More than 57 million people have cast ballots as 2026 midterms reach voting day

U.S.-adult approval: 35% for Trump’s performance as president, 25% for economic handling

Election day status and control thresholds

More than 57 million people had cast ballots as of Monday, and turnout was already above the early-vote total four years earlier in many closely watched states. Voters on Tuesday were choosing the House, the Senate and governorships in 36 states.

Republicans held a 53-47 Senate majority but were bracing to lose the House and fight to retain the Senate. A Democratic gain in the Senate had seemed unlikely earlier this year because the map was widely seen as favoring Republicans. Margins were tight in both chambers, and one or two seats could tip the balance. Democrats needed a net gain of four Senate seats to win the majority, an uphill climb because many of the most competitive races are in historically red states. In the House, they needed only three seats.

The Associated Press reported that Trump continued to make false claims about voting fraud, including an insistence that noncitizens were casting ballots en masse. His administration had filed lawsuits in Alaska and California, and Democrats feared election interference and voter intimidation as the Trump administration’s Justice Department threatened to prosecute local election officials.

Public opinion, turnout and campaign money

The Associated Press described the election as a referendum on Trump’s second term, with voters struggling with high prices and angry over an unpopular war with Iran deciding whether to drastically shift power in Washington. According to the most recent polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only 35% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance as president, and most blame him for high prices as they struggle to afford gas and groceries. Only 25% of U.S. adults now say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say the country is heading in the wrong direction. The economy, once Trump’s strongest issue, is no longer his strongest.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said momentum was on the Democratic Party’s side despite what seemed like Republicans’ infinite money supply. “The American people are angry. They want change. They want folks who are going to stand up for them,” she said. She said the results “should deliver a very resounding messaging that people have soured on his agenda.”

An Associated Press analysis of AdImpact data, a media tracking firm, found that 88.1% of Republican general-election television advertising went to states and districts Trump won in 2024. More than $850 million was spent on ad reservations in places Trump won by 10 points or more. The 2026 elections were likely to be the most expensive in history: Republican committees had dramatically outraised and outspent their Democratic counterparts, thanks in large part to money from Trump-affiliated groups and Musk, while Democratic candidates had outraised their Republican opponents at the candidate level. Associated Press data writer Aaron Kessler contributed to this report.

Democrats were cautiously optimistic as Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars late in the campaign on states and districts Trump had won handily two years earlier. Democrats were betting that discontent over Trump’s failure to deliver on his promise to tackle rising costs, along with perceptions that he focused more on Washington than on people’s pain at the pump, would depress Republican turnout and bring Democratic voters to the polls. Republicans hoped their overwhelming money advantage would stem the tide.

Trump’s party had struggled when he was not running to turn out the low-propensity voters who fueled his victories. Trump had told voters to act as though he was on the ballot, even as many Republican candidates tried to keep their distance. Trump told a crowd in Salina, Kansas, on Sunday evening, “I really want you to pretend I’m on the ballot,” during the final of several dozen rallies in the closing weeks of the campaign. His aggressive schedule included stops in the reddest states, including Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, underscoring his party’s challenges.

On the eve of the election, Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said, “Everything depends on turnout. If we turn out our voters we win and that’s what we’ve been planning for.” He added, “Although there’s a lot of doom and gloom out there, I think we can defy history. We just need our voters to turn out,” and, “We still think we can lift the nose up and win.”

Race-specific consequences

Republicans had tried to buck the historical precedent that a president’s party almost always loses seats in midterms, using an aggressive redistricting effort to create a more favorable map. New districts drawn to be safely Republican in Florida and other states might not vote that way.

Other Trump choices could prove costly, the Associated Press reported. In Texas, Trump worked to oust longtime Sen. John Cornyn in favor of Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom the Associated Press described as scandal-plagued. That set up an extraordinarily expensive race against Democratic nominee James Talarico, whom Democrats hoped might finally help them realize their dream of flipping the state. In North Carolina, Sen. Thom Tillis retired after clashing with Trump, and Trump’s chosen replacement, former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, struggled to gain traction against the Democrats’ candidate, former Gov. Roy Cooper.

Democrats were most confident in picking up North Carolina and holding Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff faced Rep. Mike Collins. In Ohio, former Sen. Sherrod Brown was challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Other key battlegrounds included Alaska, where the administration had filed a lawsuit to block certification of the state’s Senate results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan lost, citing the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Republicans hoped to retain seats in Iowa, Kansas and Maine and to pick up Michigan, where Mike Rogers faced Abdul El-Sayed. The Associated Press described El-Sayed as progressive and as one of a crop of left-wing candidates who prevailed in Democratic primaries this election season. El-Sayed’s former primary opponent, Haley Stevens, upended the race Sunday by endorsing Rogers, renewing focus on tensions over Israel and the direction of the party that dominated Democratic primaries.

In the House, Republicans who had hoped to pick up seats through redistricting were trying to hold their narrow majority, while Democrats tried to flip seats in states Trump had repeatedly carried, from Florida to Texas to Iowa. Beyond Washington, 36 states were electing governors, and Democrats hoped to take a majority of statehouses for the first time in two decades amid voter discontent. Competitive gubernatorial races included heavily populated states such as Texas and Florida, plus reliably Republican states such as Iowa.

In Ohio, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign faced backlash for an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother, who lost custody of Acton decades ago after her husband, Acton’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton as a child, the Associated Press reported.

Institutional stakes

The outcome will shape the final two years of Trump’s second term, after a Republican-controlled Congress approved much of his agenda. Trump had been adept at overcoming efforts to rein him in, but Democratic control of either chamber would open the possibility of investigations and impeachments; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tech titan Elon Musk were among the possible targets. An especially strong Democratic showing could also boost presidential candidates California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. It could also complicate the paths of Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans who may be looking to turn their loyalty to Trump into momentum.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries was in line to make history as the nation’s first Black speaker of the House if his party swept to power. His 100-days agenda focused on lowering the cost of living and aggressive oversight of the Trump administration, as he put it, to “hold the crooks accountable,” and impeachment was not off the table. Senate leadership was unlikely to change. A Republican Senate could serve as a backstop for Trump’s priorities; a Democratic Senate could halt presidential nominees and challenge the White House agenda.