| Kristen McDonald Rivet was not surprised President-elect Donald Trump won her district. McDonald Rivet and her team knocked on 260,000 doors during her race to succeed retiring Democrat Rep. Daniel Kildee in a Michigan district that President Joe Biden won narrowly in 2020. Those conversations reinforced her sense that Trump would carry it this year. - “They would talk about watching their kids move away, watching their neighborhoods decline, really afraid for the future,” McDonald Rivet said. “President-elect Trump tapped into that and was able to communicate and address that fear very directly.”
But McDonald Rivet also won — by seven points. She’s one of at least nine House Democrats who won in districts that Trump carried this year, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee analysis of election results to date — and there are almost certainly more. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said Trump won his district. And Trump appears to have carried Democratic Rep.-elect Nellie Pou’s district in New Jersey even though Biden won it by 19 points, according to a Republican strategist tracking the results, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the returns have not been certified yet. Those Democratic victories helped deny Republicans a more comfortable House majority, even though Democrats fell short of their goal of retaking the House. They also offer clues about what it might take for Democrats to start winning again in the Trump era. “They really focused on pocketbook issues and talking to their communities about their priorities and how they’re going to get things done,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene (Washington) said of the Democrats who won Trump districts. McDonald Rivet’s message was unusually blunt. “I root for the Lions, I hate Ohio and I think most politicians are full of [bleep],” she said in one TV ad. The last line was particularly important in winning over Trump voters, McDonald Rivet said. - “In my district, people are incredibly cynical about all politicians,” she said. “If you listen to the president-elect talk, he expresses that same level of cynicism, saying over and over and over again, ‘This political system isn’t working for you’ — and he’s right. His solution about how to make it better is very different from mine, but he’s right.”
Republican targets Three Democrats represent districts that Trump carried in 2020 and won again this year: Reps. Jared Golden (Maine), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington). But other Democrats — including McDonald Rivet, Cuellar and Reps. Tom Suozzi (New York), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Susie Lee (Nevada), Gabe Vasquez (New Mexico) and Don Davis (North Carolina) — won districts that Biden carried in 2020 but that Trump flipped this year, and Republicans are already eyeing some of them as pickup opportunities in the midterms. “President Trump has fundamentally shifted the political map by building a coalition unlike any Republican has done before,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson (North Carolina), who is returning to lead the committee again next cycle. “So I think that creates a whole lot of offensive opportunities for us.” Republicans did not make Cuellar’s seat in South Texas — which Biden carried by seven points in 2020 — a top target this year, but Hudson said it’s likely to be a higher priority in 2026. “Trump’s overperfomance with minority voters really has kind of changed how we look at these seats,” Hudson said. How Democrats survived Voters frustrated with inflation and the chaos on the border led them to flock to Trump in Cuellar’s heavily Hispanic district, he said. Cuellar’s record on the border helped protect him. “I’ve been very, very vocal on border security for so many years,” Cuellar told us. “And I think that has always insulated me against millions of dollars when Republicans attack me.” Suozzi also credited his emphasis on border security with helping him survive even though Trump won his district on Long Island, which voted for Biden by 11 points in 2020. “I’m a Democrat,” Suozzi said. “I’ll always be a Democrat, but I’ve leaned into some topics that Democrats have not talked about for a long time and we’ve got to get more comfortable [with] as a party.” Gonzalez, who narrowly won another South Texas district that voted for Trump, pointed to his record of defying his party by voting to support the oil and gas industry. “I believe those votes saved me, because a big part of my community that works in the oil and gas industry has always been happy that I’m supportive of their jobs,” Gonzalez said. Earmarks and deep dives Vasquez said he defeated former Republican congresswoman Yvette Herrell in a New Mexico district that went for Trump the old-fashioned way: bringing money home to his district. “My predecessor took a no-earmarks pledge when she was here. She ran against me again and refused to spend community-project funding dollars,” Vasquez said, using the technical term for earmarks. “I think that was a big deal.” Lee, who was elected this week as the battleground district representative in House Democratic leadership, represents a racially diverse Nevada district that voted for Trump. She said Democrats planned to do a deep dive on how well they’re reaching voters in districts like hers. Davis, who represents a North Carolina district that flipped from Biden to Trump, said Democrats need to be honest with themselves about Trump’s appeal to many voters. “Some of the things he said resonated,” Davis said. “We just have to acknowledge that.” A Republican in a Harris district There are fewer House Republicans in Harris districts than Democrats in Trump districts, although the exact number is impossible to know until California and other states finish counting votes. At least four of the 16 House Republicans who represented Biden districts in this Congress lost their seats. Many of the others saw their districts flip to support Trump this time around. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) is one of the exceptions. He said his team knocked on 160,000 doors, and he held a virtual town hall the night before Election Day in a last-ditch effort to make sure his supporters turned out. He won by two points as Harris carried his district by five points. Bacon described the race as “a meat grinder” — and he knows what he’s up against in 2026. “I’ve been the number-one target or number-two target five elections in a row,” Bacon said. “I'll be targeted again because Harris won it by five. It's just a fact of life.” Thanks to our colleague Marianna Sotomayor for contributing reporting. | 
Theodoric Meyer and 
