Five sleeper races could decide 2026 House control

As told in “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Moore, families sleep soundly as Santa Claus approaches.

As the new year approaches, several elections could prove similarly quiet – until the close results suddenly become visible. Here are five potential sleeper races to watch in 2026:

1. MISSISSIPPI’S 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, has not often had to worry about a general election challenge since he won a special election on April 13, 1993.

Predecessor Mike Espy, who recently ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in a close runoff with Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., had resigned to accept President Bill Clinton’s nomination for agriculture secretary.

Thompson’s closest race was this one – against Republican Hayes Dent – ​​with a score of 55% to 45%.

Since then, Thompson has never looked back and instead made himself a nationally recognized figure later in his tenure.

He chaired the House select committee on Jan. 6 and recently went viral for calling the shooting of West Virginia National Guardsmen, allegedly by an Afghan refugee, an “unfortunate accident.”

Thompson’s district, which stretches from Jackson west to Yazoo City and Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, is one of the poorest in the country — ranking 3rd out of 435 with a median income of $37,372, according to data released by the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio.

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Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) speaks to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pa., Monday, July 22, 2024. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

Only Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. lead a poorer population.

Last week, a lawyer and former adviser to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., launched a surprise primary bid against Thompson.

Evan Turnage, 33, who was alive around the same time Thompson was in Congress, has made the idea of ​​tackling the region’s persistent poverty a priority in his new campaign, according to Black Press USA.

“I’ve dedicated my life to leveling the playing field so people can not only get by, but move forward and raise a family here,” Turnage said, according to the outlet.

On the Republican side, retired Army Capt. and Vicksburg cardiothoracic surgeon Ron Eller will fight an uphill battle to unseat the winner of the Thompson-Turnage fight.

2. CONNECTICUT’S 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Connecticut is another state that doesn’t typically engage in political discussions because it has bitterly partisan elections.

However, during the Bush-Clinton years, the state was competitive, if not outright favored by Republicans.

Former Governor John Rowland was the first in decades to be elected to more than two terms. He eventually resigned in 2004, under threat of impeachment following accusations that state contractors were doing work on his vacation home.

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After his resignation, his wife wrote a famous poem criticizing the media’s coverage of Rowland’s case, based on Moore’s holiday favorite and titled “A Lump of Coal for All Journalists.” Rowland’s lieutenant, Governor M. Jodi Rell, took over and was re-elected once before retiring in 2010.

Since then, the state has remained staunchly Democratic — with the exception of former Sen. Joe Lieberman’s affiliation change to independent.

In 2022, then-state Sen. George Logan — the first Black man elected to Hartford’s upper chamber — launched a bid against Rep. Jahana Hayes and lost by less than a percentage point.

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Jahana Hayes, D-CT (left) and her 2024 GOP challenger George Logan (right). (Getty and AP)

Logan tried again in 2024, but lost by a slightly wider margin.

Although Logan is not yet on the ballot for 2026, recent history shows that Republicans may have an outside chance to end Democrats’ total control of New England’s congressional delegation.

3. MARYLAND’S 6TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Republicans have wanted to win back Maryland’s 6th Congressional District since partisan gerrymandering was blamed for forcing 20-year incumbent Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., out of office in 2012.

Bartlett, an eccentric conservative who later moved to the West Virginia wilderness to live off the grid, is now 99 and was known for addressing a variety of topics that have sometimes been ignored but have received new attention in the present day, including warnings about the strength, reliability and hardening of the U.S. power grid.

Bartlett won his last campaign by 28 points, but then lost by about 20 after the rural district encompassing the entire Maryland Panhandle was adjusted to incorporate the boundaries of the densely populated Washington, D.C., suburbs.

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He was defeated in 2013 by then-Rep. John Delaney, a CFO – before Delaney was replaced by Total Wine mogul David Trone, who largely self-funded his campaigns to the tune of millions of dollars.

Trone won re-election before opting in 2024 to pursue the seat of incumbent Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., which was ultimately won by Democrat Angela Alsobrooks.

He announced this year that he would challenge Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., the wife of former Rep. John Delaney.

Meanwhile, former longtime state Rep. Neil Parrott, R-Antietam, is making his fourth straight bid for the seat. McClain-Delaney defeated Parrott 53-47 in 2024.

The closest Republicans have come to recapturing the seat since Bartlett’s defeat occurred in 2014, when current FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino narrowly lost to Trone by about a point.

Bongino notably sought to nationalize the race, securing supporters like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and berating Delaney as someone who could “write himself a million-dollar check” if he needed to to win.

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Del. Neil Parrott, left, former Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., right. (Tom Williams/Getty Images)

The future G-man suggested at the time that he preferred knocking on doors in remote communities like Oakland and Grantsville, where he said, “no one seems to know who [John Delaney] is,” according to the Maryland Reporter.

Given the newly drawn, friendlier maps following the O’Malley-era gerrymandering dispute, Republicans may have a chance to pull off an upset in a district in one of the nation’s Democratic-majority states.

4. 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA

Although it’s not generally considered a swing state or one that gets much attention in federal elections, Nebraska’s only urban-leaning district could decide the future of the House of Representatives if the overall fight is as close as it has been in recent years.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of the few members of his party to publicly blast President Donald Trump, is retiring. The district — centered on Douglas and Saunders counties, including Omaha and Ashland — already has a large number of candidates on both sides hoping to fill the seat for moderates.

Omaha City Councilman Brinker Harding is leading Sen. Brett Lindstrom, R-Omaha, in fundraising, while on the Democratic side, at least five people, including Congressman James Leuschen and Sen. John Cavanaugh, D-Omaha, have thrown their hat in the ring, according to the Nebraska Examiner.

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Bacon, a native of suburban Sarpy County, won his last race against former Sen. Anthony Vargas, D-Omaha, by less than a percentage point.

After a recent spate of Republican defeats in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey, the district is shaping up to be a tough spot for Republicans in a state that hasn’t elected a statewide Democrat since Ben Nelson retired in 2012.

5. NEW MEXICO GUBERNATORIAL RACE

While Nebraska is a red state that doesn’t often attract national attention, New Mexico is in the blue register.

Similar topographically and culturally to its red neighbor Texas and its former red neighbor Arizona on the other side, the Land of Enchantment is often one that enchants the observer who takes a closer look at its politics.

Notably, its mountainous border with Mexico has largely kept it out of the politically contentious debates around the Trump wall, which focused on its neighbors’ flatter, desert and riverine borders.

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The US Capitol at sunset, January 30, 2025. (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)

Although it doesn’t have the typical urban population of most blue states like New York, California, New Jersey and Maryland, Republicans there have been increasingly distanced from power for years.

Former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was the last such legislator to represent the state in the upper chamber.

He retired in 2008 and was succeeded by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., whose last name is the Mountain West equivalent of Cuomo or Casey. The headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior is named after Udall’s father.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is term limited. Even though she was preceded by a Republican, Susana Martinez, her state tends more towards Democratic reliability.

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Deb Haaland, a former New Mexico congresswoman who also served as former President Joe Biden’s Interior secretary, is the biggest name in the Democratic field, while Greggory Hull, longtime Rio Rancho mayor, is for the GOP.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez held off a challenge from his predecessor Yvette Herrell in the 2nd Congressional District, which spans the southwest part of the state including Alamogordo and Las Cruces, in what was seen as the Republican Party’s best chance to make another inroad into the border state.