Election Day 2026 falls on Tuesday, November 3 — the midterm elections, when every seat in the U.S. House, about a third of the Senate, and most governorships are on the ballot.
All 435 House seats and 33–34 Senate seats are contested, along with 36 governorships and thousands of state and local offices. Midterms regularly reshape the balance of power in Washington.
An 1845 law set federal elections on 'the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November' — late enough for the harvest, early enough to beat winter, and on a day that let rural voters travel after Sunday church without conflicting with market Wednesdays.