President Donald Trump is expected to be a central issue in the 2026 midterm elections, though election analysts and political observers differ on whether Republicans or Democrats face the greater risk as the campaign enters its final stretch.

Geoffrey Skelley, chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), told The Hill’s Julia Mueller on Sunday that the contests remain close in both chambers of Congress. DDHQ’s forecasts are being watched closely because control of the House and Senate will determine how much room the next Congress gives either party to advance or block Trump’s agenda.

“It’s a competitive situation in both the Senate and the House,” Skelley said. He added that “the big question is: will the Iranian conflict … will people being concerned about that ratcheting up, is that going to create reverberations in things like the generic ballot that signal ‘OK, Democrats’ advantage is growing again’?”

Skelley said Democrats’ lead has tended to grow when negative developments involving Iran coincide with rising gas prices, while that advantage has narrowed when the conflict eases and gas prices decline. The generic ballot, which asks voters which party they prefer for Congress rather than naming specific candidates, is often used as a broad indicator of the national political environment, though individual races can turn on state and district-level factors.

“The challenge for Republicans is the Iranian conflict is heating up again,” Skelley said.

Mueller reported that, with 100 days remaining before the midterms, “Democrats are favored to win the House but are slight underdogs in the fight for the Senate with 100 days to go before the midterms, according to the latest forecast from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).”

She also wrote that “both parties are dealing with headwinds as they head into the home stretch of the high-stakes election.” For Republicans, those concerns include the Iran war, oil prices and persistent high inflation. Democrats, meanwhile, are facing internal divisions of their own.

“Wins by democratic socialist and antiestablishment candidates in House primaries across the country have sparked concerns from centrists that their party will be characterized as too extreme,” Mueller reported. “It’s a line of attack being emphasized by President Trump and GOP leaders in Washington working to convince voters not to hand power to the Democratic Party.”

Mueller wrote that the result, 100 days from Election Day, is a political environment that gives both parties reasons for optimism and concern.

Polling also presents challenges for Democrats. Mueller noted that at the same point in the 2018 election cycle, when Democrats made major gains in what was widely described as a blue wave, the generic ballot showed Democrats ahead by an average of 7 or 8 points, according to DDHQ. That margin, she wrote, was double the party’s current edge.

“With just more than three months until Election Day, the tight forecasts make races like the Michigan Senate fight must-wins for both parties, adding urgency to the handful of toss-up contests that could decide control on Capitol Hill,” Mueller added.

The New York Times also reported Sunday on internal Democratic concerns, focusing on Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman. The report adds another layer to Democrats’ challenge as the party tries to balance national messaging, primary results and leadership stability during the final phase of the campaign.

“At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members,” The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein wrote. “Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”

Goldmacher and Epstein further reported: “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”