CNN’s Enten: Odds ‘Are Plummeting Down’ for Dems to Take Control of the House in 2026

BOLDUAN: “New this morning, the race to control the House in the 2026 midterms has taken a turn and possibly brings with it a new warning sign for Democrats. Harry Enten running the numbers on this one and sneaking in at the last minute.” [crosstalk]
ENTEN: “I’ve learned that way around.”
BOLDUAN: “That’s right. It was a good maneuver.”
ENTEN: “Thank you.”
BOLDUAN: “I wish people could see it.”
ENTEN: “I have — I have fantastic news. It’s the new shoes as we spoke about yesterday.”
BOLDUAN: “OK, moving on. OK, you’re tracking the odds. What is the change that you’re seeing?”
ENTEN: “Yeah, OK. So you know, if you go back six months ago, you go back to April, Kate Bolduan, what were we looking at? Well, we were looking at the Democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the Kalshi Prediction Market odds. We saw them at an 83 percent chance. But those odds have gone plummeting down. Now we’re talking about just a 63 percent chance, while the GOP’s chances, up like a rocket, up like gold, up from 17 percent to now a 37 percent chance. So what looked like a pretty clear Democrat — likely Democratic win in the House come next year has become much closer to a toss up at this point, although still slightly leaning Democratic.”
BOLDUAN: “What’s changed? What do you think?”
ENTEN: “OK, what has changed? Well, Why Don’t We just take a look at the national picture first, take a look at voters and how they’re feeling about things. And we can take a look at the generic congressional ballot. And I want to take a look and compare it to 2017 and 2018, right? Because that’s sort of the baseline. That was, of course, the first Trump term. That was where Democrats were sort of keeping pace. You go back to April, look at the generic congressional ballot, what you see? You see +3 Democrats in 2025 in April, you see +3 Democrats back in April of 2017. Now jump over to this side of the screen. What happens? Well, the Democrats are no longer keeping pace with the — pace that they were setting back in 2017 and 2018. You look back in 2017, you saw that the Democrats had leaped up to an 8 point advantage. I remember covering this. I remember a lot of folks, including myself saying, you know what? Republicans look pretty decent right now, in terms of the fact that they had the House, they had the Senate, they had the presidency, but things were likely going to flip. And I was looking for the same signs this year. The bottom line is, it hasn’t happened, Kate Bolduan, it hasn’t happened. Democrats have stayed basically steady, they have fallen off the pace. Democrats were way out ahead back in 2017 on the generic congressional ballot. And now we’re basically looking at Democrats ahead. But again, they are so far in back of the pace that they set back there. And so I think what a lot of folks are seeing, folks like myself, are saying, ‘Wait a minute, given what we might be seeing in redistricting, is this +3 going to be enough, Kate Bolduan?”
BOLDUAN: “That’s what I was going to ask. One change from that cycle is also this mid-decade redistricting effort that we’ve been covering so much. Add that in and what do you get?”
ENTEN: “OK, so we add that and we take a look at the national picture, but then we, of course, taking a look at the state legislators —”
BOLDUAN: “Right.”
ENTEN: “— right, they are potentially changing things. And there are two things that are going on here. First off net mid decade redistricting gains. If both sides max out at this point, there are more Republican gains possible than Democratic gains. Yes, the Democrats might try to counter a Texas and a California, but you go along in the different states, and basically Democrats run out of room where Republicans are able to gain and gain and gain. If both sides max out, we’re probably looking at a GOP gain of +7 House seats. That doesn’t even take into account the potential gutting of the VRA that is right now going to be in front of the Supreme Court. If you add that in —”
BOLDUAN: “Voting rights — The Voting Rights Act.”
ENTEN: “— you could be looking at what? Yes, exactly right. The Voting Rights Act. If you add that in, then you could be looking about adding 10, 12, 15, 17 on top of these 7 seats. So I think a lot of folks like myself are looking at this, we’re saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, those national polls — Democrats are not gaining the way that we expected.’ Then you add in the fact that the state legislators are adding potentially more GOP seats like they’ve already done down in Texas, like they’ve done in Missouri. And then you add in the potential gutting of the VRA. And all of a sudden, it becomes much more difficult for Democrats to gain, especially given that they are not keeping up with their 2017 and 2018 pace.” [crosstalk]
BOLDUAN: “And as you said, that also makes it difficult to compare it to past examples in history, because this is such a different new landscape we’re looking at, right?”
ENTEN: “It’s a different new landscape. And we’re not quite sure how much Democrats will have to be ahead in the National House Vote in order to gain control.”
BOLDUAN: “All right. Thank you, Harry.”
ENTEN: “Thank you.”
BOLDUAN: “Sara?”