GOP polls show they have a shot at flipping House Dem districts Trump won

The National Republican Congressional Committee insists that it’s staying on offense heading into November, despite the historic headwinds that face incumbent parties in midterm elections and poor poll numbers for President Donald Trump.

Now, the GOP’s House campaign arm is pushing out polling for the first time this cycle — shared first with POLITICO — to back up their claims.

The polls show Republicans are well-positioned in five Democratic-held battleground House races that Trump won in 2024, all seats that have long been at the top of their target lists for the cycle.

"House Democrats are staring down a political buzzsaw in districts that already rejected their party at the top of the ticket last cycle," NRCC Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said in a statement. "These polls underscore the NRCC’s strategy to go on offense, expand the battlefield and flip seats, putting Democrats on the back foot and making their climb out of the minority even steeper."

Maine’s 2nd District, which is open after moderate Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) decided not to run for reelection, appears to be the GOP’s best shot at a flip, based on these polls.

Former GOP Gov. Paul LePage leads two Democratic candidates by 10 points each, 50 percent to 40 percent. One of those candidates, state Sen. Joe Baldacci, was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign’s “Red to Blue” list earlier this week. The other, state Auditor Matt Dunlap, had launched a primary challenge from the left before Golden decided not to run.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), who has overcome strong challenges in past cycles, is down 7 points to Washington GOP state Senate Minority Leader John Braun in the state’s 3rd District, according to the survey.

The three other battleground polls released by the NRCC show statistically deadlocked races within the polling’s margin of error.

In Texas’ 34th District, Republican Eric Flores came in narrowly ahead of Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, 41 percent to 40 percent. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) was 2 points ahead of GOP challenger Greg Cunningham, 43 percent to 41 percent in New Mexico’s 2nd District. And Republican Laurie Buckhout was deadlocked at 41 percent with Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) in the Tar Heel State’s 1st District. House Democrats mostly ran ahead of the presidential ticket in 2024, and as a result are defending 13 seats that Trump carried, to just three GOP-held seats carried by Vice President Kamala Harris. That was before redistricting efforts that have affected nine states so far.

Trump won the five polled battleground districts by margins ranging from 2 points in NM-02 to 11 points in the redrawn NC-01.

These districts are among Republicans’ best chances this cycle. Four of these districts are listed among the eight Democratic-held districts the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as tossup or better for the GOP (they rate Vasquez lean-Democrat). Conversely, they currently rate 20 GOP-held districts rated as tossup or better for Democrats.

Partisan polls should always be taken with a grain of salt. And there is ample polling that shows Republicans are at risk this fall. A BallotPedia aggregate of generic ballot polling has Democrats with an edge of 6 percentage points. Plus, Trump’s approval — which was not included in any of the NRCC’s polling — continues to lag in public polling. A New York Times aggregate of Trump’s approval ratings has the president underwater, with 58 percent disapproving of his return to the White House.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dismissed the NRCC’s polls in a statement.

"No matter how Republicans try to manipulate push polling on the House battlefield; they can’t stop the inevitable — we are taking back the House in November,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement.

Republicans have a big overall financial advantage heading into the midterms: The NRCC has an $8 million cash on hand advantage over the DCCC, and battleground GOP incumbents have repeatedly shown strong fundraising numbers. And then there’s Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., which is sitting on a massive warchest of $300 million.

Across all five of the polls, the Democratic Party is underwater by a wide margin.

Maine’s 2nd District was the starkest example, where just 29 percent of those polled held a favorable view of the party and 61 percent had an unfavorable view. Washington’s 3rd District followed, with 31 percent favorable and 59 percent unfavorable. Across the other districts, the party’s favorability was in the mid 30s, and unfavorability in the low 50s.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate to votes for the GOP, as many of the incumbents in these districts have broken with the party.

The GOP-aligned firm co/efficient conducted the polls, which surveyed between 842 to 982 likely general election voters in each of the districts from April 25-29. The polls had margins of error ranging from plus or minus 3.12 percent to 3.5 percent.