Hudson has a tall order for the next two years: He must raise significant funds and attract quality candidates to challenge 13 Democrats he has pegged as targets for the midterm elections who represent districts won by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
“I’m looking for candidates who have a little something extra that will get a second look from Democrats and unaffiliated voters that maybe traditionally won’t even consider voting Republican,” Hudson said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “But if you got someone with a unique enough story, you know, a compelling candidate, then you can get those crossover votes.”
Hudson saw success with that strategy in the 2024 election with Republicans like Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO), a police officer and Army combat veteran who defeated former Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo by 0.8 percentage points of the vote. The chairman said Evans’s “interesting background” made him appealing to independent voters.
The 13 Democratic targets are Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), Don Davis (D-NC), Susie Lee (D-NV), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Nellie Pou (D-NJ), Adam Gray (D-CA), and Josh Harder (D-CA).
All of the districts represented by the 13 Democrats voted for Trump. Some, such as Golden’s, Perez’s, and Kaptur’s, are unsurprising as Trump won them in 2020. But others, such as Vasquez’s, Gonzalez’s, and Suozzi’s, shifted red after voting for then-candidate Joe Biden by wide margins in the 2020 election.
Hudson said the NRCC’s top priority is to oust these 13 Democrats, which he calls the “real battleground.”
“Any Republicans they try to put in play, I mean, those are real long shots,” Hudson said. “It’s going to be really expensive for them to make those into real races. So we’re going to stay on offense.”
Candidate quality has been a sore subject for Republicans in recent cycles, especially after a “red wave” expected in the 2022 midterm elections hit a blue wall after several centrist Republicans were defeated in the primaries by more extreme, hard-line candidates. Those hard-liners, such as Mehmet Oz and Kari Lake, went on to lose to the Democrats in key gubernatorial or congressional races.
In the 2024 election, Republicans faced a similar dilemma in certain races — such as the contest in Virginia’s 7th District between GOP candidate Derrick Anderson and now-Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA). A “fake family” photo darkened Anderson’s campaign despite the former candidate insisting he never claimed the women in the photo were his family.
With every seat up for grabs in the House in 2026, and Democrats already showing signs of attacking the Republicans’ agenda with full force, Republicans will need to ensure they have the best candidates available to beat out Democrats who were able to siphon votes from independents who also voted for Trump.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton contended that House Democrats “overperformed” in the 2024 cycle, saying the conference held “Republicans to their smallest majority in nearly a century by running authentic battle-tested candidates who focused on pocketbook issues.”
“Contrast that with the NRCC’s fixation on recruiting unlikable extremists with fake families who only fall in line behind the far-right’s efforts to raise costs on everyday families and defund law enforcement so they can pay for billionaire tax breaks,” Shelton said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “It all adds up to a toxic recipe that will cost House Republicans the majority in 2026.”
Republicans lean heavily into ‘mandate’ from voters as blueprint for success
At the GOP Issues Conference held in Doral, Florida, from Monday to Wednesday, Hudson presented 2024 results to the over 160 lawmakers in attendance, as well as instructed Republicans on how they can not only retain but also grow the majority in 2026.
Historically, the party that wins the White House sees the House flip to the opposing party in the midterm elections following the presidential win. House Republicans currently hold a one-seat majority due to a few vacancies and will only have a two-seat majority when all members are sat.
However, Hudson thinks that the outcome of the 2024 election proves that this upcoming midterm cycle could be different from most traditional years — because Trump is only the second president in United States history to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
“You have a president who served and then left office, and then you had a different president with completely different velocity, completely different policies, took the country in a completely 180-degree different direction, and then you had a test from the American people: Which one do they like better? And they chose overwhelmingly Donald Trump,” the chairman said.
Since Trump’s inauguration, House Republicans have rallied around one word: “mandate.” Several are convinced that if they deliver on the agenda set by the president during his campaign and within his first week in the White House, they can prevent a majority loss in 2026.
Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) has been in Congress for a decade and has seen administrations lose the House majority on both sides of the aisle. He told the Washington Examiner he thinks the worst thing Republicans, particularly those in “dicey districts,” can do is to kick the can down the road.
“’Let’s wait until next time. Let’s wait till the next election before we do this.’ I’ve heard that so many times over the last decade,” said Babin, who serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
While he hopes the GOP majority will grow, he thinks members should be willing to “sacrifice their seats” to deliver on Trump’s agenda.
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), who has been in office since 2015, said “speed and efficiency” will be the keywords for the conference, believing they learned mistakes from Trump’s first presidency.
“President Trump himself has said that during his [first] administration that it took too long to get them done,” Carter said, referring to agenda items. “And that’s one of the things that happened during the midterms of his first administration, is that they didn’t have time to have an impact.”
“The things we need to stay away from, I think are really just self-inflicted,” Carter added.
2026 priority: Keeping traditionally blue demographics trending red
House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ super PAC, has released a list of its 2026 targets. Several include swing seats, such as those held by Reps. David Valadao (R-CA), Young Kim (R-CA), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and Nick Begich (R-AK).
But other targets include Republicans like Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who won their races with over 9% of the vote, as well as Reps. John James (R-MI), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), who are listed as “potential open seats.”
The PAC also lists lawmakers such as Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Stephanie Bice (R-OK), and Laurel Lee (R-FL) as possible grabs if Democrats can attract “quality candidates and strong campaigns.”
Sources familiar told the Washington Examiner that certain candidates who are not in competitive districts but on the House Majority PAC’s list expressed concerns to Hudson about their ability to keep their seats — but he says he’s not concerned.
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Hudson said, noting that the NRCC will help them with fundraising even though they are not front-line priorities.
Surprisingly, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) is not on the House Majority PAC’s target list — despite him being only one of three Republicans representing a district that then-Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024. Hudson said that is a testament to Fitzpatrick being a “battle-tested warrior.”
“That guy knows his district, communicates well, and he represents their views,” Hudson said. “They know him, they like him, they trust him.”
During the Doral conference, Hudson presented data on House Republicans receiving the largest popular vote since 1928. He also reinforced the NRCC will “double down” on things such as keeping Hispanic, African American, and Asian American voters on the side of the Republicans.
Trump picked up a small but significant number of black and Hispanic votes during the 2024 election. Exit data from the Associated Press found that 43% of Latino voters supported Trump compared to 55% of the same bloc voting for Harris. In 2020, Biden received 63% of the Hispanic vote compared to the 35% that voted for Trump.
A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12% of the black vote in nearly 50 years. However, Trump broke yet another record in the 2024 election by siphoning off 16% of the black vote compared to Harris receiving 83%. Biden received 91% of the black vote in 2020.
Hudson said he thinks Republicans can keep Hispanic and black voters trending their way if they pitch on a “winning formula.”
“I think they care about the same things every other voter cares about, which is the cost of things for their family, security, and safety in their neighborhoods, the southern border,” Hudson said. “These are all the issues that they care about. And so if we keep our promise in the election and deliver on those issues and then communicate with them about it, I think that’s the winning formula.”
Republicans will get their first taste of what races are like without Trump’s name on the ballot in 2026. The trick, Hudson said, is finding out what drove the “Trump coalition” and, in turn, making it a “Republican coalition.”
“I think the answer is that we communicate with them,” the chairman said.
“Trump’s personality drove him,” he added. “But also, the fact that he was talking about closing the southern border, the fact he was talking about their challenges with affordability — all these issues. And so I think part of it’s personality-driven, but I think a lot of it is what he was talking about: bringing common sense back to government. I mean, these are all core Republican messages.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Eyes will be on the conference, especially over the next few months, to see how it handles reconciliation — one of the biggest challenges that the GOP trifecta will take on under the watchful eyes of Democrats and, more importantly, the voters.
“I, as an American, expect we’re going to have our family feud, but in the end, we need to be unified to push this agenda,” Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) said. “And the verdict is going to come in, what, 22 months?”
