Feb. 25, 2026, 6:10 p.m.
The battlefield was small. The expectations were low. Democrats were burnt out from losses in the previous cycle. Republicans controlled all three levels of government.
The aftermath of the 2024 election—a drubbing that left Democrats shut out of power in Washington—put the party in a precarious position. The media labeled them as lost and in the wilderness, without a leader or a vision. It’s a position not unlike 2006, when Democrats had a leadership void and the donors who had bankrolled the 2004 campaign decided to step back. But Democrats roared back to a majority in both the Senate and the House that fall, netting 31 House seats and six Senate seats.
The cycles aren’t identical, but party officials agree they rhyme. Health care, gas prices, and cost of living have all emerged as key Democratic campaign issues heading into November.
Rahm Emanuel, who chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, outlined three “flashing yellow” warning signs for Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms in an interview with National Journal. He pointed to Democrats’ “financial disparity” with Republicans and with President Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., “the quantities of quality seats” after redistricting, and “the unknown" factor of how the Trump administration may “use the Justice Department and politicize it in a way that it's never historically been involved.”
But Emanuel—who went on to serve as President Obama's chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, and ambassador to Japan, and is now considering a presidential run—projected confidence in the trends that have helped the minority in the past.
“When one party controls both the gavel and the microphone on either side of Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s a referendum election,” Emanuel said. “And unless things are going swimmingly, it’s going to be a referendum.”
In the wake of the 2004 defeat for Democrats, the chattering class of journalists and political commentators readied to declare them a permanent minority party, Washington Post scribe Naftali Bendavid chronicles in The Thumpin’. The book takes an inside look at Emanuel’s stint as DCCC chairman during the 2006 cycle, guiding Democrats back to the majority.
“When I interviewed for the job, nobody thought we were going to win,” Karin Johanson, who served as executive director of the DCCC during the 2006 midterm cycle, told National Journal. “No one thought we had a chance.”
Democrats who led the DCCC during the 2006 cycle pointed to corruption as a common theme. In 2006, the Jack Abramoff scandal, the corruption investigation into Rep. Rick Renzi, and growing opposition to the war in Iraq “fused” into general dissatisfaction with Republican leadership, Emanuel said.
“It wasn’t corruption over there versus this is a different corruption,” he said. “It was just one giant ‘You’re not paying attention to our needs and you’re paying attention to your needs.’ That was the standard of corruption.”
What Rahm used to say was, ‘I don’t know how big the wave is going to be, but we’re going to put as many effing boats in the water as we can.' ”
— Former DCCC executive Christina Reynolds
Trump seems not to have taken the lesson from his predecessors. A New York Times investigation revealed that donors have given nearly $2 billion since the election to Trump's favored causes and political projects, and that the administration has taken actions or made statements that benefit more than half of those donors.
Private companies have lined up to donate large sums to his White House ballroom project. Since he entered the White House for his second term, he and his family have inked foreign real estate and crypto deals, netting billions of dollars.
In her response to the State of the Union, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger blasted Trump for enriching himself, his friends, and his family instead of improving the lives of Americans, a potential preview of what’s to come in battleground seats this November.
“The culture of corruption now,” Johanson said, “is Trump and the Republicans enabling it. And it’s so vast, I’m not sure anybody can focus on what it is.”
The initial political environment in 2005 seemed unlikely for a large wave. The Cook Political Report rated just six House races as Toss Ups during its first ranking in January 2005. Even fewer Toss Ups began the 2018 cycle—another historic wave for Democrats—when Cook declared just three Toss Ups in its initial rankings.
Prognosticators and party officials expect a small House battlefield this year, and it’s likely to become even smaller as a result of the escalating mid-decade redistricting occurring in several states across the country. The cycle began with 18 Toss Ups in January 2025.
But Democratic Party officials 20 years ago weren’t expecting nor necessarily preparing for the wave they got. Emanuel “warned [Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] there was no way the Democrats could win the House in 2006,” Bendavid wrote. Staring down a 30-seat minority, Emanuel braced to win a few seats before finishing the job in 2008.
The strategy was to make a concerted effort to field as many viable candidates in as many districts as possible in order to maximize potential gains. Democrats knew, as history dictated, they were set to gain seats—just how many remained the outstanding question.
“What Rahm used to say was, ‘I don’t know how big the wave is going to be, but we’re going to put as many effing boats in the water as we can,'” said Christina Reynolds, who ran the research department at the DCCC under Emanuel.
Candidate quality was a key consideration. Emanuel shattered prior DCCC precedent in order to field what he thought was the strongest field of candidates.
“He was ruthless in how he chose candidates,” said Bill Burton, who was DCCC communications director under Emanuel. “People hadn’t really done it like that before. He put his thumb so firmly on the scale behind candidates he thought could win … and that’s what put us in a position to win the seats that we won.”
One such example was Heath Shuler, a former NFL player Emanuel wanted desperately to run. Shuler, who had folkloric popularity in western North Carolina and held conservative positions for a Democrat, was such a threat to Republicans that President George W. Bush tried to meet with him to prevent him from running, according to Bendavid. Shuler refused, ran for Congress, and won.
Shuler was the last Democrat to represent the Asheville-based seat, and which Republicans took after 2012. This year, Democrats have refocused their attention to the seat, labeling farmer Jamie Ager one of their best recruits this cycle, even if it seems like a reach at this point.
“If you want to win one of these congressional districts that are marginal or swing that will give you the majority, you've got to focus on swing, independent voters,” Emanuel told National Journal. “If you don’t want to, God bless you, but it’s going to come at the expense of winning the majority.”
