2026 Midterm Elections: Election Day, Every Seat Up and What's on the Ballot

The 2026 midterm elections take place on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, when voters nationwide decide all 435 seats in the US House, 35 seats in the US Senate, and 39 governorships, alongside thousands of state legislative seats and roughly 100 statewide ballot measures. Because it falls in the middle of a presidential term, a midterm doesn’t choose a president — it resets Congress and a large share of state government instead. This guide sticks to the settled, structural facts of what’s on the ballot and when; it does not forecast who wins any of it.

When is Election Day in 2026?

Election Day is Tuesday, 3 November 2026. Federal law fixes general elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and that lands on the 3rd this year. Voting starts well before that date almost everywhere: states open early in-person voting on their own schedules, running from mid-September through late October 2026, and several states had already begun mailing absentee ballots as of Wednesday 30 September 2026. Exact windows, hours and locations are set state by state, so check your own state’s election website for yours.

What’s up for election in the House?

All 435 voting seats in the US House of Representatives are up, because every member serves a two-year term. Alongside them, voters also elect the non-voting delegate for the District of Columbia and four of the five non-voting territorial delegates — the delegates for Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands are all on the 2026 ballot, while Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner serves a four-year term and isn’t up again until 2028. This is also the first House election since the Supreme Court narrowed part of the Voting Rights Act in April 2026, and several states enacted new congressional maps for this cycle as a result (more on that below).

What’s up for election in the Senate?

35 of the Senate’s 100 seats are up: the 33 regularly scheduled Class II seats, last contested in 2020, plus two special elections. The special elections are in Florida, to fill the remainder of the term Marco Rubio left when he resigned in 2025 to become secretary of state, and in Ohio, to fill the remainder of the term JD Vance left when he resigned in 2025 to become vice president. Both seats are currently held by Republican appointees — Ashley Moody in Florida and Jon Husted in Ohio — who are each running to keep the seat through the rest of the term.

How many governor’s races are there?

39 gubernatorial elections are on the November 2026 ballot: 36 states plus three US territories — Guam, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. It’s the largest governor’s cycle since 2022. Of the 39 races, 18 sitting governors are running for another term; the other 21 have no incumbent on the ballot, mostly because of term limits.

What redistricting changes affect this election?

The Supreme Court narrowed part of the Voting Rights Act in April 2026, and several states redrew their congressional maps for this cycle as a result. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided 29 April 2026, the Court ruled 6–3 that Louisiana’s second majority-minority congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, narrowing how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be used to require such districts. The ruling fed into a wider wave of mid-decade congressional map changes for 2026 in states including Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah and California; California’s new map followed a statewide vote on Proposition 50 in a November 2025 special election. These changes affect which candidates run in which districts — they are not described here as a gain or loss for either party.

What ballot measures have been certified so far?

At least two high-profile statewide measures on abortion are certified for the November 2026 ballot, and this is not a closed list. In Missouri, Amendment 3 is a legislatively referred measure that would repeal the abortion-rights amendment voters approved in 2024 and replace it with a near-total ban, with exceptions for a medical emergency, a fetal anomaly, or — before 12 weeks — rape or incest. In Nevada, Question 6 would add a right to abortion to the state constitution; Nevada requires a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment to pass in two consecutive general elections, voters already approved this one in 2024, and a second yes vote in 2026 would complete it.

Roughly 100 statewide measures are expected across 37 states in 2026 in total, covering everything from voting rules to taxes to redistricting itself, and as of Wednesday 30 September 2026 several states — Missouri among them — still had further measures moving through signature verification or legislative referral. We’re treating this section as a running “certified so far” list rather than a final one, and will update it as more measures clear.

When do I need to register to vote?

Registration deadlines are set state by state, but federal law caps how early any state can close registration at 30 days before a federal election. For the 3 November 2026 midterms, that puts the safe, works-everywhere deadline at 4 October 2026; many states allow registration considerably later than that, and roughly 20 states plus DC allow registration on Election Day itself. We’ve laid out the full state-by-state picture, including which states are exempt from a registration deadline altogether, in our guide to registering to vote .

Where can I find out who’s likely to win?

Not on this page. This guide covers only the settled structural facts — the date, the seats, the process and the ballot measures that have cleared certification. For seat-by-seat ratings, generic-ballot polling and our own arithmetic on House and Senate control, see our separate House forecast and Senate forecast pieces, which we keep updated and corrected as new numbers come in.

The bottom line

Between now and 3 November 2026, the parts of this page most likely to move are your own state’s registration deadline and the ballot-measure list, as more states finish certifying theirs. Everything else here — the date, the seat counts, the redistricting background and the two certified abortion measures — is settled and shouldn’t change between now and Election Day itself.