November Midterm Elections 2026: Final Polls, Odds and What to Watch on Election Night

Snapshot updated November 1, 2026, two days before Election Day. The countdown runs live in your browser; poll, market and rating figures are the latest published numbers on that date, with links to the live sources.

Until the first polls close on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026 (6 p.m. Eastern).

The Senate math at a glance

Today: 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats and independents who caucus with them. A tie is broken by Vice President JD Vance, so Democrats need 51 seats, a net gain of four.

Of the 7 Cook toss-ups (unchanged through Cook's October 30 ratings), 6 are Republican-held (Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Texas); Michigan is the Democrats' only toss-up defence.

Follow it live

• Polls: Silver Bulletin generic ballot · RealClearPolling
• Ratings: Cook Senate · Cook governors · 270toWin
• Markets: Polymarket · Kalshi
• Early vote: NBC News early vote tracker · OnPoint Politics
• Voting rules and dates: vote.gov · Ballotpedia early voting dates

Midterm elections fall halfway through a president's four-year term. There is no presidential race on the 2026 ballot, but control of both chambers of Congress, most governorships and thousands of state legislative seats are decided on the same day.

US elections are run by the states, not by a single national agency. That is why the rules for registering, voting early, voting by mail and showing ID differ depending on where a voter lives.

1. Registration. Deadlines vary by state, and some states allow same-day registration. The official federal starting point is vote.gov, which links to each state's election office.
2. Early and mail voting. Most states offer some form of early in-person or mail voting. Windows and return deadlines are set by each state.
3. Election Day. Polls open and close at times set by each state. Results reported on election night are unofficial.
4. Counting and certification. States finish counting mail and provisional ballots, run any recounts their laws require, and certify official results over the following weeks, generally in late November and December.
5. Taking office. The new Congress convenes on January 3, 2027. Governors are inaugurated on dates set by each state, mostly in January.

These are the Senate races the Cook Political Report rates as competitive, as of its ratings page dated October 30, 2026. The map mostly defends Democratic seats, but six of the seven toss-ups are Republican-held. On October 6 Cook moved Kansas from Lean Republican to Toss Up, New Hampshire from Toss Up to Lean Democrat and North Carolina from Lean Democrat to Likely Democrat. On October 20 it moved Minnesota from Likely to Lean Democrat, South Carolina from Likely to Lean Republican and Mississippi from Solid to Likely Republican.

Also worth watching. Minnesota's open seat, now Lean Democrat (Peggy Flanagan vs Michele Tafoya); South Carolina, now Lean Republican; and Mississippi, now Likely Republican. Also Nebraska, where independent Dan Osborn (backed by the state Democratic Party) challenges Sen. Pete Ricketts; Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) faces Rep. Mike Collins; a race that goes to a runoff if no candidate wins a majority, which could delay Senate control.

Special elections. Florida votes to fill the rest of Marco Rubio's term after he became Secretary of State (appointed Republican Ashley Moody faces Democrat Angie Nixon and independent Neil Gillespie). Ohio votes to fill JD Vance's former seat after he became Vice President.

Retiring senators. Democrats: Dick Durbin (Illinois), Gary Peters (Michigan), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) and Tina Smith (Minnesota). Republicans: Tommy Tuberville (Alabama), Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Steve Daines (Montana), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and Alan Armstrong (Oklahoma, appointed in 2026 and ineligible to run).

New Hampshire's open Senate seat comes as the state argues over a data centre moratorium. See our New Hampshire data center construction guide for the Bow proposal and the power-cost debate.

Republicans hold a majority of governorships today, and with four of the five toss-ups in Republican hands, Fox News reports the party risks losing that majority for the first time since 2011.

Big-state governors leaving because of term limits include Gavin Newsom (California), Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), Jared Polis (Colorado), Ron DeSantis (Florida) and Brian Kemp (Georgia). Several of their successors will shape how their states handle the surge in data centre power demand.

Early voting in the 2026 midterms has broken the midterm record. The University of Florida Election Lab counted more than 46 million ballots by October 30, and trackers showed about 50 million by November 1 (OnPoint Politics: 49.6 million in 47 reporting states, 23.2 million by mail and 26.4 million in person). The AP found the count five days before Election Day was nearly 10 million ahead of the same point in 2022, when about 122 million people voted in total. In states that report party registration, Democrats cast about 40% of early ballots and Republicans about 33%. Republicans tend to vote later and on Election Day itself, so early numbers are not a forecast.

When will we know who won?

Dozens of races are called on election night, but control of Congress may take longer. In 2022 it took more than a week to project the House majority. Close Senate races decided by mail ballots, California's slow count of late ballots, which can settle the final House margin, and Georgia's majority rule, which forces a runoff if no candidate clears 50%, could all delay the final picture this year. Virginia, closing at 7 p.m. Eastern, is widely watched as the first bellwether of the night.

For the first time in decades, several states redrew their congressional maps in the middle of a decade. That changes the math for the House before a single vote is cast.

• Texas passed a new map drawing about five additional Republican-leaning districts, and the US Supreme Court allowed it to stand.
• California voters responded by approving new districts that eliminate about five Republican-held seats.
• Florida enacted a new map in May 2026 expected to add Republican seats. North Carolina redrew its 1st District, and Ohio, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee adopted new maps after the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling.
• Virginia announced plans to redraw. Efforts in Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland and New York failed or were blocked, leaving existing maps in place.

The pattern is one of the most reliable in American politics: the president's party almost always loses House seats in a midterm. Since 1934 it has gained seats only three times, in 1934, 1998 and 2002. Voters use midterms as a check on whoever holds the White House, and the result is often divided government.

Markets have a view on that too. As the next section shows, the months after a midterm have historically been some of the strongest for US stocks, and one common explanation is that divided government makes sweeping policy changes less likely.

Search any trading forum in the autumn of a midterm year and you will find the theory: the largest stock market moves in history are timed around the midterm elections, whether by coincidence, by political calendars or by something more deliberate. Here is what the data actually supports.

What is real: the midterm cycle

• Since 1938, the S&P 500 has risen in the 12 months after a midterm election 95% of the time (Fidelity).
• The midterm year itself has averaged about 5%, compared with about 14% in the year after (Fidelity). Midterm-year returns have ranged from drawdowns of 27% to gains of nearly 40%.
• Midterm years since 1961 have seen an average peak-to-trough decline of 19%. In 2026 the drop was about 9% in March, and the S&P 500 was up roughly 14% for the year by mid-August.
• The usual explanation is simple: uncertainty builds before the vote and fades once the balance of power in Congress is known.

What is not real: the biggest single-day moves

This year the uncertainty is unusually high. CNN reported on August 30, 2026 that speculation about possible federal intervention in the midterms, from a national election emergency declaration to limits on mail-in voting now tied up in lawsuits, has made “the country as a whole more nervous” (CNN). If that uncertainty lingers past election night, it could weigh on markets in the run-up to the Anthropic IPO, now reported for as soon as November 16.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the SEC on June 1, 2026, and filed its public S-1 on October 26, 2026. It plans to list its Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. The share count and price range were left blank, and press reports say trading could start as soon as November 16, about two weeks after the vote. Our Anthropic IPO date and price tracker and $80 billion loss breakdown cover the filing.

When early reports put the listing days before Election Day, many online commentators suspected the timing was deliberate. There was never public evidence of coordination, and with the S-1 filed on October 26 the listing now lands after the vote, so the midterms and the Anthropic IPO will not share a week.

Why the first trade could be the biggest money move ever made in seconds

When a newly listed stock opens, the opening trade instantly puts a public price on every share the company has. At a valuation near $1 trillion or more, Anthropic's opening print would put a price on more value in a single moment than almost any listing in history, and it would do so during the week the market is digesting the balance of power in Congress. With trading now reported for as soon as November 16, it would land in the weeks after the vote, when the midterm data says relief rallies have historically taken hold.

Why does a Canadian crypto and data centre site care? The AI build-out behind Anthropic's valuation runs on power, and data centre power rules are now campaign issues in states from New Hampshire to Michigan. Our free AI data centre cost model shows what that power costs in every US state and nine Canadian provinces, and our Canada AI data centre boom page covers the build-out north of the border.

• Cook Political Report Senate ratings and Washington Post on the October 6 shifts
• Cook Political Report governor ratings and U.S. News governor toss-ups (October 6, 2026)
• Report on Cook's October 9 House rating changes
• Silver Bulletin generic ballot, FiftyPlusOne and RealClearPolling
• Kalshi midterm odds and Polymarket midterm markets (October 10–12, 2026)
• RealClearPolling Trump approval average
• CNN early voting data, Ballotpedia early voting dates and Georgia early voting
• NPR elections coverage and Fox News elections coverage
• Ballotpedia: United States Senate elections, 2026 (composition, nominees, specials, retirements)
• Ballotpedia: United States House elections, 2026 (composition, redistricting, generic ballot)
• Ballotpedia: gubernatorial elections, 2026
• Ballotpedia: United States Congress elections, 2026
• CNN: Last-minute doomsday scenarios for the 2026 election (Aug 30, 2026)
• Fidelity: How might midterm elections impact the stock market?
• Anthropic: confidential draft S-1 submission (June 1, 2026)
• CNBC: prediction markets one week out (Oct 27, 2026) and Benzinga: Kalshi and Polymarket Senate races
• The Hill: Cook shifts Minnesota, South Carolina and Mississippi (Oct 20, 2026)
• PollCheck Trump approval average
• OnPoint Politics early vote tracker, NBC News early vote tracker and No Labels: 46 million early ballots
• The Green Papers: 2026 poll closing times
• Anthropic: public S-1 filing (Oct 26, 2026) and CNBC: Anthropic IPO live updates
• vote.gov (official US voter registration information)

Race ratings, polling, prediction markets and early-vote counts are as of November 1, 2026 and will change. This page is independent analysis and not investment or voting advice.