[1]Swing LeftSwing Left
This week, Swing Left announced some big news: We’re expanding our 2026
map of swing districts that’ll be key to flipping the House, adding 11
competitive districts where updated analysis shows our collective time and
money can make a meaningful difference.
In total, we’re now targeting 33 swing districts for the midterms: 14
must-hold Democratic seats and 19 Republican-held seats to flip, which
together form the clearest path to winning back Democratic control of the
House of Representatives.
Our swing district targeting is guided by four primary inputs:
1. Data: We analyze past electoral performance, district partisanship,
turnout patterns, and demographic trends to identify districts with a
credible path to victory.
2. Electoral Context: We consider broader political and environmental
factors that influence the competitiveness of a district:
redistricting changes, top-of-ticket dynamics, candidate quality, and
emerging political trends.
3. Early Infrastructure-Building for Long-Term Power: Some districts
matter not only for the fight to win back the House in 2026, but for
what they unlock in terms of helping other candidates on the ballot
win next year, in 2028, and beyond.
4. Community Alignment: We prioritize districts where Swing Left already
has meaningful volunteer infrastructure—or where there is a strong
strategic rationale to grow it.
Given the Democratic momentum shown in last month’s elections, you might
be wondering why we’re not going wider. Swing Left takes a ruthlessly
pragmatic approach to choosing targets. We don’t spread resources thin or
chase long shots. This expansion reflects seats where redistricting and
electoral movement have created real openings, while avoiding places where
Democratic gains are unlikely to translate into wins.
Put simply, we aren’t going to waste your precious resources, be it time
or money. We also don’t want to help Democrats only overperform in a bunch
of races. We want them to win.
With just a few weeks left until 2026, this is the moment to pool early
money for Democratic campaigns and support early organizing work in these
districts. [ [link removed] ]If you can, consider making a donation today to be split
between Swing Left and the future Democratic nominees in each of these 33
target districts.
Your contribution supports Swing Left’s national organizing work,
including our innovative voter contact program, Ground Truth. It also
allows campaigns to go on offense on day one of the general election:
hiring staff, running ads, and reaching voters sooner before Republicans
go on the attack.
[ [link removed] ]Donate $25 Now
For the 2026 midterms, our targets are split into must-hold seats and flip
seats.
Must-hold seats are districts that are currently represented by Democrats
that we must defend. Our original criteria focused on vulnerable freshman
members, specifically those who won in 2024 by less than 3%, or those who
won in districts where Trump also won.
Now, we’ve expanded our criteria to include districts Democrats won by
4.5% or less, districts Trump won by 5.5% or less, and districts with a
Partisan Voter Index (a measure of how much an area favors one political
party over the other compared to the national average) of D+1 or less.
As a result, we’ve added six new districts to our must-hold list:
* Nevada’s 3rd District
* New Mexico’s 2nd District
* New York’s 3rd District
* Ohio’s 1st and 13th Districts
* Washington’s 3rd District
Flip seats are Republican-held districts where we have a strong
opportunity to flip the seat blue. Our original criteria included
Republicans who won by less than 4% in 2024 or who won in districts where
Kamala Harris won.
We’ve expanded our criteria to include districts where Trump won by 6.5%
or less, or districts with a Partisan Voter Index of R+3 or less.
By expanding our criteria here, we added these five red-to-blue pickup
opportunities:
* California’s 22nd and 48th Districts
* Michigan’s 4th and 10th Districts
* New Jersey’s 7th District
Because of California’s new congressional map implemented after the
passage of Prop 50, we have also removed California’s 27th, 41st, and 47th
Districts from our target list, as the new map makes these districts less
competitive.
Our goal remains ensuring your time and money go where they’ll have the
biggest impact on helping Democrats win critical races that will unseat
Republicans and swing the national balance of power. We’ll continue
watching the political landscape and make changes to these targets when
necessary to ensure we’re doing just that. [ [link removed] ]You can find the full list
of target districts here.
Winning a Democratic House majority is our biggest opportunity to put a
check on Trump and unified Republican control of Washington in 2026.
[ [link removed] ]So if you’d like to make a donation to support all 33 key swing
districts and Swing Left to help bolster next year’s Democratic campaigns,
you can do so at this link.
[ [link removed] ]Donate $25 Now
We’ll be following up soon with additional information on some of our new
House targets, so keep an eye out!
Thanks for all that you do.
— The Swing Left Team
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