2018 United States House of Representatives elections

2018 United States House of Representatives elections

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All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives[a] 218 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	50.3%[1] 4.4 pp
Majority party Minority party   Leader Nancy Pelosi Paul Ryan (retired) Party Democratic Republican Leader since January 3, 2003 October 29, 2015 Leader's seat California 12th Wisconsin 1st Last election 194 seats, 48.0%[2] 241 seats, 49.1%[2] Seats won 235[b] 199[b] Seat change 41[c] 41[d] Popular vote 60,572,245[3] 50,861,970[3] Percentage 53.4% 44.8% Swing 5.4% 4.3%
Results:      Democratic hold      Democratic gain      Republican hold      Republican gain      Result voided and sent to special election[e]
Speaker before election Paul Ryan Republican Elected Speaker Nancy Pelosi Democratic

The 2018 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 6, 2018, as part of the 2018 midterm elections during President Donald Trump's term, with early voting taking place in some states in the weeks preceding that date. Voters chose representatives from all 435 congressional districts across each of the 50 U.S. states to serve in the 116th United States Congress. Non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia and four of the five inhabited U.S. territories^[f] were also elected. On Election Day, Republicans had held a House majority since January 2011.^[4]

In the 2018 elections, the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, won control of the House. The Democrats gained a net total of 41 seats from the total number of seats they had won in the 2016 elections. The 41-seat gain was the Democrats' largest gain of House seats since the post-Watergate 1974 elections, when they picked up 49 seats. This was the first time since 1954 that Democrats flipped a chamber of Congress in a Republican president's first midterm. Democrats also won the popular vote by an 8.6% margin, the largest margin of victory for any party during a midterm election since 1986.

Upon the opening of the 116th Congress, Pelosi was elected as Speaker of the House.^[5] Incumbent Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan chose not to run for another term.^[6] In November 2018, House Republicans elected Kevin McCarthy as House Minority Leader.^[7]

The House Republicans' passage of the widely unpopular American Health Care Act of 2017 to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as well as opposition to Trump's policies, his poor approval ratings, and questions about his personal stamina for office, are credited for the Democratic takeover of the House.

As of 2022, this marks the latest time Democrats won any house seats in Oklahoma and Utah, the latest time they won a majority of seats in Iowa and Minnesota, and the latest time they won every seat based in New York City, Los Angeles County, California, or Orange County, California.

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