Democrats are just three seats away from taking back control of the House next year. But they face a major challenge: Their path runs almost exclusively through districts that Donald Trump won in November.
Thirteen House Democrats now represent seats won by Trump, while just three GOP incumbents in districts won by former Vice President Kamala Harris. That’s in stark contrast to the first time Trump won the presidency, when 23 Republicans were elected in seats won by Hillary Clinton and 12 Democrats won Trump Districts.
Now, after years of tapping into anti-Trump anger and enthusiasm from their base, Democrats say they must expand their coalition and rebuild their proverbial big tent—including winning back as many Trump voters as possible.
Democrats who prevailed last year in districts that swung sharply toward Trump say the party should learn from their successes. In interviews, several said a key to winning in Trump districts was to campaign with the kind of authenticity that allowed them to solidify their own brand. Connecting with voters involved getting past stereotypes about what the Democratic Party stands for, they said, and making sure voters knew they shared their concerns.
“At the top of the ticket, there was a lot of focus on only talking to Democrats,” said Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), who won reelection by just three percentage points shy, despite Trump narrowly winning her Vegas-area LAS District. “And I say, stop talking to ourselves and start listening to people.”
The stakes are high. The declining number of crossover districts reflects increased polarization and the continued decline of split-ticket voting. And the crossover districts are different this time: They still include some predominantly white suburban and rural areas, but also more diverse communities that saw some of the largest swings at the presidential level last cycle.
Whether other candidates can replicate the success of Battleground Democrats could determine not just House control for the second half of Trump’s term — but the future of a party undergoing an identity crisis.
Can’t run away from having a safe boundary’
Public opinion on immigration has shifted, and Democrats’ positions and messaging have evolved as well. Many Democrats have already gravitated to the right in the new Congress, with dozens of representatives—including most of those in Trump-won districts—backing a bill that would require arrests of more undocumented people accused of crimes.
Some Republicans want to “demonize and vilify immigrants as if they are all criminals,” said Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.), who flipped by fewer than 200 votes in November. But at the other end of the spectrum, he said, some Democrats appear to be “running away from a secure border or a focus on safe communities.”
Voters in his majority-Hispanic districts like his own want a middle ground, Gray said.
Democrats once thought Trump’s anti-immigrant policies would doom him and the GOP with Latino and immigrant voters. But Republicans used immigration to attack then-President Joe Biden, Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot last year, and Latino and immigrant-heavy areas were among those that swung the most to the right at the presidential level. Trump won Gray’s District by more than 5 points, a double-digit presidential-level swing from 2020.
So while Trump’s first term was marked by Democratic resistance to his aggressive immigration crackdown, many House members are now trying to push back on the line of no-contest as an anti-rigging safeguard.
The issue has become an opportunity for Battleground members to distinguish themselves from party leadership and activist groups.
“The right metric of authenticity is, are you willing to stand up for something even if the politics of your own political party or your base are different than what you need to do to take care of your constituents?” Gray said.
‘I pay attention to the price of groceries’
Voters’ frustration with inflation and high prices hammered Democrats into 2024, with Republicans arguing that Harris and Biden had not done enough to address the plight of working people.
Congressional candidates who prevailed said they found ways to convince voters they were taking the economic challenges seriously.
“I have a 15-year-old son and you can’t fill a 15-year-old boy. I use two liters of milk a week. The child is constantly hungry, so I pay attention to the price of groceries, right? said Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.), who outraised Harris more than any other non-incumbent. She won her Central Michigan district by nearly seven points, even as it voted closely for Trump.
Recognizing voters’ economic struggles can be a challenge for the party in power, which voters tend to see as responsible. The approach may be easier for Democrats in 2026, with Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress. But Democrats in Trump-won districts said it will still take work to establish individual credibility on the issue.
McDonald Rivet said she reached out to voters about their concerns about how their children leaving for job opportunities would make it harder to see their grandchildren — a fear she shares.
“These are the same things that people in the district are concerned about,” McDonald Rivet said. On the campaign trail, she added, “I’ve talked about that. I’ve talked about that almost exclusively. ‘
Speaking and listening
Battleground Democrats broadly acknowledged the party’s challenges, part policy, part messaging.
“It’s a matter of being able to speak the same language as our constituents,” said Rep. Nellie Pou (D-N.J.), whose North Jersey district swung nearly 20 points to Trump in the last election.
Pou – who ran an abbreviated campaign after Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat who had represented the area in Congress since the 1990s and died in August, said her fellow Democrats were sometimes prone to speaking in overly academic language that did not connect with voters. And Democrats must do more to specifically engage Latino voters, she said.
“They are concerned about their household needs. They are concerned about the economy, inflation, education,” Pou said. “We just have to make sure that we reach out to them and also don’t take Latinos for granted.”
Engaging voters also means navigating sometimes complicated views on issues like abortion rights, which have generally been a major electoral strength for Democrats since then Roe v. Wade was destroyed in 2022.
But some battleground Democrats have warned that their voters are not universally supportive of abortion rights, especially Latinos who are Catholic and socially conservative.
Lee, the Nevada congressman, recalled talking to a voter who was turned off by Democrats’ positioning on abortion and said the party seemed to think abortion was good.
Lee said she explained her own experience as a woman who emerged as a Catholic, who had experienced several miscarriages herself, to argue that women should have the freedom to have an abortion based on their personal circumstances. That was more meaningful to the voter than a general statement in favor of abortion rights.
“We need to listen more and then understand where people are comfortable and uncomfortable and be able to talk to that,” Lee said. “And we won’t have all the answers, but if they understand that, we understand their fear, that’s important.”