An unpopular war. An unpopular president. And widespread economic anxiety. With the 2026 midterms less than three weeks away, the comparisons to 2006 are everywhere.

That year, midway through President George W. Bush’s second term, Democrats netted 31 House seats — more than enough to take control of the chamber.

The driving force behind those House gains, then-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rahm Emanuel, told MS NOW this week there is no doubt his party will win control of the chamber in November.

“The question is,” he said, “by how many?”

Democrats need a net gain of about four seats to win the majority. How far past that they go will depend in no small part on how aggressive the party is in the final weeks. It has to weigh a financial disadvantage against polls suggesting real opportunities in some traditionally red areas.

Some analysts have argued that Democrats were not aggressive enough in 2006 and left seats on the table. Case in point: Two years later — with Barack Obama atop the ticket — the party added another 21 seats to their column.

Emanuel brushes off that critique. “We went from the minority to the majority,” he told MS NOW, adding that “there’s always a ‘what if.’”

So far this year, the DCCC has named 46 candidates to its “Red to Blue” program — a list of top recruits in seats they see as feasibly winnable who receive access to strategic guidance, staff resources and more robust fundraising help.

The roster includes candidates in districts Kamala Harris won in 2024. But the committee has also repeatedly expanded it into territory far friendlier to President Donald Trump. One recent addition, Blake Gendebien, is running in an upstate New York district that Trump carried by roughly 20 points in 2024.

Part of the reason is the heavily gerrymandered congressional maps, which have left Democrats little choice but to look beyond traditional battlegrounds. But the expansion also reflects a bullishness rooted in polling that suggests the party might actually be able to compete there.

The Senate map has offered the clearest picture of this — with states such as Kansas and Texas surprisingly close.

Democratic strategists contacted by MS NOW said they are “pretty happy” with how aggressive the party has been this cycle.

“Going big is important, and I think the folks we are trying to reach want to see us trying to reach them,” said Andrew Mamo, who works for a group supporting Democratic candidates for the House and Senate.

“We always have the problem that it doesn’t feel like Democrats want everyone in our coalition,” Mamo added. “So I think very explicitly saying — be it a portion of the country, a community, a race — ’Hey, we think this is winnable. We’re going to go try here’ is good.”

Chris Meagher, another Democratic operative, said the DCCC is clearly continuing to expand the map, even into deep-red areas, “because voters are continuing to sour on Republicans being in power and the broken promises that they’re leaving behind.”

But ambition is expensive, and Republicans have hundreds of millions of dollars at the ready, much of it through Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc.

Emanuel, who The New York Times reports has been serving as a sounding board for House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, told MS NOW that when it comes to resources, “you got to make sure you’re not spreading the peanut butter too thin.”

Last week, DCCC leadership gave a glimpse of the party’s financial situation and what it could mean for more than a dozen races in the final stretch.

In a memo obtained by MS NOW, DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz wrote that “MAGA Inc. … has over $400 million cash-on-hand, and Elon Musk has committed to dump up to $120 million in the midterms.”

“Given the Republican cash advantage,” Merz added, “we now find ourselves in a situation where we could be leaving winnable races on the table without further investment from the DCCC.”

Merz singled out Florida’s 27th District, Nevada’s 2nd, South Carolina’s 1st and New York’s 21st. Trump won all four by double digits in 2024.

Democrats are also grappling with an uneven map. Deep-red territory appears to be in play, but the tide is not necessarily rising as fast in traditional battlegrounds. The Kansas Senate race may suddenly be competitive, yet Michigan remains what it has long been: a battleground that still needs resources.

Strategists and candidates offer a range of explanations.

Some point to conditions on the ground. “In some of these places that haven’t had these giant competitive elections, there’s just so many more people willing to be swingy right now,” Mamo said, invoking, in particular, Latino voters in Texas.

“Will they do it forever? I don’t know,” he added.

Others point to the candidates themselves. Another Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, argued problems with “candidate quality” are the reason races like the Michigan Senate contest are still competitive — not to mention the personal scandal that precipitated a candidate swap in Maine.

“For as much shit as the quote-unquote ‘establishment’ has gotten this cycle, look at who is actually performing well in their states versus where are the states that are tight,” the strategist said.

“Roy Cooper, we’re not even talking about that race anymore,” they added. Cooper, a Democrat and North Carolina’s former governor, has long led the polls in that battleground state’s Senate race.

Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, has his own explanation: the GOP’s financial firepower, and its decision to make him a national boogeyman.

“There is still a deep money disadvantage that is happening here,” El-Sayed told MS NOW in a recent interview. MAGA Inc., he said, is “dropping huge amounts of money here.”

Plus, he said, “JD Vance literally told all of the Republicans to just run against me.”

If the party’s big bet pays off on Election Day, some Democrats are already looking ahead to the next challenge: holding that coalition together.

Emanuel, who has made no secret he is weighing a presidential bid, told MS NOW that “if we win the majority, it’s because the Republicans lost.”

“What we do in 2027 will determine whether Democrats have won and understand the message of change,” he said. He argued that Democrats will need to fight for legislation such as ethics reforms.

“If you get into another political food fight, you’ve done nothing except for say, ‘Pox on both your houses,’” he added.

Bob Brooks, a Democrat running to flip a battleground district in Pennsylvania, made a similar case.

“We have to provide the people that come with us and vote for us — we have to provide them with a product. We have to make their lives better,” he told MS NOW. “If we go down there with a message and things don’t change, we’re going to be in the same boat a few years from now.”

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From MS Now.