Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, Democrats have flipped 30 state legislative seats from Republican control, and Republicans have flipped none, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.1DLCC. Data Download: State Democrats Have Flipped 30 Seats Since Trump’s Election At the federal level, the picture is set by the November 2024 results: 17 U.S. House seats changed hands for a net Democratic gain of one, and four Senate seats flipped to Republicans, giving them a 53–47 Senate majority and a 220–215 House majority to start the 119th Congress.
Where the 30 State Legislative Flips Came From
The DLCC count covers off-year general elections in 2025 and special elections into early 2026, with pickups in Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey, and New Hampshire.2Politico. Dems Flip 28 State Legislature Seats in Trump 2.0
Virginia produced the largest single batch, with Democrats flipping 13 seats in November 2025. New Jersey added five that same month, including two Assembly seats in the 21st District, where Vincent Kearney and Andrew Macurdy unseated Republican incumbents Michele Matsikoudis and Nancy Munoz.3New Jersey Monitor. New Jersey Democrats Assembly Elections
Mississippi contributed three flips after a federal panel found the state’s maps violated the Voting Rights Act and courts ordered them redrawn. Johnny DuPree won Senate District 45 with 71 percent, Theresa Gillespie Isom took Senate District 2 with 63 percent, and Justin Crosby defeated a Republican incumbent in House District 22.4Mississippi Free Press. Mississippi Special Election Results: Democrats Flip 3 Legislative Seats
Iowa flipped two state Senate seats. Mike Zimmer won a January 2025 special election for a seat vacated by a Republican who joined the governor’s administration, and in August, Catelin Drey won Senate District 1 by 55 to 44 percent, breaking the Republican supermajority in the Iowa Senate.5Iowa Capital Dispatch. Iowa Democrats Celebrate as Drey Wins Special Election, Breaks GOP Supermajority
The Mar-a-Lago District
The most-watched pickup came on March 24, 2026, when Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election for Florida House District 87, which contains Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Gregory defeated Trump-endorsed Republican Jon Maples by 801 votes, taking 51.2 percent in a district a Republican had carried by 19 points in 2024.6Florida Division of Elections. 2026 Special General Election Results, House District 877BBC News. Democrat Wins Florida Seat Covering Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Turnout was just under 29 percent of the district’s roughly 116,000 registered voters.
How Far Democrats Are Running Ahead of 2024
The flip count understates the swing. A Politico review of 229 state and federal elections since Trump’s inauguration found Democratic candidates outperformed Kamala Harris’s 2024 vote share in 193 of them, roughly 84 percent, by an average of five points.8Politico. Democrats Special Election Results Analysis A Brookings Institution report put the average Democratic overperformance at 4.5 points and noted that Republicans lost ground relative to their 2024 results in every special election, including in seats they held.9Brookings Institution. What Do Special Elections Mean for the Midterm Elections
Individual swings have been steep. A Brooklyn state Senate race moved 45 points toward Democrats relative to Harris’s margin. Legislative races in Rhode Island and Oklahoma swung 27 and 28 points. In Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, the deep-red seat vacated when Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned in January 2026, Republican Clay Fuller still won the April runoff, but by only about 12 points in a district Trump had carried by 37, a 25-point shift from the presidential baseline.10CNN. Georgia Special Election Results: Shawn Harris and Clay Fuller
MultiState’s tally of contested 2026 specials showed Democrats running a median of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 presidential number. Held to November, that margin would imply roughly 756 net state legislative seat gains, 12 chamber flips, and five new state government trifectas, though the firm cautioned that special-election margins typically moderate as general elections approach.11MultiState. What Democratic Special Election Wins Mean for State Legislative Elections in 2026
How This Compares to 2018
The closest recent parallel is the run-up to 2018. Early that cycle, Democrats outran their 2016 presidential margins by 18 points in specials. That gap narrowed to about two points by fall, leaving a 14.5-point median swing that produced 308 net state legislative pickups, six chamber flips, and 40 U.S. House gains.11MultiState. What Democratic Special Election Wins Mean for State Legislative Elections in 2026 The current overperformance is smaller than the early-2018 peak but broadly consistent with that pre-wave pattern.
The Turnout Caveat
Republican strategists argue that special elections are poor predictors because turnout is low, sometimes with winners collecting fewer raw votes than half a party’s 2024 total in the same seat. The Brookings analysis acknowledged the point, noting it is unclear whether the trend will hold in the higher-turnout environment of a nationalized midterm.9Brookings Institution. What Do Special Elections Mean for the Midterm Elections
What Flipped in the 2024 Federal Elections
In the U.S. House, nine seats flipped from Republican to Democrat and eight flipped from Democrat to Republican, a net Democratic gain of one. Republicans kept the chamber 220–215.12CNN. 2024 Election Results: House13Politico. 2024 Election Results: House
In the Senate, Republicans flipped four Democratic-held seats:
- West Virginia, won by Jim Justice.
- Montana, where Tim Sheehy unseated Jon Tester.
- Ohio, where Bernie Moreno defeated Sherrod Brown.
- Pennsylvania, where Dave McCormick defeated Bob Casey.14Politico. 2024 Election Results: Senate
That gave Republicans a 53–47 Senate majority heading into 2025.
What It Points Toward in 2026
The president’s party has lost House seats in almost every midterm since the 1930s, with a median loss around 26 and a range from a nine-seat gain in 1934 to a 63-seat loss in 2010. Only three midterms in that span produced House gains for the president’s party: 1934, 1998, and 2002.15The American Presidency Project. Seats in Congress Gained/Lost by the President’s Party in Mid-Term Elections With three current vacancies leaving the House at 217 Republicans to 214 Democrats, Democrats need a net gain of three seats to flip the chamber.16U.S. House Press Gallery. Party Breakdown
Forecasters see that as likely. As of mid-May 2026, the Race to the White House model put Democratic odds of winning the House at about 73 percent, and prediction markets tracked by DecisionDesk HQ gave Democrats slightly better than four-in-five odds. About 45 districts are treated as competitive, 25 Republican-held and 20 Democratic-held.17DecisionDesk HQ. The Key House Seats in 2026
Mid-cycle redistricting is scrambling parts of the map. After a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Florida enacted a new congressional map in late April 2026 projected to help Republicans in as many as four seats; the Florida Supreme Court declined to block it.18WUSF. Florida Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to New Redistricting Map In Utah, a state court threw out the legislature’s congressional map as an extreme partisan outlier and ordered a remedial map drawn by the League of Women Voters, which could put one of the state’s four districts in play for Democrats.19Utah News Dispatch. Judge Orders Utah Legislature to Draw New Congressional Map
The Senate is a harder climb. Democrats would need to flip four seats for the majority, and about 10 races are considered real contests, with Republican incumbents Susan Collins in Maine, Dan Sullivan in Alaska, and Jon Husted in Ohio facing serious challenges, alongside open seats in North Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire created by retirements.20NBC News. 10 Senate Races Will Decide the Balance of Power in 2026 Ohio is a rematch: Sherrod Brown, who lost his seat in 2024, is running against Husted, who was appointed after J.D. Vance became vice president. A June 2026 Fox News poll showed Brown ahead 53 to 45.21NBC4i. Poll Finds Sherrod Brown 8 Points Ahead of Jon Husted in Ohio’s U.S. Senate Race Georgia is the only state where a Democratic Senate incumbent, Jon Ossoff, is defending a seat Trump carried in 2024.22Roll Call. The Most Vulnerable Senators of 2026