With less than five weeks to go until the midterm elections, Republicans face historical headwinds as the party in power and must also contend with high gas prices amid the ongoing Iran war. But Republican groups enjoy a clear cash advantage as the party seeks to hold on to the House, and redistricting in several states has improved GOP chances of flipping a handful of seats across the country. Even so, Democrats have expanded the House battleground of districts they believe to be competitive, including in territory Donald Trump carried by double digits two years ago. CQ Roll Call’s latest list of the most vulnerable House members continues to be influenced by the redistricting fights of the past year. Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, who topped our rankings in May, moves off the list entirely after the Supreme Court last week blocked the use of a GOP-drawn map that had transformed his Kansas City-area seat into a Republican sure shot. Cleaver is now seeking reelection to a safely Democratic district, and Missouri voters will weigh in on the proposed GOP map via a November ballot referendum. Taking the top spot this time is Republican Rep. James Gallagher, who won a June special election for a California district that was radically reshaped in Democrats’ favor under a new voter-approved map that will be used in November. Kevin Kiley, another California redistricting target who switched from Republican to independent earlier this year, follows behind Gallagher. Two Democrats, whose districts became more Republican, also feature high on the list. Florida Rep. Darren Soto, now running for a seat that Trump would have carried by double digits, is his party’s most vulnerable incumbent, followed by Alabama’s Shomari Figures. Others making the list include mainstays for much of the cycle who are in Toss-up races that are likely to decide the House majority. New entrants include Republican Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa, a state that’s been hit hard by high costs tied to the Iran war and Trump’s tariff policies, and GOP Rep. Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey. To determine the 10 most vulnerable incumbents, CQ Roll Call spoke with party insiders and elections analysts and analyzed candidates’ past results, their campaign finance filings and outside spending in key races. We looked only at races that feature incumbents, and thus did not consider open battleground seats that will be critical to determining House control. As is generally the case, we also did not include races between two sitting House members. Redistricting left Republican Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim competing for the same Southern California seat this November, meaning one of them is set to depart the House at the end of the year. We continue to monitor a handful of other races in California, where a Democratic incumbent and a fellow Democrat advanced to the general election under the state’s top-two primary system, especially considering the anti-incumbent streak that was notable in some Democratic primaries. Members facing notable challenges include Reps. Doris Matsui, Jimmy Gomez and Mike Thompson. Gallagher won a special election in June to fill the Northern California seat of the late GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa, but his time in the House is likely to be short. The 1st District was among several in the state that were dramatically restructured last year to favor Democrats, after voters approved a ballot measure designed to offset a GOP-led redistricting in Texas. The special election was held under the 2024 boundaries, and Gallagher won with 62 percent of the vote. Democrat Mike McGuire, the former leader of the California State Senate, finished third with just 17 percent. But under the new lines, the district turned decidedly blue, with red-leaning Yuba City and Redding cast out in favor of the heavily Democratic wine country communities of Santa Rosa and Healdsburg. That makes McGuire the heavy favorite in his November rematch with Gallagher. After the boundaries of his current House district were redrawn to secure the seat for Democrats, Kiley, a second-term lawmaker who ran for governor in the 2021 California recall election, pivoted to the revamped 6th District. He also shed his Republican affiliation, though he continues to caucus with his former party. Winning as an independent in the blue-leaning Sacramento-area seat remains a challenge, however. His Democratic opponent, pediatrician and former state Sen. Richard Pan, has portrayed Kiley as a Trump acolyte. The president endorsed Kiley in 2022, but the congressman has since sought to create some distance between himself and the party’s MAGA wing. He’s been openly critical of Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership and recently pushed back against an ad by a Democrat-aligned group that paints him as “Trump’s MAGA champion.” Republicans had been targeting Soto all cycle, but his Central Florida seat became a top pickup opportunity this spring after Florida Republicans redrew their congressional map to help the party flip as many as four seats. Democrats concede that the new lines set Soto up for a tough race against Republican Dan Green, a Navy veteran who narrowly won a crowded primary last month. Soto recently voted with Republicans and other vulnerable Democrats on a resolution denouncing “socialism in all its forms” that also included a call for passage of Trump’s voter ID bill. FEC reports at the end of July showed Soto, who didn’t have to contend with a primary, with a cash edge over Green. The race hasn’t yet attracted as much outside spending as other battleground districts, but that may change in the campaign’s final weeks. Figures was first elected in 2024 under an Alabama map that created a second Democrat-leaning district with a substantial Black population. But he faces a difficult path to reelection against GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques after the Supreme Court approved Alabama’s use this year of a map more favorable to the GOP. Under the new lines, Figures’ hometown of Mobile was drawn out of the 2nd District and the percentage of Black voters dropped to about 40 percent. Limited polling has shown a close race, but the district fundamentals favor Marques, who succeeded now-Rep. Barry Moore in the state House in 2018. Republican outside groups, including No Going Back PAC, a spinoff of Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, have sought to shore up Marques on air. Republicans also hope a Trump rally planned for Friday in Mobile will help juice voter turnout across the state. Currently in his second term representing this Des Moines-centered district, Nunn is battling strong political headwinds that appear to favor Democrats. The ongoing Iran conflict and Trump’s tariffs have sent prices for two essential components of the state’s farm economy – fertilizer and diesel fuel – through the roof. Earlier this month, Nunn broke with GOP leaders and backed a resolution to require congressional approval to continue the war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth campaigned in Iowa last month with Nunn, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Democratic nominee Sarah Trone Garriott is a Lutheran minister and state senator with a track record of flipping competitive seats: She won an open GOP-held seat in 2020 and then defeated the president of the state Senate two years later following redistricting. Trone Garriott reported raising $5.3 million as of June 30, compared with nearly $5 million for Nunn. Democrats are hopeful that 2026 will be the year they finally dislodge Miller-Meeks from the Eastern Iowa battleground seat she flipped by six votes six years ago. The Republican has beaten her Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Christina Bohannan, twice already, including by a scant 799 votes in 2024. But Democrats are counting on a boost from the top of the ticket, with their gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand and Senate nominee Josh Turek both waging competitive races in the GOP-leaning state. Miller-Meeks and Bohannan have proved to be prodigious fundraisers this cycle: Bohannan ended June with $5.4 million banked while Miller-Meeks had $4.7 million. One potential wild card in the race is the presence of independent candidate Michael Bridgford, a financial adviser who says he’s running to challenge the two-party system. A freshman running in a Lehigh Valley swing district, Mackenzie is seeking to outrun a tough political environment to win a second term. He faces Democrat Bob Brooks, a former firefighter and union president who won a contested primary earlier this year with support from both the Blue Dog PAC and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders. Mackenzie, who was unopposed in his primary, entered July with a nearly 3-to-1 cash-on-hand edge over Brooks. Latino voters could once again play a key role here, as Mackenzie hopes to hold on to voters who helped him flip the seat two years ago. But the governor’s race could complicate things for the incumbent, with Gov. Josh Shapiro expected to do well at the top of the ticket, potentially boosting fellow Democrats down ballot. Kean joins the list as election prognosticators have shifted the race rating for his Central Jersey seat in Democrats’ favor. He earned national attention this spring when he missed several months of votes while receiving treatment for depression. That absence was the focus of a recent digital ad from the pro-Democratic House Majority PAC. Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a Navy veteran, has criticized Kean over stock trades made while in office. Kean maintains that his portfolio is handled without his involvement, and Republicans have questioned Bennett’s own finances. In a recent debate, Kean, the son of a popular former governor, touted his differences with Trump on the Gateway Tunnel Project and plans to build an ICE detention center in the district, while supporting other presidential priorities such as tariffs and the Iran war. Both candidates have been strong fundraisers as they compete in the expensive New York City media market. First elected in 2022, Ciscomani has built a reputation as a GOP moderate. But his support of Trump’s policy agenda has emerged as a key campaign issue this year in the southern Arizona swing district. Ciscomani’s Democratic opponent, Marine Corps veteran JoAnna Mendoza, says the incumbent has embraced policies that have hurt the district’s rural hospitals and driven up costs. Mendoza is among a coterie of female veterans, including New Jersey’s Bennett, who’ve drawn national attention to their races against Republican incumbents. She reported raising $7.3 million through the beginning of July, compared with $6.2 million for the incumbent. Ciscomani recently campaigned with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Speaker Mike Johnson to highlight Trump’s tax cuts, which he credits with boosting manufacturing and creating jobs in the district. Davis has been a perennial contender on this list since he first won his northeastern North Carolina seat in 2022. Since then, Republican state lawmakers have redrawn the district twice, each time making it more hospitable to the GOP. The most recent redistricting round swept in predominantly white coastal towns and shed communities in the state’s historic Black Belt, including Davis’ hometown of Snow Hill. That would appear to favor Republican nominee Laurie Buckhout, a retired Army colonel who lost to Davis two years ago. But Davis is used to tough races and has burnished a moderate image that sometimes puts him at odds with party leaders. Democrats are encouraged by potential coattail effects from the Senate contest, though Republicans say high spending in that race could benefit Buckhout in a more conservative district. Libertarian Thomas Bailey is running again; in 2024, he took nearly 3 percent of the vote.
