Days until the 2026 midterm elections

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Here is the live count, and what is actually being decided.

What is on the ballot

A midterm election falls in the middle of a presidential term. Nobody is voting for president in 2026 — the next presidential election is in 2028. What is being decided:

• All 435 seats in the House of Representatives. The whole House is elected every two years, so every seat is up.
• About a third of the Senate. Senators serve six-year terms staggered into three classes, so roughly 33 or 34 seats come up each cycle.
• Most governorships, plus a long list of state legislative seats, ballot measures, and local offices that vary by state.

Why the date is always a Tuesday in early November

Federal law sets Election Day as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. That wording — rather than simply "the first Tuesday" — keeps the election from ever landing on November 1, which was both a religious observance and a common day for merchants to settle the previous month's accounts when the rule was written in 1845.

Applying the rule to 2026: November 1 is a Sunday, so the first Monday is November 2, and the first Tuesday after it is November 3.

When the new Congress actually starts

Winning in November does not mean taking office in November. Under the Twentieth Amendment, the terms of members of Congress begin at noon on January 3. So the Congress elected on November 3, 2026 is sworn in on January 3, 2027 — a two-month gap that exists so results can be certified and transitions arranged.

Registration and early voting

Deadlines are set by each state, not federally, and they vary enormously — some states cut off registration a month before Election Day, while others allow registering at the polls on the day itself. Early voting and mail ballot rules differ the same way. The authoritative source for your own state is your state or county election office; national sites summarise the rules but the local office is what governs.

How this relates to the end of the term

The midterms do not change when the current presidential term ends. That date is fixed at noon on January 20, 2029 by the Twentieth Amendment, regardless of what happens in any election in between. What the midterms change is the composition of Congress for the final two years of the term.