Americans will vote on Tuesday in midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, with all 435 House of Representatives seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships on the ballot.
The election falls halfway through Trump’s four-year term and is the first national vote since he returned to office on January 20, 2025.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow House majority. If Democrats win either chamber, they can block Trump’s legislative agenda, force budget negotiations and open congressional investigations into his administration.
What are the midterms?
Midterm elections are the congressional polls held halfway through a president’s four-year term and decide the composition of Congress: the legislative branch that writes federal law, controls the budget, and can check the executive and judicial branches.
The House has 435 members who serve two-year terms, so every seat is contested every two years. The Senate has 100 members who serve six-year terms, and about one-third of the chamber is up in each cycle. Thirty-five Senate seats are being contested in the upcoming midterm elections, including special elections in Florida and Ohio. Voters across 36 states are also electing governors during the cycle.
Why they matter
The core stakes are whether Trump can continue to govern with a Congress controlled by his own party, or whether Democrats can impose the first real political constraints on him since he returned to office in 2025.
A Democratic House would be in charge of the budget and would take control of committees set to investigate allegations of corruption, Trump’s links to Jeffrey Epstein and other topics. A Democratic Senate would also be able to block Trump’s appointments to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
CNN described the election as “the first chance for voters to place some constitutional restraints on a freewheeling president who has the most aggressive view of executive power in modern times”. The network also reported that a Democratic win in either chamber would bring a “seismic tide of investigations” into Trump’s conduct, his Cabinet, alleged government corruption and his personal fortune.
The result will also shape the 2028 presidential race. CNN reported that in both parties, the midterms “will demarcate the opening chapters of the 2028 presidential race.”
Pre-election survey findings
Democrats enter election day with a clear national lead. An NBC News poll released on November 1 put Democrats ahead of Republicans by 52 percent to 45 percent among registered voters asked which party should control Congress. The same poll put Trump’s disapproval at 60 percent, the highest of his two presidential terms in that survey.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on October 26 put Trump’s approval at 32 percent, one point above the lowest of his career, and found 47 percent of registered voters favoured Democrats for Congress against 36 percent for Republicans.
Economic dissatisfaction is driving the Democratic advantage. NBC News found that about three-quarters of voters were dissatisfied with the economy, and 64 percent believed Trump had fallen short of their expectations.
The Senate is the real question
Democrats are widely expected to win the House, but the Senate is closer, according to the consensus of major non-partisan election forecasters, statistical models, and polling data. Final New York Times/Siena polls published on November 1 found Democratic candidates ahead in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio, with a narrow edge in Alaska and an effective tie in Iowa.
Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to reach 51 and avoid a 50-50 tie that Vice President JD Vance would break for Republicans. New York Times reported that not even the largest waves in memory would make Democrats plainly favoured to win the Republican-leaning states they need, and that it “might take a tsunami.”
History favours the opposition
The president’s party has lost House seats in almost every midterm since World War II. Since 1946, the president’s party has lost an average of 26 House seats, and it gained seats only in 1998 and 2002, according to a New York Times analysis of historical results.
However, the pattern is not a law. Republicans predicted a “red wave” in 2022 and fell well short of it. The difference in 2026 is that Trump is seemingly more unpopular than he was then, and Democrats need only a small net gain in the House.
What to watch
The first readable signal will come from the Senate battlegrounds. If Democrats win Ohio and Maine, the Senate becomes competitive; if they lose either, Republicans are likely to hold the chamber. The House should become readable earlier, because Democrats need only a net gain of three seats and forecasters already favour them there. The first polls close in parts of Indiana and Kentucky at 6 pm ET on November 3, and the last close in Alaska at 1 am ET on November 4.