Opinion | Who Will Win the Midterms? Nate Silver and 5 Other Experts Have Thoughts.

Perry Bacon Mr. Bacon is a staff writer at The New Republic.

Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings would suggest a massive House defeat for the president’s party, similar to 2006, 2010 and 2018. But polarization and the sorting of the electorate (meaning fewer swing districts than in previous cycles) as well as the seats Republicans gained through redistricting will minimize G.O.P. House losses. For the Senate, North Carolina seems like a clear flip for Democrats. Maine is a real tossup — Susan Collins has a strong chance even against a Democrat without Graham Platner’s baggage. If you give Democrats both those seats, I still don’t see them winning more than one in the red states of Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas — and the Democrats need four to take the majority.

Carlos Odio Mr. Odio is a founder of Equis Research.

All signs point to a Democratic House majority. But there is a drag on Democrats keeping them from a larger tsunami. My informed suspicion is that groups that swung the most toward Trump in 2024 haven’t entirely turned against his party — yet. For a Senate majority, Democrats need to win in at least two states where Trump won by double digits. Even in the blue wave of 2018, only two incumbents (Jon Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia) did that. Today, I can see Democrats pulling off one miracle — but it’s too early to anticipate more. I still think Maine will move on from Susan Collins.

Patrick Ruffini Mr. Ruffini is a pollster at Echelon Insights.

An election being fought on the G.O.P.’s home turf and in districts engineered not to be competitive means it will be hard for Democrats to translate a generic ballot advantage into large seat gains. Without mid-decade redistricting, the G.O.P. would be staring down a 25- to 30-seat loss. Still, the redrawn maps don’t insulate them from losing their majority. For the Senate, elections have become tightly coupled with state partisanship. A Democratic majority would require challengers to win in multiple red states, and the last time a nonincumbent won in a state the other party carried by 10 points or more was Doug Jones in Alabama in 2017. The last time a nonincumbent won in a regularly scheduled election was in 2012.

Nate Silver Mr. Silver writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.

With the Democratic lead on the generic ballot (currently about D+6), you’d expect them to overcome the Republican advantage from redistricting. That could grow, because most polls right now are among registered voters, and Democrats are likely to have an enthusiasm advantage that will show up once there’s a switch to likely-voter polls. In the Senate, to win those four seats, Maine is a problem. There’s not much polling on non-Platner alternatives versus Collins, and any bridge burning by him on the way out could make it hard to unify around the new nominee. Coupled with the recent Times/Siena Senate polling, that makes for more combinations where Democrats come up short.

Charlotte Swasey Ms. Swasey writes the newsletter Medium Data.

Democrats are very, very likely to win a House majority. They’re only a few seats shy, and midterm elections are highly thermostatic, with the president’s party losing seats in every midterm since 2002. The real question is if they can get a Senate majority to match it. I think not quite — the overall Democratic shift seems likely to sweep North Carolina, but past that you run into a wall of states with either unusually strong Republican candidates (Maine) or solid Trump margins (Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Iowa). The polling is so patchy that it’s hard to know which of those seats might flip.

Lynn Vavreck Ms. Vavreck is a political scientist at U.C.L.A.

Political scientists have learned a lot about the regularities of congressional elections: Incumbents typically win, the president’s party usually loses seats in the off year, his or her approval rating is linked to the way races swing, and turnout matters. These factors mainly suggest Democrats should pick up seats in 2026 — but how many? Given how calcified, or stuck, our politics has become, I expect a modest Democratic pickup. At this stage, my rule was to examine the close races in each chamber and assume Democrats win the competitive seats they already hold, pick up close seats if they won them recently and otherwise lose.

Charlotte Swasey Ms. Swasey writes the newsletter Medium Data.

Midterms are a reaction to what the president is doing, and right now the president is doing poorly: Trump’s approval rating is below 40 percent. But we don’t have strong historical evidence on what happens with an approval rating like this. Pure correlation would suggest a big Democratic wave, but the Republican wave in 2022 was smaller than expected, on the back of a similarly low approval rating for Joe Biden. My guess is the relationship between approval ratings and midterm results isn’t linear, making 2026 a strong Democratic year but not a re-enactment of 2018.

Lynn Vavreck Ms. Vavreck is a political scientist at U.C.L.A.

Changes in midterm election outcomes from cycle to cycle partly reflect changes in the way people think things are going in the country. Right now, that’s not good for Republicans. Polls also suggest more Americans see important differences between the two parties than ever before. So if Republicans are dismayed, they probably won’t vote for a Democrat — but maybe they stay home instead. There just aren’t that many swing voters, but the few who remain are deciding elections. If Trump’s approval rating improves among them, so will Republicans’ prospects.

Carlos Odio Mr. Odio is a founder of Equis Research.

In his first term, Trump often enjoyed higher approvals on his handling of the economy than on his overall job performance. It was something of a safety net: Voters who didn’t like him for other reasons could say, “But the economy.” That net is gone. He is now regularly rated worse on the economy than on his overall job. What was a hidden strength is now an underlying weakness for him and his party, keeping them from bouncing back before the midterms. It could act as a tiebreaker in Democrats’ favor among less partisan voters.

Perry Bacon Mr. Bacon is a staff writer at The New Republic.

Generic ballot is more useful than approval rating, because ultimately voters aren’t choosing between “I like Trump” and “I don’t like Trump” but between Republican and Democratic candidates. It’s particularly helpful in projecting results for the House, where Americans tend to vote by party, as opposed to the individualized way people evaluate Senate candidates. Democrats lead the generic ballot by about 6.2 points. On Election Day in 2010 and 2018, the out party (the G.O.P. in 2010, Democrats in 2018) led the generic ballot by around eight. A roughly six-point lead portends Democrats winning the House — but they need a few more points for a huge wave.

Nate Silver Mr. Silver writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.

You can squint and say there’s been some slippage for Democrats on the generic ballot, but in our tracking it’s been pretty minor. They peaked at D+6.6, and now it’s around D+6.2. Some people might attribute that to stories of Democratic infighting in Maine, New York and Michigan — or that the World Cup is giving people a much-deserved break from politics. But my guess is the more likely factor is that gas prices have declined by about 75 cents from their peak.

Patrick Ruffini Mr. Ruffini is a pollster at Echelon Insights.

Inflation is a key indicator — and more to the point, gas prices. Figuratively and literally, gas prices are the scoreboard people drive by every day that tells them if things are going well or poorly in the economy. They’re also a decent barometer of whether Trump will have succeeded in extricating the country from the war in Iran. A national average price of $3.50 or lower — they are currently at about $3.90 — is probably table stakes for any chance that the G.O.P. has of exceeding expectations.

Perry Bacon Mr. Bacon is a staff writer at The New Republic.

I have never understood why Ohio became decidedly Republican post-2012 while Michigan and Pennsylvania (similar states in many ways) did not. In 2024, Trump easily won there (11 points), while the Democrat Sherrod Brown, a skilled politician, lost to the newcomer Republican Bernie Moreno by four points. This year, Brown is seeking a return to the Senate and leads in some polls over Senator Jon Husted, who was appointed after JD Vance became vice president. I am intrigued (but still doubtful) that a Democrat can win Ohio again. And while I respect Brown, in this era of skepticism about Washington and career politicians, I am surprised a retread remains so competitive.

Carlos Odio Mr. Odio is a founder of Equis Research.

Many Hispanic voters are souring on Trump, but it is still unclear how far back the clock can be rewound. To 2022? 2018? Among the seats to watch for that answer are Texas’ 15th Congressional District, which is 75 percent Hispanic by eligible population. Under the new lines of the district, Democrats would have won it before 2020 but lost it since. If Texas Hispanics vote in 2026 the way they did in 2018, Democrats will win this race. Our polling at Equis, including a national survey of Latino voters from May, suggests they’re not there yet. Part of how Democrats could get those levels of support is by running candidates that distinguish themselves from the generic Democratic brand. Bobby Pulido — a superpopular Tejano singer who plays quinceañeras and campaigns with slogans like “I’m not team red, I’m not team blue — I’m team you” — offers a strong example.

Patrick Ruffini Mr. Ruffini is a pollster at Echelon Insights.

Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate bid in Michigan may become the clearest test of whether this year’s progressive surge can survive contact with a swing-state electorate. The backlash to Joe Biden-era gerontocracy has raised Democratic primary voters’ appetite for risk and injected an unruliness into the party’s primaries that we are more used to seeing on the Republican side. If El-Sayed wins the nomination and then carries Michigan in November, progressives will treat it as proof that their brand can compete in a 2028 swing state. If he wins the primary and loses the general, it will be taken as evidence that the Democratic left flew too close to the sun and cost the party a very winnable Senate seat.

Nate Silver Mr. Silver writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.

Iowa has been a little bit under the radar. But the Democratic candidate, the former Paralympian Josh Turek, is roughly in a tossup in polls against Representative Ashley Hinson. Democrats have been teased by Iowa polls before: People in my world still remember the Selzer poll that showed Kamala Harris winning the state late in the 2024 cycle (which led to Trump suing The Des Moines Register). But sometimes being below the radar is helpful. The race won’t attract as much money as, say, Texas, and Turek might not be as easy for Republicans to typecast as James Talarico.

Charlotte Swasey Ms. Swasey writes the newsletter Medium Data.

The Kansas primaries for governor feature a pile of candidates on both sides, in an under-covered race. Unlike Maine, where Democratic candidates flocked to the gubernatorial primary to avoid the tricky Senate race, Kansas Democrats seem more excited about the long-shot Senate election than the (somewhat less long-shot) one for governor. The Democratic side features three candidates, all from the same county, and an endorsement by Gov. Laura Kelly that doesn’t seem to have moved the needle for her preferred candidate, Ethan Corson. The Republican side has six candidates, with the Trump endorsee and State Senate president Ty Masterson still feeling enough pressure to spend big on ads. It’s a microcosm of the dynamics of both parties: Republicans are grappling with the extent of Trump’s control over the party, and Democrats are watching the sway held by incumbents and party leadership degrade in real time.

Lynn Vavreck Ms. Vavreck is a political scientist at U.C.L.A.

Josh Shapiro is on the ballot in November seeking a second term as governor of Pennsylvania, and I’m watching. It’s not a competitive race, but he’s a popular Democratic governor in a swing state (he won by 15 points in 2022), he has a national profile, and he’ll use all of this to try to swing Pennsylvania’s highly competitive Republican-held districts. If the Democrats pick up the Seventh and 10th Districts, they are probably on track for a House majority. If the Eighth District flips, they are expanding into working-class territory, raising the possibility that places like northeastern Pennsylvania remain open to Democrats like Shapiro. Results like these will deepen the conversation about the party’s post-2026 future — and Shapiro’s potential role in it.