LEESBURG, Va. – House Democrats anticipate that a backlash to the policies and actions of President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress will help them win control of the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.
That was the expectation in conversations here at the Lansdowne Resort, where lawmakers from the minority party gathered this week for a three-day policy conference. Democrats said that while voters last year called for lowering prices, the Trump administration hasn’t made it a priority, and instead the upheaval unleashed by the president and his allies is causing many Americans to regret their votes from last November.
“Those in my district who voted for Trump did not vote for this shitstorm,” Oregon Rep. Andrea Salinas said Thursday.
Still, Democrats are coming off an election that stripped them of all levers of power in Washington, and the party’s brand has also taken a beating, with polling showing that voters view them less favorably than Republicans. The challenge of maintaining party unity and focusing on a cohesive message against Trump was underscored Friday, as Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer’s decision to vote to advance the GOP-led stopgap funding measure drew fierce criticism from House Democratic leaders and other Democrats in both chambers.
“It is a false choice that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans have been presenting between their reckless and partisan spending bill and a government shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a Friday news conference on Capitol Hill.
Nine other members of the Senate Democratic Conference later joined with Schumer to advance the stopgap measure to avert a partial government shutdown. Just one House Democrat voted to pass the bill earlier this week.
Another major question facing Democrats in future elections will be whether they can win back support from key members of their coalition who defected to the Republicans last year, including Latino voters.
Some members, like Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat, are confident such trends are reversible.
“Many of them are turning back and are now questioning why they voted that way,” the New York lawmaker said of Latino voters who supported Trump, while also cautioning that Democrats should “lead with ideas.”
A path to victory
While Democratic senators face a daunting map in 2026, House Democrats have reason for optimism. Midterms are often favorable to the party out of power, and eight years ago, Democrats rode a wave of dissatisfaction with Trump to gain a majority in the chamber. Republicans also control the House by only a narrow margin – which Democrats made a dent in during the 2024 elections.
“We are [at] 215, which puts us in an incredible position, so we need three more seats,” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters on Wednesday.
Thirteen of those seats were carried by Trump last fall, meaning any path to the majority would also require defending those swing districts, some in rural territory that has been trending away from Democrats.
Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, who was recently named a DCCC recruitment co-chair for the 2026 cycle, acknowledged that his party faces a “long-term challenge of reintroducing itself to rural America and the center of the country.”
But he said Democrats were already hearing from potential candidates interested in running for office.
Strong candidates in swing districts, Crow said, would include people with service backgrounds who are respected in their communities. But getting them to run won’t necessarily be easy.
“Those candidates who are the most successful in really tough places sometimes take some convincing,” he said.
Honing a message
As part of their planned voter outreach, the DCCC, the Democratic National Committee and state party outfits announced Friday that they would start holding town halls in at least nine Republican-held swing districts in states such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
California Rep. Ami Bera, who co-chairs the DCCC’s Frontline program for vulnerable members, said that in the weeks and months to come, people will start to see how the administration’s policies may negatively affect them.
“These policies are going to come straight home very quickly,” the seven-term lawmaker said.
Bera pointed to layoffs announced this week at the Department of Education, predicting that would lead to parents realizing that their children won’t be receiving certain services at school.
“Message discipline is going to be really important. We shouldn’t be saying 30 things,” he said in an interview. “We should find the two or three things that really matter to everyday American families, and then we should point out how Donald Trump and his policies are hurting them, and here’s what we would do to help them.”
Florida Rep. Darren Soto said voters who split their tickets by voting for Trump and their Democratic member of Congress need to hear what Democrats will do to lower costs, because that’s what drove their vote last fall.
“You see a lot of folks who have great anxiety, and it’s a lot of fertile ground for us to continue to talk about the things that we’re going to be doing to help improve their lives,” he said.
