The 2026 US midterm elections, explained: what is at stake, the final campaign, and the court fight over election officials

What Americans are voting for on 3 November

On Tuesday 3 November 2026, about 210 million registered voters will decide how much power Donald Trump has for the rest of his presidency. Trump himself is not on the ballot, but control of the United States Congress is. Congress, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, writes the country's laws and controls federal spending, so the midterms decide what the president can pass, fund or be forced to abandon in the second half of his term.

Every seat in the House of Representatives, all 435 of them, is contested, along with 35 of the Senate's 100 seats. The Senate contests include 33 regular elections and two special elections, in Florida and Ohio, to fill the seats vacated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. Voters in 36 states will also elect governors, and beyond Congress and governors, voters will elect state legislators and local officials, whose decisions often affect daily life more directly than national politics. House members serve two-year terms and senators six-year terms, which is why the whole House is fought over every two years while only about a third of the Senate is.

Midterm elections are widely considered a referendum on the sitting president's performance, and history favours the opposition: since 1946, the president's party has lost an average of 26.5 seats in the House and a handful in the Senate in midterm elections, according to Todd Belt, a professor of political management at George Washington University. The new Congress will be sworn in on 3 January 2027. Results will begin emerging after the first polls close at 6pm Eastern time on 3 November, but some close races could take days to resolve, and in Georgia, if no Senate candidate wins a majority, the race goes to a run-off on 1 December.

The arithmetic of control

Republicans currently hold majorities in both chambers, but only narrowly. In the House, Republicans hold 218 seats to the Democrats' 214, with one independent sitting with the Republicans and two seats vacant, one last held by each party. A party needs 218 seats for a majority, and Democrats need to gain three seats to take control, according to Al Jazeera's breakdown. Belt estimates that about 35 House races could decide the majority, and he predicts Democrats could gain about 15 seats, despite Republican redistricting that he says has given the party an advantage in nine additional districts. That prediction is an analyst's forecast, not a result, and the actual outcome will depend on individual district races.

In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats, while Democrats hold 45 and two independents sit with them, giving the Democratic bloc 47 seats. Of the 35 seats being contested, Republicans hold 22 and Democrats hold 13, so Democrats must hold all 13 seats they are defending and flip four Republican-held ones to reach 51 and take control. A 50-50 split would leave Republicans in control, because Vice President JD Vance can cast tie-breaking votes. The Senate map is therefore a harder climb for Democrats than the House, but the growing number of competitive races has increased their chances, according to election analysts.

The Senate races to watch span the map. In Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff faces Republican Mike Collins. Michigan's open seat pits Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against Republican Mike Rogers, while New Hampshire's open seat pits Democrat Chris Pappas against Republican John Sununu. In Maine, Senator Susan Collins faces Democrat Troy Jackson, and North Carolina's open seat pits Democrat Roy Cooper against Republican Michael Whatley. Ohio, Alaska and Iowa are also competitive, while Texas and Kansas have drawn growing attention as Democrats look for more routes to a majority.

The issues voters say matter most

The cost of living tops voters' concerns, with rising petrol prices, housing costs and healthcare coverage squeezing household budgets. Reproductive rights remain a major issue, while immigration and the state of US democracy are also on the ballot. The US-Israel war on Iran and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and data centres have raised further questions about security, jobs and energy costs. These are the issues Al Jazeera identifies as defining the election, and they help explain why the campaign has felt national even in states where local concerns usually dominate.

Polling points in the same direction as the historical pattern, but polls are snapshots, not results. A Pew Research Center survey conducted from 28 September to 4 October found that 44 per cent of registered voters backed the Democratic candidate in their district, compared with 36 per cent for the Republican, with 5 per cent supporting another candidate and 15 per cent unsure. Men were evenly split, with 42 per cent backing each party, while women favoured Democrats by 45 per cent to 31 per cent. Separately, Firstpost reported that Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by more than eight points, according to the RealClearPolitics average, and the Associated Press has described an election year defined by voter frustration over the economy, gas prices and the war in Iran.

That frustration does not fall evenly. Farm-state voters in Iowa, for example, have felt the impact of tariff disputes and higher fuel prices tied to the war in Iran, according to Firstpost, and Republican candidate Ashley Hinson there has tried to keep some distance from the White House on cost-of-living issues, calling the Trump-Putin diesel arrangement a bad idea in a television interview and urging an end to the Iran war. Her Democratic opponent's campaign argues she is trying to rewrite her record. The details differ by state, but the underlying question is the same everywhere: whether voters blame the party in power for the cost of living, or credit it for other priorities.

The final campaign: cancelled rallies, then restored

The final days of the campaign produced an unusual sequence in Kansas and Iowa, two traditionally Republican states where the party is defending closely watched Senate seats. On Thursday 29 October, Trump cancelled planned weekend rallies in both states: the Kansas event was scheduled for 10:30 am local time on Saturday at a hangar at Salina Regional Airport, about 100 miles west of Topeka, and the Iowa event was set for Sunday in Dubuque. The Kansas Republican Party chair confirmed the Salina cancellation, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) later said it would also cancel the Iowa rally. The RNC's statement said that, with Republicans in a strong position in Kansas and Iowa, the in-person events would no longer take place as scheduled, and the party framed the change as an expansion of reach, describing a 72-hour sprint of rallies by phone that would maximise Trump's ability to speak to voters nationwide.

The cancellations drew attention for two reasons. The first was the tightness of the races. Kansas has not been competitive at Senate level for generations: Democrats have not won a Kansas Senate election since 1932, and Trump carried the state by 16 percentage points in 2024. Yet this year Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican seeking a second term, faces Democrat Adam Hamilton, and polling has tightened to a near tie, with a YouGov survey putting Hamilton at 48 per cent and Marshall at 45 per cent, a New York Times/Siena poll finding the two roughly tied at 45 per cent each, and the PollCheck average on 27 October showing Hamilton at 46.1 per cent and Marshall at 45.2 per cent. Both Sabato's Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report rate the race a toss-up. In Iowa, where Senator Joni Ernst's retirement created the state's first open Senate seat in a decade, Republican Representative Ashley Hinson faces Democratic state Representative Josh Turek, and surveys point in different directions, with a Marist poll giving Turek a 48 to 45 per cent lead and an Emerson poll giving Hinson a 47 to 45 per cent lead.

The second reason was speculation about the president's health. As of Thursday, Trump had held 25 rallies in October, short of a goal he had once put above 30, and his voice had grown raspy; in Corinth, Mississippi, he told a crowd that vocal cords were not made for a rally every day. Trump rejected any suggestion that health played a role, telling reporters he felt perfect, and no official has attributed the cancellations to a medical issue. The RNC's own explanation remained political rather than medical: the visits were no longer necessary because the party was performing strongly in both states. Some Republican operatives in both states quietly expressed relief at the cancellations, CNN reported, reflecting a wider tension: Trump's rallies energise core supporters but can also nationalise contests that some Republican candidates would rather keep local.

The story then reversed. On Friday, a White House official said the rallies were back on: in addition to nearly 20 tele-rallies, Trump would hold back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday, with the official saying the events had been rearranged to accommodate the tele-rallies recently added to the schedule. Trump had also campaigned in Florida on Friday. A tele-rally is a conference-call event in which voters dial in or are called and hear the candidate speak; it is cheaper and easier to stage than a large arena event, but Trump is expected to speak for about 10 minutes on these calls, compared with more than 90 minutes at his in-person rallies. The cancellation and restoration together capture the closing calculation of the Republican campaign: reach as many states as possible in the final 72 hours, without giving up the energy of an in-person crowd in the two states where the Senate majority may be decided.

The court order: what the judge blocked, and what the administration says

Running alongside the campaign, a federal court intervened in how the election itself is administered. On Friday evening, 30 October, US District Judge Trina Thompson granted a temporary restraining order halting a set of actions by the Trump administration aimed at election officials across the country. While the order is in place, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security cannot demand that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls, or halt ballot processing. The order also blocks threats of criminal prosecution against election officials from those agencies, and bars other actions that threaten, intimidate or coerce officials into changing ballot-processing procedures on claims that voters are ineligible. The judge set the order to expire on 16 November, and the Justice Department appealed it on Saturday.

Judge Thompson's reasoning was blunt. She wrote that although the defendants claim their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters. She also wrote that when state and local government employees distribute, process or count ballots or otherwise administer the 2026 midterm election in accordance with the law, they do not violate federal criminal law even if a particular ballot belongs to a registered voter alleged by the defendants to be ineligible. The order further requires the administration to inform the judge of any search warrant applications, grand jury subpoenas or other demands to access election materials or ballots linked to lists the administration has created to allege individuals are ineligible to vote.

The dispute turns on a data-matching operation led by the Department of Homeland Security that compares state voter lists with federal records to identify people suspected of being non-citizens. Election officials say the lists created by the programme are unreliable and include US citizens, and several judges are now scrutinising that approach in cases brought in recent weeks. The Justice Department has also sent letters to 29 states and Washington, DC, threatening investigations and demanding that they preserve records and voter data from the 2024 election, although federal law already requires jurisdictions to preserve records for 22 months after an election. In California, where the Justice Department sued to try to block the counting of ballots of thousands of voters the federal government says may be non-citizens, a federal appeals court rejected the administration's demands, with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals saying the administration does not have the right to intervene in how states verify citizenship status.

The case before Judge Thompson was brought in the Northern District of California by a coalition of labour unions and civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens, who allege the administration's conduct violates the Voting Rights Act and amounts to an unconstitutional intrusion into state control over election administration. The administration's position, as described in the judge's opinion, is that its actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens. The judge's order is a temporary restraining order, not a final ruling on the legal dispute, and it does not decide whether any individual voter is eligible. What it does, until 16 November, is set a boundary: federal agencies may not use demands, purges or threats of prosecution to change how states process ballots in the middle of the election.

What each outcome would mean

If Democrats take the House, they would gain the power to block Republican legislation and to use committees to investigate the Trump administration, including through subpoenas for documents and testimony. The House alone holds the power to impeach a president, but removing a president from office requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, a threshold neither party is likely to reach, and Belt considers another impeachment unlikely, noting that Democrats tried that twice and Republicans rallied behind Trump. Control of the House would also give Democrats leverage over government funding: every bill needs approval from both chambers, so a Republican Senate could not pass laws on its own, and Belt expects more confrontations over the 12 annual bills needed to fund federal agencies, raising the possibility of further government shutdowns when funding lapses.

If Democrats take the Senate, the consequences would extend beyond the next two years. A Democratic Senate could block legislation and reject presidential nominees, including federal judges, Supreme Court justices, cabinet officials and ambassadors. Because federal judges serve for life, Senate control shapes rulings long after a presidency ends, and the Senate also holds the trial if the House impeaches a president. For Republicans, holding the Senate would preserve the power to confirm judges and department heads even if the House is lost, which is why the party has poured resources into defending seats in states like Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska.

Winning both chambers would still not give Democrats full control. Trump would remain president and could veto legislation, and overriding a veto requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber. Senate rules also require 60 votes to end debate on most legislation, though some budget bills can pass with a simple majority, so a narrow majority does not guarantee a party can pass its programme. Conversely, if Republicans hold both chambers, the president's domestic agenda would continue with fewer obstacles, though narrow majorities have repeatedly made that harder than it sounds. Belt also notes a historical pattern worth watching: presidents facing divided government in their last two years traditionally pivot to foreign policy almost exclusively, and he expects the same to be true for Trump.

Why the rest of the world is watching

Midterm elections are domestic contests, but their consequences travel. The United States writes laws and controls federal spending on a scale that affects global trade, security and technology, so governments and markets around the world watch who controls Congress. Trade policy, including tariffs, is set in the interaction between the White House and Congress, and the cost-of-living pressures that dominate this campaign, from petrol prices to housing and healthcare, are linked to energy and trade decisions that reach far beyond American borders. The war in Iran, which features as an election issue, and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and data centres, with their demands on jobs and energy costs, are further reminders that American domestic politics and global affairs are not separate stories.

For countries such as India, the practical questions are about direction rather than detail: whether the next Congress constrains or enables the White House on trade, technology and foreign policy, and whether divided government produces stalemate or confrontation over funding. Those questions cannot be answered on election night, and they should not be prejudged from early results. Belt warns that early results can give a misleading picture: because Republicans have historically been less likely than Democrats to vote by mail, some states could initially appear to favour Republican candidates before later-counted ballots narrow or reverse their leads, a pattern known as the red mirage, while in states that count mail ballots first the reverse can happen. A delay in counting, or a change in which candidate is leading, does not by itself indicate fraud.

The court fight adds a second reason the world is watching. How the United States administers an election under legal challenge, and how quickly its courts can set boundaries that both sides must respect, is itself part of the story, whatever the result. The temporary restraining order expires on 16 November, after the votes are cast but while counting and certification continue in close races. The midterms will therefore be decided twice over: once by voters on 3 November, and once by the counts, certifications and court rulings that follow. That is normal for American elections, but in a year when the administration and the courts are openly contesting the rules, it is also the part of the story most likely to shape how the result is received.

Editorial disclosure

This article was researched with AI assistance and reviewed by the publisher before publication. Report factual errors through our contact page.