the entire House is up in every presidential election year, it is common for a president's coattails to win the House for his party. But this year could be different. Even if Donald Trump wins, it is entirely possible that his party loses control of the House.

How can this be? First of all, it is unlikely that Trump will even win the popular vote, let alone surf a red wave that sweeps in endangered House Republicans in his wake. The national popular vote is a better predictor of the House than the Electoral College, which has nothing to do with control of the House. Most polls show Trump trailing in the national popular vote in the 1-3% range.

Second, many competitive House races are in the 17 districts won by Joe Biden in 2020 but are represented by Republicans. They are known as the Biden 17. They used to be the Biden 18, but "George Santos" resigned and was replaced by Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) in a special election. Five of these are in New York City suburbs where Harris is campaigning hard and likely to win, just as Biden did in 2020. She could have coattails. Another five are spread around California. Here is the list sorted by PVI. The representatives near the top of the list are the most vulnerable:

Seven of the eight districts with D+x are in New York or California and the eighth one is in blue Oregon. Anti-Trump sentiment is running high in all three states and with the presidential race a statistical tie, there will be few Democrats who think "Harris is a shoo-in so I don't have to vote" (i.e., no repeat of 2016). All of the other districts are potentially flippable as well. In addition, the courts have redrawn AL-02 and LA-06 to make it very likely that a Black Democrat can win them. Coattails could matter, but unless Trump wins in a red wave, it is hard to see how he could help enough in D+x districts in blue states.

Of course, there is the other side of the coin as well: the eight Democrats in districts Donald Trump won in 2020. Here they are:

Democrats will have to fight to hold these. None of the North Carolina districts are in the western, storm-ravaged part of the state. On the other hand, the districts were recently regerrymandered to make them unwinnable for any Democrat. For this reason, all three incumbent Democrats chose to retire.

Finally, there are Democrats in districts with an R+x PVI that Biden won. There are no Republicans in a district with a D+x PVI that Trump won. Here are the other vulnerable Democrats.

These 28 (31 minus NC) competitive races will determine control of the House. On Election Night, keep your ears perked for results in them.

NBC News has an interesting take on most of these races. They are disproportionately in the suburbs of big cities and that is where Harris is strong. In some cases these are traditionally Republican districts with many college-educated voters going for the Democrats these days. One Democratic strategist said: "The math for our battlefield does not actually dictate that Harris needs to win the presidency in order to take the House." The strategist means that strong Democratic turnout in the suburbs nationwide could mean a Democratic House, even if Trump rolls up enough votes in rural areas to win the state. This is simply because few of the competitive House districts are rural.

Of course a Trump presidency, Republican Senate and Democratic House would be a formula for disaster for the country. Trump would probably get most nominations approved by the Senate on a party-line vote (including judges), but he wouldn't be able to pass a budget or get any laws passed. That means few of his projects that cost money could be carried out. Deporting millions of undocumented immigrants? Building a wall on the Mexican border? Those would cost trillions of dollars. Even Elon Musk doesn't have that kind of money. Trump could impose tariffs on his own based on a Depression-era law where Congress ceded the power to impose tariffs to the president. He would also sign as many XOs as he wanted, but those would just order Executive Departments to do certain things, like having the IRS cease to audit anyone making $1 million or more or having the EPA not look at violations of environmental law in states whose governor supported him. He could vigorously enforce the Comstock Act (which bans the mailing of abortion pills) and order the FDA to rescind approval of mifepristone, although the latter would certainly end up in the Supreme Court. But there is a limit to what he could do using only XOs.

A Democratic House would put the Democrats in a bind. Many of them might (secretly) hope for total chaos in the country, since it is usually the president who gets the blame when things go south. They could demand a budget that financed many of their priorities and few of Trump's. If the result was a government shutdown, Trump would probably get the blame, especially if the Democrats were fighting to preserve school lunches, subsidized day care, and the Affordable Care Act. The goal would be to rile up the country and get people angry with the Republicans in order to win big in 2026. Of course, people would suffer in a shutdown and Democrats don't like that, but they also don't like the idea of Trump forcing the House to bow down to his wishes. It could get really nasty, especially since the Supreme Court ruled that presidents can break the law while presidenting. (V)