Polling shows that some of the races are dead even, and the 2020 election demonstrated that House races don’t always match the presidential election results.
While most national attention is on the top-of-the-ticket race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, control of Congress will be equally consequential.
Republicans currently hold a narrow majority of eight seats in the House, meaning they can only spare three defections on big votes. Democrats, with four independents, hold a one-seat majority in the Senate and the tie-breaking vote.
While Republicans are favored to reclaim the Senate, the fate of the House remains more uncertain.
Whoever is president will need full control of Congress to get much done during their term.
House Republicans seek to grow their thin, ideologically divided majority and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has indicated his intention to seek reelection as speaker.
Democrats are seeking to reclaim the majority, which they controlled from 2019 to 2023, and to place House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in the speaker’s chair.
Of the 435 House races, there are around two dozen that are expected to ultimately determine control of the House of Representatives in the 119th Congress.
Each race listed here is rated by the Cook Political Report as a “toss-up,” making these races among the hardest to predict.
New York
Republican control of the House is largely due to the party’s victories in New York in 2022, when several Republicans won districts that had voted for candidate Joe Biden just two years prior.
While the expected red wave didn’t fully materialize nationwide, there was a notable Republican surge in New York.
The most surprising win was Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-N.Y.) defeat of incumbent Rep. Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the then-chair of the Democrats’ House campaign arm.
Lawler, whose district lies just north of New York City, won by a 0.6 percent margin in an upset that shocked even bullish Republicans.
This year, Lawler is leading his Democratic opponent, Mondaire Jones, by just one point, an Oct. 3 Emerson College poll shows.
Meanwhile, Reps. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.)—both of whom represent Biden-voting districts—are also seeking to hold onto their closely contested seats.
