The experts are wrong about 2026

The Argument's modeling breaks with Cook and Sabato on dozens of races

If the 2026 election were held today, there is an 86% chance Hakeem Jeffries would become speaker of the house. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The Argument is holding another live event, this time on June 17 in Washington, D.C.!

Jerusalem Demsas will be interviewing USC psychologist Darby Saxbe about her new book, Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives.

Drawing on two decades of research, Darby explains how becoming a father changes men, from their hormones and brain architecture to their sense of purpose. (Yes, men experience postpartum depression, and “dad bod” is real.)

They’ll get into hot-button topics like:

• Are great dads born or made?

• How do men’s brains and hormones change when they become fathers?

• Why does motherhood get all the attention while fatherhood goes overlooked?

• Does the way dads play with their kids matter?

The conversation kicks off at 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose (5015 Connecticut Ave. NW).

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This cycle, I’ve been baffled at how expert ratings seem to be forecasting a neutral-to-good year for Republicans in the House. As of this moment, both The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both show more seats leaning Republican than Democratic.¹

I think this is completely wrong. In fact, all of the modeling we’re doing suggests that this isn’t even close. The House leans Democratic, and extremely strongly so. That’s why our midterms model finds that Democrats have an 86% chance of winning the lower chamber, even after all of the mid-decade redistricting takes place, with a median outcome of 229 Democrats to 206 Republicans.

On a seat-by-seat level, it looks even more grim for Republicans. The Texas gerrymander that the party created to bolster its majority is likely to net the party just two new seats instead of the five they originally envisioned.² Meanwhile, Democrats are cleaning up in the heavily Hispanic seats that had recently begun to slide away from them.