Which Team Will Win the House in 2026?
As analysts look at the primary outcomes, polls, and supposedly expert commentators, they all seem to miss the biggest reality of the 2026 campaign.
As analysts look at the primary outcomes, polls, and supposedly expert commentators, they all seem to miss the biggest reality of the 2026 campaign.
There are two teams running for control of the Congress.
One team, the Democrats, want to run individual races that become a referendum of whether affordability, the price of gasoline, the war in Iran, and the more aggressive aspects of immigration law enforcement are acceptable. Their goal is to turn legitimate discontent and inadequate performance into a repudiation of the current governing party.
Because so many of the Democratic candidates have said or posted on social media deeply unacceptable, alienating ideas and judgements, they want to practice the politics of amnesia. They would like to erase all references to everything they have said, wrote, or participated in before last week. They are desperately trying to reshape their image and their record into being normal.
Rep. Alexandra Ocassio-Cortez’s march to the middle is a classic example of this amnesia model. She is now rejecting the tone, stridency, and extremism that enabled her to emerge as a national figure.
Republicans have a simple but difficult assignment. They must function as a team and win arguments about affordability, health, and values of the future. They must make clear to the American people the gigantic difference between the America Republicans are working to create and the America the left would create.
The Democrats want a snapshot focused on this moment. They think if they can get a referendum on “is this good enough,” they have a chance to win.
If this is a campaign about which side will be better for America’s future, Republicans could win a stunning victory comparable to crushing George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis. It could be like the Contract with America campaign (which repudiated Democratic control of the House since 1928) and the rise of candidate Trump when all the elites were certain Hillary Clinton was unbeatable and an establishment figure like Gov. Jen Bush was going to be the nominee of the traditional Republican Party.
Democrats will legitimately try to run individualistic campaigns. Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia will try to avoid any reference to his votes in Washington, the radical values of his major donors, or the nature of the team he joined in Washington.
Democrats survive in part by convincing people back home that they are nice, positive personalities who are nonthreatening. They aren’t like the crazy Democrats you hear about in Washington. Republicans must make the case that these nice folks back home are transformed by
their airplane ride to Washington. They become big government socialists who advocate crazy values and commit to policies which would destroy America as we know it.
Former Democratic Sen. and Gov. Zell Miller made this case about the gap between back home Democrats and how they are changed when they get to Washington. He wrote a revealing book: “A National Party No More.”
Sen. Miller was so disgusted with the Senate Democratic Caucus’s bitter leftwing partisanship that he endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election in 2004 and spoke at the Republican National Convention.
Sen. Miller was astounded by the scale of difference between Democrats at home and in Washington. After he had been in the Senate about a year, he asked me to come to breakfast, so he could apologize. I was surprised and asked what he was apologizing for. He said that during the years he was governor, he thought my comments about the Democrats in Washington were too partisan and they couldn’t possibly be as bad as I described. He had since concluded I had understated how partisan and leftwing they were.
When even a senior Democratic Governor can be shocked by discovering the gap between the Democrats pretending to be normal back home while being big government socialists in Washington, it is clear that most voters will only see that reality with a lot of help.
This is where Democratic campaign consultant Joseph Napolitan’s principle that you should never underestimate the intelligence of the voters, nor overestimate the amount of knowledge at their disposal is so important.
A major job for Republicans in the next two months is to drive home that the Democratic team collectively is committed to a set of big government socialist policies that simply will not work. Furthermore, these same big government socialist democrats are committed to a series of crazy ideas that if implemented would change America into a different country.
Republicans must win the argument that 2026 is a team election and no matter how pleasant or reasonable your Democrat candidate seems back home, when they get to Washington they will be part of a team whose policies would destroy the American economy, undermine safety at home and abroad, weaken the traditions, values, and principles which have made America an exceptional country, and guarantee a poorer, more divisive, and more dangerous future for all Americans.
If the election is a series of individual choice campaigns, the Democrats might be able to survive.
If it a choice between two teams — and which team has the best solutions, the most American values, and the greatest commitment to keeping America safe — then Republicans will win an historic election this fall.
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I pray 🙏 everyone votes Republican to keep our country free from these communist.