It is now 38 days until the Nov. 3 election, and the prevailing view back in May — when The Los Angeles Times reported that House control hinged on a historically small number of seats — was that Democrats had virtually no chance of flipping as many as 40 seats in Congress. That thinking appears to have changed.

A Slate report published Saturday concluded that if Democrats vote in significant numbers and MAGA voters stay home — even in red states — safe Republican seats could end up close, if not flipping entirely. The stakes behind those handful of seats are structural: whichever party wins a House majority controls the speakership, every committee chairmanship, and the chamber's voting agenda, which is why so few competitive districts are drawing so much attention.

The long-standing adage holds that gerrymandered congressional district lines ensure lawmakers from either party can hold their seats with little effort. In an election climate with this month's polling numbers, that could change if the actual electorate matches the surveys.

AlterNet has reported on the mistake Texas made by redrawing its congressional lines based on 2024 election data. Now, even Republicans are warning incumbent lawmakers that they are probably further behind than they think.

The most recent Cook Political Report, released Friday by the nonpartisan election handicapper, shows Republicans losing — how much will determine how deep the GOP sinks.

"How deep will this red-state incursion go?" Slate asked. "Already, national Republicans have all but given up purple-state Senate races like Georgia and North Carolina, as more and more money will have to go to defensive measures in Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, and Kansas. Nebraska? Maybe South Carolina and Mississippi? As National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott told GOP senators this week, senators in deep-red states need to run as if they're behind so all resources can go toward the 'record number of toss-up races' on the map."

Last week, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball moved "eight races toward Democrats, including four previously thought to be safe GOP seats, on Wednesday — the latest warning sign for Republicans ahead of the November midterms," Newsweek reported.

Writing for The New Yorker, Susan Glasser said that for most of the summer Republicans assumed they would lose some seats but nothing like the bloodbath of 2018 — Trump's first midterm election, when his popularity stood at 40 percent and Democrats flipped 40 GOP seats. The question is what happens when Trump's approval is in the low 30s and he is even losing MAGA support; AlterNet has reported on his midterm polling as well.

Voters were once thought to tune in only after Labor Day, when candidates returned from August recess and accelerated their campaigns. Republican pollster Lee Hartley Carter echoed that tendency but explained in a FoxNews.com op-ed that it did not happen this year.

"And politics has developed a very bad habit of confusing the people who are paying the most attention with the people who will ultimately decide the election. We confuse loud with large," she said — in effect, that social media does not represent real life.

"A few thousand furious people can generate an enormous amount of internet. Millions of people wondering why their grocery bill is still so high can generate almost none," she wrote.

The Slate report cautioned Democrats against overconfidence, such as expecting to win 50 GOP seats and take eight Senate races. But if they show up in force, even the GOP's formidable money advantage will not matter.

"Trump will pull some gimmick with diesel prices, like an export ban, that will be terrible policy but might offer relief for a hot second. And many swing voters, while livid at Republicans, still do consider Democrats to be helpless freaks. But this week? Take in the GOP panic. Marinate in it," Slate writer Jim Newell encouraged.

With just over five weeks of campaigning left, the stream of public polls and race ratings due before Nov. 3 will help show whether the survey picture and the actual electorate line up.

Ultimately, the report closed, in a wave election individual skill and favorable partisan geography may not be enough. When voters want to punish the party in power the wave can reach far beyond the seats everyone was watching.

This article is based on reporting originally published by Alternet.