Midterms
The U.S. House of Representatives is made up of 435 members, elected to two-year terms. These representatives are distributed among single-member districts, assigned to each state based on its population as determined by the census. Each state is entitled to at least one representative. Every two years, in November (next in 2026), the House is entirely up for election. Representatives may run again in their district or choose another one as many times as they wish. In addition, there are five nonvoting delegates (representing the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa). A nonvoting resident commissioner, elected to a four-year term, represents the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Special elections may be held when a seat becomes vacant.
House rules favor a two-party system, with a majority party in power and a minority party in opposition. The Speaker of the House, currently Mike Johnson (Republican of Louisiana), is elected by the members. Other leaders are chosen by the Democratic caucus or the Republican conference.
Currently, the majority party is the Republican Party, led by Steve Scalise, with 218 representatives. The minority party is the Democratic Party, led by Hakeem Jeffries, with 214 representatives. Three seats are vacant: Mikie Sherrill’s (Democrat of New Jersey), for which a special election is scheduled for April 6; Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (Republican of Georgia), with a special election on March 10; and Doug LaMalfa’s (Republican of California), who died on January 6, 2026, with a special election to be held on August 4, 2026.
Republicans therefore have only a one-vote majority, at least until March 10, when Marjorie Taylor Greene’s seat—considered a safe district for the party—will be on the line.
“Midterms” refers to elections held halfway through a president’s term. They are scheduled for early November 2026, unless Trump manages to delay or cancel them. The House of Representatives and 12 Democrats and 22 Republicans (one-third of the Senate) will be up for election. At present, 49 incumbent House members are not running again, including 28 Republicans and 21 Democrats. In the Senate, between 9 and 11 senators (depending on the most recent early-2026 sources) have confirmed they will not seek another term, including 5 to 6 Republicans and 4 to 5 Democrats.
This situation, combined with recent trends, suggests Republicans could lose their majorities in both chambers of Congress. If that happened in the House, it would significantly complicate Trump’s governance. The House, which holds the power of impeachment, can convene investigative committees and block legislation, including the budget. The Senate is different: Democrats could easily regain the majority, but that would not be enough to overcome the famous filibuster. Under Senate Rule 22, to end debate and prevent a filibuster, a “cloture motion” must be approved. The threshold is 60 votes (three-fifths of the 100 senators). If that 60-vote majority is not reached, the bill remains indefinitely blocked.
For Democrats to prevail in the Senate, they would need to hold all of their seats up for election and pick up 10 additional Republican seats to get around the filibuster on an ordinary bill. That is unlikely.
It is important to remember that, while the House can approve an impeachment by a simple majority, the Senate requires a two-thirds majority (67 votes if all 100 senators are present) to convict and remove a president or another Cabinet member permanently.