WASHINGTON — Among the many changes to how the election will play out, one prospect has sparked conversation in both parties: Donald Trump could win the presidency as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives.
Such a split would be rare — not since 1989 has a president taken office without his party controlling the House — and would give Democrats significant leverage over Trump’s legislative agenda.
Neither side is conceding defeat in any of the electoral battlegrounds, and both are doing their best to take full control of Washington in recent days. But polls show a surprisingly close election with shifting coalitions pointing to a path for Democrats to pick up the four seats they need to take the House even if Vice President Kamala Harris loses the presidency, according to sources in both parties familiar with the dynamics. and internal voting.
“The most likely scenario is that the House goes the way of the president, but there’s a world where Trump wins and we lose the House — if he continues to pick up more in the suburbs and it grows in the inner cities and rural areas,” Unsolicited said one GOP strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the possibility. “There are a lot of rural areas where we have real pickup.”
The theory goes something like this: The competitive districts that will decide control of the House are disproportionately suburban, and that’s a weakness for Trump. Republicans fear he could lose ground they obstruct their candidates in those districts and in districts important to the majority of the House of Representatives.
But polls also show that Trump could modestly improve his standing among non-white voters, which could push him to win some swing states — without helping GOP House candidates because those voters are concentrated in safe blue districts that aren’t close enough to compete. . Trump also has a way of winning battleground states by increasing his margins of victory in rural areas, which tend to form Republican-represented red districts.
In addition, persistent signs of the ticket split suggest that not all Trump voters will cast ballots for his party’s nominees.
Some Democrats also see it as a real possibility.
“The math for our battleground really doesn’t dictate that Harris has to win the presidency to take the House,” said a Democratic strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
One example is Arizona, where two suburban Republican incumbents — David Schweikert in Phoenix and Juan Ciscomani in Tucson — are having trouble against their Democratic rivals, even as Trump maintains a narrow lead over Harris in the state overall.
In a recent email to donors and allies, the main House GOP super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, warned of headwinds in such districts, saying, “The political environment for Republicans is worse than it was in 2020 in several suburban districts. Omaha and all of Arizona.”
This is especially true in areas with high concentrations of educated voters. Recently NBC News national survey Illustrating this phenomenon, it found that Trump performed 13 points worse than the 2020 margin among college graduates. But he did modestly well among urban core voters and non-college white voters. Overall, Harris and Trump tied at 48%.
A second Democratic operative said that even if Trump wins, the way to flip the House is to succeed in a “strong swing effort” in California, where Democrats are targeting five GOP-held seats, and New York, where they will go after four Republicans. incumbents.
If Democrats have a strong night in the suburbs of New York and California, where Harris is guaranteed to win, they could take control of the House, even if he falls short in swing states.
The operative then said he could “afford to lose” a few seats elsewhere and still have Hakeem Jeffries, the speaker of the D.N.Y.
The GOP expects the landscape in New York and California to look more like 2022 than the blue political climate of 2020, said one GOP operative who has been involved in the House races. The operative added that if Trump overperforms in rural areas, that could pose a threat to several Democrats. – Will hold seats in the House of Representatives, such as Alaska’s at-large district and Maine’s 2nd District.
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jack Pandol warned against splitting votes.
“Extreme Democrats mean years of bogus investigations, politicized witch hunts and sinking President Trump’s agenda to get America back to work,” Pandol said in a statement. “That’s why the American people will send a Republican House to President Trump to secure the border, lower inflation, and support law enforcement.”
Asked about the prospect of a Trump presidency and a Democratic-controlled House, the Democratic House campaign arm sounded an optimistic note that his party would win both.
“The public is sick and tired of Republican dysfunction and wants to see an administration that works,” said Viet Shelton, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “That’s why we’re going to take back the House majority so that, working with the Harris-Walz administration, Democrats will put the government back to work to protect reproductive freedom, cut spending, protect Social Security and Medicare, and raise the middle class.” class.”