Republicans optimistic about chances of holding U.S. House in midterms

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(The Center Square) – Republican leaders in the U.S. House are confident they will maintain control of the chamber after the midterm elections, despite coping with party infighting that has delayed progress on critical legislation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday that he feels “very optimistic” and that House Republicans had received “great feedback in their districts” over the August recess.

“Republicans are going to defy history in 63 days, and we're going to hold this House majority. And that's for a simple reason: because the American people recognize the historic stakes of this,” Johnson said. “This is going to be a midterm unlike any other.”

Johnson, like other Republican lawmakers, pointed to growing numbers of self-identified Democratic Socialist candidates appearing on the 2026 ballot as a sign of “absolute madness that is ensuing on the other side.”

“The question that voters across the nation have to answer this Fall is whether we're going to turn the greatest nation in the history of the world over to communism and big government socialism as radical left Democrats insist — or, whether we're going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic, the great nation, the grand experiment in self-governance that's built on our foundational principles,” Johnson added. “That's what Republicans stand for. That's what we'll always stand for.”

Democrats, in their midterm messaging, have hammered Republicans on affordability, particularly over rising prices of gas and consumer goods resulting from the Trump administration’s military operations in Iran.

Johnson breezed past the criticism, touting other parts of Republicans’ record in the 119th Congress, such as permanently extending the 2017 tax cuts and domestic manufacturing rebates and pushing legislation targeting migrant crime.

“If you're like most Americans, the battle comes down to a simple question. Really, at the end of the day, which policies are going to be better for my family?,” Johnson said. “Do American families want a return to rampant inflation, record crime, record illegal immigration that we had under Democrat governance, or do they want to continue the restoration of common sense?”

He acknowledged that Republicans “have a lot more to do,” but argued that “this is the team that you must keep in place to continue those great strides and not reverse it and not go back to what we had.”

“As I like to say all the time, it is record over rhetoric. We're confident American voters are going to remember that when they had to vote this Fall,” Johnson added. “When they have the facts, they will make the right decision.”

According to recent polling, however, Republicans’ chances of staying in power look shaky. Only 42% of registered voters surveyed in The Center Square’s newest Voters’ Voice Poll chose a Republican candidate, versus 47% who chose a Democratic candidate.

The poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights from Aug. 12-16 with a +/- 2.0% margin of error. It surveyed 2,533 registered U.S. voters, with the sample comprised of 930 Republicans, 930 Democrats, and 673 Independents.