Elections are scheduled to be held in the United States, in large part, on November 3, 2026. In these midterm elections, scheduled to occur during the second term of Republican president Donald Trump, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate will be contested to determine the 120th United States Congress. Thirty-nine state and territorial U.S. gubernatorial elections, attorney general elections, and numerous state and local elections will also be contested.
The lead-up to the elections was marked by an inflation surge amidst the United States affordability crisis, affecting prices of gas, healthcare, and food, with the executive branch raising federal revenue by imposing the largest tax hikes in American history through tariffs. Other shared concerns cited by voters include a perception of corruption and self-dealing; democratic backsliding; mass surveillance; and foreign policy, including the 2026 Iran war, declining relations with American allies, a proposed rapprochement with Russia, coerced expansionism, and an escalating rift with the Vatican. The Trump administration politically aligned with Silicon Valley and encouraged the development of artificial superintelligence through the construction of AI data centers, and there has been a public backlash to the potential prospect of widespread unemployment as a result of AGI, its environmental impacts, and the existential risk it may pose to humanity. The administration campaigned on changing the English language to align with Trump's nationalist ideology, including the names of Lake Ontario ("Lake America") and the Gulf of Mexico ("Gulf of America"), while Democrats labeled the changes a distraction from important issues.
Trump called on Republican-led states to enact rare mid-decade redistricting to boost the party's chances of holding power ahead of historical losses for the incumbent party during midterm elections, which prompted reciprocal redistricting. In April 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that some parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are unconstitutional. The Trump administration has used millions of taxpayer dollars to fund Republican campaign advertisements, and federal agents are going to residents' homes to question them about their citizenship and voting history.
Background
In the 2024 United States presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Key issues shaping the campaign included public concern for the post-pandemic recovery and rising inflation.
ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, the Associated Press, MS Now and CNN will use the Voter Poll by SSRS to gather voter preferences and opinions for the 2026 elections. From 2018 to 2024, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN used data from the National Election Pool while the Associated Press and Fox News relied on AP VoteCast.
The Republican Party performed worse than expected in the November 2025 general elections. Democratic candidates Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey won their gubernatorial races over their Republican opponents by larger than expected margins. Democrats performed strongly in the concurrent state legislative elections, winning a supermajority in the New Jersey General Assembly and expanding their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. In New York City, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, was elected mayor in a three-way race against Republican Curtis Sliwa and independent former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as a moderate relative to Mamdani. The main theme of the elections was the United States affordability crisis.
2026 election developments and analysis
Voters' views of Trump's presidency will likely be an important factor in the election. During the 2025 off-year elections, exit polls found that many voted in opposition to Trump or said that he was not a factor. Surveys released in late 2025 and early 2026 found that many viewed Trump's handling of the economy and immigration, two issues that propelled him to victory in the 2024 election, negatively. During elections held in his first term, Trump was on the minds of many who voted. In September 2026, Trump featured in a two-day midterm convention in Dallas to rally support and raise funds—historically, this type of event is reserved for presidential election years, although the Democratic National Committee had previously held midterm-year party conferences in 1974, 1978 and 1982. Many Republicans on the ballot attended, but many also chose to forego the event, which RNC Chairman Joe Gruters dubbed a "Trump-a-Palooza."
The outbreak of the 2026 Iran war on February 28 introduced further complications, with rising gasoline prices and other economic challenges emerging as central electoral concerns. Analysts argued that gasoline prices represented the most direct channel through which the costs of the Iran war were transmitted to American voters, and that domestic electoral pressure from fuel costs was a primary political driver behind the Trump administration's push toward a ceasefire ahead of the November midterms. Polling released by CNN in the September of 2026 showed that only 26% of voters approved of the Trump administrations handling of Iran.In response to the general unpopularity and economic concerns of the Iran war, several Republican candidates have distanced themselves from Trump and his approach to the war and have called for operations in Iran to end. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer compared the political environment in 2026 to the one in 2006, when dissatisfaction with George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war led to many Democratic victories in the elections that year. Democratic candidates have leveraged the unpopularity of the war as a campaign point.
Thus, the nearly seven-month-old war in Iran became a political liability for some vulnerable Republican candidates ahead of the November midterms. In September 2026, two Republicans in tight Senate races — Mike Rogers of Michigan and Ashley Hinson of Iowa — called for a swift end to the conflict, distancing themselves from President Trump. Hinson, who had voted six times against measures to curb Trump's war powers, said Iowans "shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran." Rogers, who had previously backed Trump's strikes, released a campaign ad urging that the war "end and end quickly." The shift came as Trump's approval rating fell to 32%, a career low, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with Americans souring on both his handling of the economy and the war. Diesel prices reached record highs, a particular concern in Iowa, where agriculture plays an outsized role in the state's economy. Other Republicans also moved to distance themselves: Iowa Representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks reversed their stances and voted to limit Trump's war powers, while Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida warned that Trump's immigration crackdown had gone too far. Democrats characterized the moves as election-year repositioning. By mid-October, the same polling series put Trump's approval at 31% — a record low for either of his terms and a point below where it stood two weeks earlier. The same Reuters/Ipsos survey had Democrats ahead of Republicans 47% to 35% on the generic congressional ballot, a 12-point gap that was the widest of the election cycle.
The administration's immigration policies, including deportations by ICE due to strengthened funding via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, were also scrutinized. Polling found that Hispanics, who were considered a key reason for Trump's victory in the 2024 election, overwhelmingly disapproved of Trump and had largely swung back towards Democrats due to economic concerns and dissatisfaction of Trump's handling of immigration and deportation. An October Reuters/Ipsos poll found that majorities said the cost of living was their top issue for the election and that 76% of Americans blamed Trump's policies for increasing inflation, including 57% of Republicans. Signs of an enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democratic voters were noted by analysts as possibly forecasting a Democratic "blue wave". In September 2026, American political analyst Charlie Cook described this phenomenon as a "red undertow", arguing that anticipated Democratic victories would come not from a rising Democratic tide, but a drowning Trump brand.
A month before the election, polling consistently found that Democratic candidates were leading key races for state governorships and those that would determine control of the Senate, with large swings towards Democratic candidates by independent voters. The New York Times highlighted how Kansas, a state that had not elected a Democratic Senator since the Second World War, had become a competitive battleground amid an unexpected surge of Democratic support deep in Republican territory. Furthermore, a poll commissioned by The Washington Post and George Mason University had to deal with the unusual issue of far fewer Republicans (12%) willing to respond than Democrats (32%), an exceptional gap. Democratic support came amidst multiple polls finding record-low approval ratings for Trump which some analysts considered was negatively impacting down-ballot races. Trump repeatedly told voters to pretend he was on the ballot to increase Republican enthusiasm which Democrats and some analysts considered a mistake owing to his low approval ratings. Increasing concerns about the Republicans' position in the November midterm elections have exposed tensions within Donald Trump's political structure. According to Reuters, Trump criticized his advisers for their election strategy, including decisions related to campaign spending and candidate selection. This is despite polls suggesting that Democrats could gain control of the House of Representatives.
In October, the Trump administration called for Ukraine to replace Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the nation's president and struck a deal with Russia to purchase the country's fuel in an effort to bring down diesel prices before the elections, and deepened Russian-American cooperation. The fuel deal was criticized by Democrats and some Republicans for undercutting the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which allowed the president to waive tariffs or sanctions if he certified to Congress that doing so was in the national interest of the United States, a provision that some Democratic lawmakers concerned about Trump unilaterally lifting the sanctions against Russia pointed to in their opposition to the bill.
Julian E. Zelizer has drawn a comparison between the 1966 and 2026 midterm elections. Writing for Foreign Policy in October 2026, he noted that the Republican campaign of 1966 focused on the economic cost of the Vietnam War, including growing federal deficits and inflation. He argued that the economic impact of the war in Iran, which had driven consumer prices up, gave Democrats an opening similar to the one Republicans had seized in 1966. Zelizer acknowledged that the Iran war had not reached the scale of Vietnam and likely never would, but said its economic effects had nonetheless been considerable—and in some respects clearer—and that the war had been unpopular from the outset.
Foreign interference
Foreign nations have sought to interfere with the 2026 elections. Since 2016, "the Kremlin has initiated online influence operations in every American federal election cycle" according to declassified intelligence documents. According to US intelligence officials, in 2026, Russia is targeting Americans with covert online disinformation campaigns to undermine confidence in the election and seed and promote domestic divisions with the goal to "inject chaos". No evidence exists that Russia has attempted to take aim at voting machinery or compromise the voting process. US intelligence officials have described the effort as less extensive and coordinated than prior years, with officials speculating Russia is less interested in midterm races than presidential contests and is distracted by the Russo-Ukrainian war.
US intelligence has speculated Iran may have engaged in online influence efforts, and in August 2026 Meta Platforms reported a small number of accounts on Facebook and Instagram originating from Iran spreading AI generated content with "anti-Republican views". US intelligence speculates that unlike prior years where China supported or opposed individual candidates based on their views, it may stay out of the 2026 elections due to fears of blowback. On October 14, 2026, the social network X suspended more than 13,000 accounts linked to Iran, Russia, and China ahead of the US midterm elections.
In a prime time address on July 16, Trump alleged (among other things) that China had collected 220 million American voter identification files including private information in 2022 and that it amounted to election interference. Trump then declassified intelligence records he presented as evidence the US election system falls "catastrophically short". Election experts pushed back on some of the claims, stating that voter registration files are public and easily accessible in most states and would not necessarily allow interference with the voting process. On September 28, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Department of Defense would launch an effort dedicated to combating foreign meddling in US elections that would use "advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference". Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees have expressed worry that Trump will use claims of foreign interference in an attempt to intervene in the midterm elections.
An analysis of political advertising related to the Iran war found that 61 of the 65 ads examined between September 1 and October 14, 2026, focused on the cost of living. The ads aired more than 43,000 times on television, with an estimated total expenditure of $42 million.