2026 Midterm Elections Countdown

Midterm Elections 2026 records

Register to vote, pick your state

Your vote is your voice, and midterms are decided by who shows up. Registration takes a few minutes, and many states have deadlines weeks before Election Day. Each link below goes to the official vote.gov registration page for that state: check your status, register, or update your address.

What's at stake in a midterm

All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats (33 regular races plus two special elections) are contested, along with 36 governorships and thousands of state and local offices. Midterms regularly reshape the balance of power in Washington.

Why a Tuesday in November?

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.

Midterms that changed the country

Midterm results have repeatedly reshaped Washington: 1994's “Republican Revolution” flipped 54 House seats and delivered the GOP its first House majority in 40 years; 2006 handed Democrats both chambers amid war-weariness; and 2010's “shellacking” swung 63 House seats to Republicans, the largest one-election shift since 1948. Midterms are also historically a referendum on the sitting president — turnout and the national mood in the months before Election Day tend to matter more than any single local race.

Quick facts

• Tuesday, November 3, 2026
• All 435 House seats and ~1/3 of the Senate on the ballot
• 36 states elect governors
• The Tuesday-after-first-Monday rule dates to 1845