Kansas physician Roger Marshall (above) beat GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp by arguing that Huelskamp’s tea-party positions had made him an ineffective advocate for the state’s agriculture-heavy “Big First” district. | AP Photo 16 moments that defined the battle for the House

The 2016 election has been all about Donald Trump — even down ballot. His campaign has had a huge effect on the battle for the House, driving the two-year string of events that led us to Election Day.

Here are the 16 moments that defined the 2016 race for the House.


1. House Republicans stretch their majority to historic proportions in 2014

If Republicans hadn’t expanded their majority to a whopping 30 seats in 2014, who knows what position they would be in today. But by winning their biggest majority since 1928 that year, the GOP stretched Democrats’ resources over a large 2016 battlefield packed with incumbents, who largely ran strong campaigns. Even at their best moments this campaign, Democrats have been reluctant to say they could challenge for the majority, and the 2014 election is a big reason why.

2. Judges torpedo Florida’s congressional map

One reason Democrats are sure to make gains in the House this year is that courts in several states ordered re-draws of several gerrymandered congressional maps. Florida’s was the biggest: The new version of the map turned one Democratic district Republican, but it also tilted two GOP-held districts decisively Democratic, made a Republican-held battleground seat more Democratic-leaning, and put another veteran GOP lawmaker in a swing district for the first time. Democrats also gained a seat from court-ordered redistricting in Virginia, while several incumbents in both states and North Carolina lost primary challenges because they were put in new territory.

3. Trump’s Super Tuesday win fuels Democratic recruiting surge

Though Democrats have mostly been realistic about their chances of winning the House majority this year, Trump’s success in the GOP presidential race brought with it a surge of optimism — and new candidates. Starting in early April, a handful of Democrats who would go on to become real threats to beat GOP incumbents launched late House campaigns in Colorado, Florida, Kansas, and more. A number of them, like Minnesota’s Terri Bonoff, cited Trump as a factor in their decisions to run — and later made him a focus of their advertising against local incumbents.

4. The House Freedom Caucus takes John Boehner’s congressional district

The hard-line House Freedom Caucus helped force Speaker John Boehner’s resignation in 2015, and then it added a symbolic insult to the establishment’s injury in March, when HFC-endorsed candidate Warren Davidson won the GOP primary to take over Boehner’s seat. The Freedom Caucus is sure to have continued influence in the House GOP Conference — with its numbers staying steady around 40 while the overall size of the Republican majority shrinks — and Davidson’s win was a big wakeup call to establishment donors that they were getting caught sleeping in the primaries that determined the makeup of their majority.

5. Democrats leave districts on the table in the spring

While Trump did help the party turn more House seats into battlegrounds this fall, Democrats also failed to get viable candidates in some districts that could have gotten interesting. An April primary in the Philadelphia suburbs ended in embarrassing defeat for one DCCC-backed candidate, while the victor has raised little money since. Other seats in New Mexico, southeastern Virginia, New Jersey, and more — where Democrats have made strong challenges in the past — fell by the wayside without strong candidates.

6. Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican presidential nominee

It all starts with Trump. More than any other members of their party except Hillary Clinton, House Democrats have tried to make their local campaigns about the GOP nominee. Trump has fueled an “education gap” between the parties, which has endangered Republican House members in white-collar suburbs that were once safer for the GOP — but also shored up Republicans in blue-collar swing districts in the Northeast and Midwest. Veteran incumbents on both sides (including GOP Reps. Darrell Issa outside San Diego and John Mica outside Orlando, as well as northeastern Minnesota Democrat Rick Nolan) could fall victim to this trend.

7. Paul Ryan delays on endorsing Trump

The House speaker eventually gave the GOP presidential nominee his support, but Ryan’s delay set the stage for a half-year of separation from the top of the ticket. Ryan’s touting of a “Better Way” helped give House Republicans cover and maneuverability with regard to Trump, as many sought to out-run him by significant margins in their districts to win reelection. Ryan also helped GOP candidates in a big way by raising more than $35 million for the NRCC as part of over $50 million overall to protect the Republican majority.

8. California (and Latinos) sprint from the GOP

While Hillary Clinton no doubt would have liked to wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination long before California’s June 7 primary, the late contest between her and Bernie Sanders fueled a voter registration surge in the state that may pay huge dividends in the fall. After initially looking to gain seats in California this year, House Republicans are now on defense in at least three toss-up districts in the state, where about 2.3 million new voters registered before the primary, including large numbers of Democratic-leaning Latinos and young voters. That state alone could put a dent in the GOP majority on Nov. 8, and increasing Latino turnout in Florida, Nevada, and several other states could net yet more Democratic districts, too.

9. Bernie Sanders makes his presence felt down-ballot

While Sanders’ presidential campaign fell short, the donor base he established became a huge boon for some House Democrats. Starting in April, Sanders has endorsed a handful of candidates around the country and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for them by emailing his fundraising list on their behalf. That’s huge money in House races, especially primaries. It helped some candidates win nominations and made others competitive where otherwise they would not have been able to run TV ads. And in the fall, Sanders-raised money helped plug holes in some House Democrats’ budgets when GOP attacks arrived in their districts before backup from Democratic outside groups.

10. Roger Marshall defeats HFC member Tim Huelskamp in a Kansas primary

Usually it’s the tea party that unseats GOP incumbents in primaries, but challenges to veteran Reps. Bill Shuster, Kevin Brady, and more fell short in 2016. Meanwhile, Kansas physician Roger Marshall beat GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp by arguing that Huelskamp’s tea-party positions had made him an ineffective advocate for the state’s agriculture-heavy “Big First” district. With backup from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several “establishment”-aligned super PACs, Marshall will take over the safe Republican seat in January. The outside groups that backed him also helped defeat potential Freedom Caucus members in two late, open GOP primaries. But it may also provoke a response from the Freedom Caucus and other conservative groups who now feel targeted by establishment donors. The 2018 GOP primaries may come with fireworks.

11. The DCCC uses Trump to send extra cash to candidates

One side effect of Democrats’ late-breaking House optimism this year was that some of their most important candidates were low on funds, whether because they started campaigns late or donors were slow to take notice. So around the end of summer and beginning of fall, those candidates started airing specially worded TV ads connecting local candidates to national Republicans and Donald Trump — and splitting hundreds of thousands of dollars each in advertising costs with the DCCC. By the last week of the election, the DCCC and at least 29 candidates had split over $14.2 million in coordinated advertising costs. The Democratic committee has not explained its legal reasoning on the Trump-focused ads, but the end result is that the party sent millions of extra dollars to candidates who might otherwise have not been able to run viable campaigns.

12. Trump’s 2005 Access Hollywood tape publishes

After tape leaked of Trump making vulgar comments about sexually assaulting women, it looked like the bottom might fall out for down-ballot Republicans. Democratic groups began pushing money into new districts, and House Republicans foresaw not only a collapse in Trump’s numbers (which continued through the debates) but the potential that their base would stay home on Election Day. It was a doomsday scenario that had Democrats and Republicans alike suddenly scanning the horizon for a wave.

13. Republican super PACs douse potential fires with late money

When things started to look bad for the congressional GOP in early October, House Republicans’ biggest super PAC was there to fight the fire. Congressional Leadership Fund and its sister nonprofit, American Action Network, dumped $10 million into races where Democrats could have expanded the map right after the Access Hollywood tape broke, giving cover and a financial advantage to some Republican incumbents worried the national tide was about to turn against them.

14. Obama goes all-in

President Barack Obama has not played a big role for individual Democratic House candidates while in the White House. In 2012, he was concentrating on his own reelection, and he was not popular in swing districts during the 2010 and 2014 midterms. But Obama made endorsements and cut TV and radio ads in dozens of districts in mid-October, looking to push the House in Democrats’ direction as part of his political legacy. Keen observers took note that the president’s first House ad of the general election backed Illinois Democrat Brad Schneider, a candidate who had opposed the White House’s nuclear deal with Iran during his primary (before grudgingly coming around). It was a welcome sign for House Democrats looking to make final pushes against better-known incumbents.

15. GOP starts “check and balance” strategy against Clinton and House Democrats

As Trump’s prospects faded in October, Republican candidates and committees increasingly began running ads basically admitting that Clinton would win the White House — and arguing that voters should elect Republican House members to keep her in check. The ads weren’t as widespread as in 1996, when congressional Republicans largely abandoned Bob Dole at the end of the presidential race. But Clinton’s popularity was never high this election, and Republicans believed the strategy would help them hold districts against Democratic candidates about whom voters knew relatively little.

16. The FBI announces it is still looking into Clinton-related emails

An October surprise and bookend to the Trump tape, the FBI’s late email announcement helped re-energize the Republican base and, strategists believed, foreclosed on that possibility of bad turnout because of Trump’s early-October struggles. It also halted House Democratic momentum just as the party was trying to expand the battleground map late.