Mike Johnson targets Harris territory to expand his majority
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House Republicans are looking well beyond the roughly dozen Trump-district Democrats as they try to grow their two-seat majority.
Why it matters: For the entire length of House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) tenure, just a handful of House Republicans have been able to hold him hostage. He wants that to finally change.
- Johnson's campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, released an initial list of 26 districts that it is targeting in the 2026 midterms.
- Of those districts, roughly half went for Trump and half for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
State of play: The list includes all 13 of the districts that voted for both Trump and a Democratic House candidate.
- Some of those lawmakers, like Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), have long been top GOP targets.
- But others, like Florida Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Darren Soto, are more ambitious, driven by the GOP's recent gains with Hispanic voters.
What they're saying: "House Republicans are in the majority and on offense," NRCC Chair Rich Hudson (R-N.C.) said of the target list in a statement.
- Hudson said Democrats are "painfully out of touch with hardworking Americans" and that "Republicans are taking the fight straight to these House Democrats in their districts, and we will unseat them next fall."
The other side: "House Democrats overperformed across the country in 2024, powered by our battle-tested candidates who won despite the NRCC's false bravado," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton.
- "The truth is House Republicans are running scared and refusing to hold town halls because they don't want to get yelled at," Shelton said.
Zoom in: House Majority PAC, which is closely tied to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), released its initial target list last year.
- It includes 29 districts, some of which Republicans won by as many as 14 percentage points.
- The Democratic PAC also released another 16 "districts to watch" that Republicans won by 12 to 30 percentage points.
