Video Timestamps
- 01:00 — Jessica Wehrman opens: the 2026 political landscape
- 02:10 — Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Calais ruling and state responses
- 06:48 — Nathan Gonzales on the structural landscape for Democrats
- 10:30 — What issues voters will actually vote on in November
- 15:49 — Primary fault lines in Republican and Democratic contests
- 18:47 — Most vulnerable Senate and House races
- 23:20 — Michigan Senate race as a bellwether for 2026
- 25:44 — Audience Q&A: Virginia, Indiana primaries, and Maine
Full Transcript
Jessica Wehrman: Welcome to our webinar, What the 2026 Congressional Map Means for Your Issues. I'm joined today by political reporters Daniela Altimari and Mary Ellen McIntire, and Inside Elections editor and publisher Nathan L. Gonzales. Even before last week, this year had all the makings of a particularly newsy election year. It's the midterms, it's the first chance for voters nationally to weigh in on President Trump and the Republican Party 2.0, and we've got razor-thin margins in the House and Senate. We've also had a handful of states doing some mid-decade redistricting, throwing congressional maps into play in states like Texas, Virginia, and California. Then last week, the Supreme Court made it even more interesting when it weighed in 6-3 in Louisiana versus Calais. Mary Ellen, we pretty quickly saw reactions from southern states to this decision. Can you give us a broad brush on what happened after this decision was made?
Mary Ellen McIntire: Yeah, everyone on both sides of the aisle had been waiting for this decision. We knew it was coming before the end of the Supreme Court term in June. The question was, the sooner it comes, the more likely it is that this could have some impact on the 2026 elections, not just 2028. This seems to be timed in a spot that's allowing some states to rush through changes. By Friday afternoon, Tennessee and Alabama both announced special sessions. The Tennessee House approved a new map earlier today that would eliminate the Democratic district based in Memphis, held by Steve Cohen, and give Republicans a chance to go 9-0 in the state. In Alabama, they're waiting on a separate Supreme Court case to lift an injunction on their current map, which has two Democrats. Their special session is focused on reverting to an earlier map that would leave only one Democratic seat. Louisiana, at the heart of the ruling, has postponed their House elections. Legal challenges are coming fast to all of them. Are courts going to let states push through these changes? That's really in wait-and-see territory right now. It's confusing for everyone — candidates have to figure out where they're running, states have to figure out what maps they're using, and people are eventually going to have to figure out who they're voting for.
Jessica Wehrman: Is it mostly southern states pursuing this in the aftermath of the decision?
Mary Ellen McIntire: Yes and no. Southern states are initially responding, but you're seeing Democratic-led states respond too — New York, Colorado, Illinois. Because many of those states have independent redistricting commissions, they weren't able to redistrict earlier in that first pre-Calais wave. They're trying to respond, but they have more hoops to jump through than some of these southern states that are just calling special sessions and charging straight ahead.
Jessica Wehrman: Before this Supreme Court decision, the conventional wisdom was that Republicans had an uphill battle to keep the House. Do Democrats still have an advantage, or how do you even make heads or tails of it now?
Nathan Gonzales: The narrative is still the same. We're talking about Republicans tinkering on the edges — getting a seat or two depending on the state. But we shouldn't underestimate how unpopular President Trump is right now. Depending on your favorite polling average, he's at between 39% and 40% job approval. Republicans are in control of Congress at a time when there is wide dissatisfaction with the direction of the country and the state of the economy. When we look back for generations, midterm elections under those conditions don't go well for the president's party. Democrats only need a net gain of 3 seats to take the House. That's not a big number. There doesn't have to be a wave for Democrats to win. Even if all of this redistricting ends up being good news for Republicans, we're talking about Democrats needing a gain of maybe 9 or 10 seats — and that is not insurmountable under these conditions. There was one election this week that didn't get much attention: a state senate special election in Michigan. Harris finished ahead of Trump by a point in 2024 in that district. The Democratic candidate just won by 20. This is a continuation of the trend we've seen for a year and a half of Democrats overperforming in these races, performing closer to 2020 levels.
Jessica Wehrman: You've got this dynamic on one hand, but then Indiana had this sort of revenge tour of state senators who got kicked out for not supporting redistricting. Is Trump's sway still strong, despite the polling numbers and the economy?
Nathan Gonzales: Indiana told us a lot about the state of the Republican Party, but didn't tell us much about the general election. It was remarkable that these 8 state senators felt empowered enough to say no. But what we learned this week is that among Republican primary voters, President Trump is still popular, still influential, still reigns supreme within the party. There are consequences if you cross the president. The story in Indiana was more about the Republican Party than about how the president is doing with Democrats or independent voters — which is what actually matters for the general.
Jessica Wehrman: What do you think the biggest issues are that voters will be voting on this year? Iran, affordability — what are the big ones?
Daniela Altimari: It depends on which party you're discussing. Republicans want to talk about the bill that passed last summer, no tax on tips, tax cuts, immigration. Democrats want to talk about cost of living, corruption, government ethics, and the extremes of immigration policy. The issues are really party-dependent.
Mary Ellen McIntire: Ultimately, things keep coming back to affordability. That was true in the November elections last year. We saw Democrats across the spectrum — from Zoran Mamdani to Abigail Spanberger — focus on that issue. I was out in Central Virginia a few weeks ago ahead of their redistricting referendum, and I was hearing candidates in both parties talk about the cost of fertilizer. As the campaign goes on, where the focus lands shifts a little, but it comes back to the economy. People don't feel like the economy is in as great of shape as they were hoping it would be under President Trump, and Democrats really point to his softening numbers on the economy as a key data point.
Nathan Gonzales: The economy is the default setting for our elections — and in our own lives. Even if there's a war in Iran, it comes back to that default setting. If voters are focused on the economy and the current direction of the country, that's going to mean a good election for Democrats. What Republicans want is for voters to focus on Democrats. If this election becomes a referendum on the Democratic Party, Republicans will probably hold both chambers. But it's up to Republicans to change that conversation away from where voters currently are. Right now, the evidence isn't pointing toward whether it's a good Democratic year or a good Republican year. We're really only arguing over whether it's a good Democratic year or a great Democratic year.
Jessica Wehrman: Both parties have competitive primaries for open seats and incumbents. What are the dividing lines we're seeing in Democratic and Republican contests?
Daniela Altimari: On the Republican side, primaries are being divided on whether you're perceived to be with Trump or against him. Senator Cassidy in Louisiana is in trouble because Trump didn't just endorse against him — he recruited a House member to run. Same thing in Kentucky with Thomas Massie. And Indiana, as we discussed. That's the key dividing line on the Republican side. The Democratic side is really complicated. Yes, it's age. Yes, it's ideology. Many of these contests encapsulate both — older incumbents being challenged by younger, more progressive challengers. But it's simplistic to boil all of them down to that. Some of it is just ambition. Somebody's been in a seat for a long time, and there's a backlog of folks who want their chance. And some of these progressives are older. The conventional narrative doesn't always hold. There are also divisions on gender. It's a big, fractured tent.
Jessica Wehrman: I know decisions are still being made, but can you give us a preview of the most vulnerable Senate and House races?
Mary Ellen McIntire: The Senate map has been interesting this cycle. A year ago, it was a pretty short list — your traditional swing states, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, New Hampshire. But Democrats have had strong recruitment. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Mary Peltola in Alaska, who only lost her House race — which in Alaska is statewide — by one or two points last year and has had huge fundraising since entering the race. They've been able to expand the map in an interesting way. On the House side, redistricting has changed the game. Don Davis in North Carolina is always a swing seat, but redistricting made his seat significantly harder. He was number one on our list the last time we ran it, and that was purely because of redistricting. We're also now at a point in the primary cycle where we have actual polling data to consider — we can see who's raising money, who's forcing a competitive primary versus who's just getting attention without running a real campaign.
Daniela Altimari: For Democrats on the Senate side, they went into this cycle with a really tough map — a lot of red states to defend just by chance of the calendar. But there's increasing enthusiasm now, not just from incumbents but in places like Iowa, which is an open seat. They're hoping to make some generational changes there. The quality of their recruits is something they're counting on. The picture from last November looks very different from where we are today, and presumably it'll look different again by November.
Jessica Wehrman: Is there a specific race that each of you feels is emblematic of where we are in 2026?
Mary Ellen McIntire: The Michigan Senate race. The Democratic primary is in August — a three-way race. You have Abdul al-Sayed in the progressive lane, Congresswoman Haley Stevens in the moderate lane, and State Senator Mallory McMorrow somewhere in between. Polls show it's tight. Elbows are being thrown. And unlike some Democratic races, this is not about age — these candidates are all roughly the same age range. On the other side, Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost the Senate race in Michigan in 2024, has consolidated Republican support and is raising stronger money than he did two years ago. He's letting the Democrats go at each other. Michigan is a Democratic-held seat. If Democrats can't hold it, it's going to be very, very difficult for them to have any path to flipping the Senate.
Track the Issues. Follow the Races. Know What's Coming Before It Moves.
Track the policies that matter to your organization alongside the reporting that puts them in context. CQ content is integrated directly into PolicyNote — giving you access to trusted analysis from CQ's award-winning journalism team, nearly 50,000 unique reports, and every Congressional Research Service report since 1993. It's your policy tracker with a layer of expert congressional intelligence built in. Get a demo today.
