Elections in the United States were held on November 3, 2026. In these midterm elections, which occurred during the non-consecutive second term of incumbent 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 were contested to determine the 120th United States Congress. Thirty-nine state and territorial gubernatorial elections, attorney general elections, and numerous other state and local elections were also contested. The Democratic Party obtained a majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, and among state governorships across the United States.
The lead-up to the elections was marked by an inflation surge amidst affordability concerns, particularly on gas, healthcare, and food prices, exacerbated by the Trump administration's tariffs and Strait of Hormuz crisis caused by the 2026 Iran war. Democratic backsliding, corruption, income inequality, and foreign policy were also commonly cited in exit polling.
The results were labeled a "blue tsunami" and a rebuke of Trumpism and AI development. Analysts called the election results "a fundamental realignment" in American politics. The Democratic Party won the largest popular-vote victory in the House of Representatives since 1974, which took place in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Democrats flipped at least eight Senate seats, including in traditional Republican strongholds such as Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. As of November 14, the Senate seat in Alaska remains uncalled by media outlets, although Democrat Mary Peltola is leading there as well. They also flipped six governorships, giving Democrats a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. The 2026 elections saw the Democrats' biggest election gains since the 2008 elections, which took place during the Great Recession, and they were also described as the biggest blue wave election in 50 years. Republican losses were blunted by gerrymandering efforts in several states. A New York Times analysis of preliminary results concluded that, if maps drawn with nonpartisan methods were used, Democrats could have won nearly 20 additional districts in Texas, Florida and Georgia and approached a veto-proof majority in the House of Representatives.
Background
In the 2024 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.
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, Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist running on the Democratic ticket, was elected mayor in a three-way race against Republican Curtis Sliwa and former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani.
Trump called on Republican-led states to enact rare mid-decade redistricting to boost the party's chances of holding power ahead of expected historical losses for the incumbent party in the midterm elections, which prompted reciprocal redistricting. In April 2026, the Supreme Court, in Louisiana v. Callais, narrowed the circumstances in which Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applied to racial vote dilution. The Trump administration used over $20 million in government funds to fund pro-administration advertisements, including $10 million after claiming they would switch to using funding from Trump's Super PAC.
The lead-up to the elections was marked by an inflation surge amidst an affordability crisis, particularly on gas, healthcare, and food prices, exacerbated by the Trump administration's tariffs and the Strait of Hormuz crisis caused by the war in Iran. There were also concerns about AI-induced mass unemployment, its environmental impacts, and mass surveillance. Income inequality, democratic backsliding, corruption, and foreign policy were also major issues for voters in exit polling. The main theme of the elections was the United States affordability crisis.
ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, the Associated Press, MS Now and CNN used 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.
According to the AP Voter Poll, about four in ten voters said they had voted to express opposition to Trump, compared with fewer than two in ten who said they had voted to express support for him. Roughly four in ten said Trump was not a factor in their voting decision.
2026 election developments and analysis
Voters' views of Trump's presidency were an important factor in the election. During the 2025 off-year elections, exit polls found that many voted against Trump or said 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 forgo the event, which RNC Chairman Joe Gruters dubbed a "Trump-a-Palooza".
During one of Trump's two convention speeches, he offered every adult American $5,000 if Republicans win the election, calling it a "Trump dividend". Trump's own senior advisors were unaware at the time of the announcement that this pronouncement was coming, and some of his advisors disapproved of the offer, with one calling it a naked effort to bribe people for votes. The offer drew much criticism and questions about the feasibility of the pledge, which would have cost over $1.2 trillion.
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. During his 2024 re-election campaign, Trump repeatedly assured voters his second term would involve "no new wars". Polling released by CNN in September 2026 showed that only 26% of voters approved of the Trump administration's 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.
The nearly seven-month-old war in Iran became a political liability for some 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 María 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 Great Depression, 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. Both Democrats and some analysts considered this instruction to voters a mistake, due to Trump's 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. Some Democratic lawmakers were concerned about Trump unilaterally lifting the sanctions against Russia, justifying 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.
Political analyst Natalie Jackson told Al Jazeera that the polling pointed to a "pretty favorable" environment for Democrats. She traced this to public frustration with Trump and the economy—high costs driven in part by tariffs and the war in Iran—and said the prevailing mood was that Republicans had failed to deliver over the past two years.