Live updates from the 2026 midterm elections: Voters go to the polls to decide control of Congress

Republican officials are bracing for harsh judgment and potentially significant defeats. They widely expect to lose control of the House. They also increasingly fear losing the Senate.

Democrats have sought to define their campaigns by anger over high prices driven by tariffs and war, focusing heavily on making life cheaper. Led by Mr. Trump, Republicans have struggled to articulate a positive counterargument, with the president dismissing concerns about the economy and sending an often scattered message.

American politics is of course full of surprises. Although Republicans have underperformed in the two midterm elections of the Trump era, the president has demonstrated his ability to mobilize his most loyal supporters. He has also stepped up his baseless attacks on the U.S. electoral system, raising fears of federal interference in the results.

Democrats only need a net gain of three seats in the House to gain a majority. The Senate poses a greater burden: Democrats must retain all of their seats and flip at least four Republican-held seats. They compete in states like Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988, and Kansas, which hasn’t done so since 1932.

And if Democrats flip at least two Republican-held governorships, they will hold a majority for the first time since 2010, when a backlash against President Barack Obama fueled a Republican wave that has since shaped American politics.

Polls will close at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. The results that follow will shape the country for at least the next two years, and perhaps much longer. Here are six themes to watch for as voting concludes:

How far can Democrats penetrate Republican territory?

Look at where the competitive races were taking place in the final days of the campaign.

Kansas and Ohio, solidly red, are expected to jump into Senate races. Democrats are fighting hard in House districts, like the one in northern New York that was vacated by Rep. Elise Stefanik — where Mr. Trump won by 21 percentage points two years ago.

Gubernatorial races are tight in conservative states like Florida, Nebraska and Oklahoma, where Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, spent Monday night searching for the party’s nominee. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win even a single Oklahoma county was Al Gore in 2000.

Over the weekend, Republicans poured money into Louisiana’s Senate race, which had not previously been considered a competitive contest. Both parties also committed late funds to Senate elections in Mississippi and South Carolina, states that have been out of reach for Democrats for a generation.

While Democrats are widely expected to win elections in at least some red House districts and threaten to flip Senate seats in deep red states, the question is how far they can push into Republican territory.

How angry are voters with Trump’s handling of the economy?

Voters care most about whether they can meet their daily needs, and polls suggest they are angered by high prices caused by tariffs and the war ordered by Mr. Trump.

The president spent the day before the election talking about his changes to the Reflecting Pool in Washington. In recent weeks, some of his most memorable rallying lines have focused on the anatomy of Republican Senate candidates.

Mr. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low. Republican candidates who have reshaped their political identities in his image have struggled to convince voters that they can be independent.

In many cases, Republicans have not even tried to demonstrate that the economy is doing well. Instead, they tried to change the subject.

In Michigan’s Senate race, former Rep. Mike Rogers sought to put the Muslim faith and family background of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, at the center of the campaign. In Texas, voters saw a flood of Republican ads about how James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate, talked about transgender rights in the past. And in Maine, Sen. Susan Collins is leading voters to believe that her four-term tenure is best for her state.

If Democrats win the House, what will their majority be?

We might know quite early in the evening what kind of evening it will be for the House.

In Indiana and the eastern half of Kentucky, polls close at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. There are close races in Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District, which Mr. Trump won by 15 points in 2024, and Indiana’s Fifth District, which he won by 17 points.

Both are competitive races that will reveal some of the first clues about the rest of the electoral map. These are districts that have rural and suburban voters and are generally safe for Republicans.

There are dozens of neighborhoods of similar homes across the country.

Nevada’s Second District covers Reno and the rural northern half of the state. Mr. Trump won by 14 points. This is not a place where Democrats typically compete. But this year, Democrats have a strong candidate, the Republican incumbent is retiring, and the party’s nominee is seen as weak while a potential third-party spoiler is poised to siphon off conservative votes with help from Democrats.

Districts like these will determine how much cushion House Democrats will have when new members take their seats next January.

What are the consequences of the national fight for redistricting?

Starting with Texas last summer, Republican-led states began redrawing their congressional districts in an attempt to gain more House seats for their party.

The new maps were based on the idea that the 2026 electorate would look a bit like the one that carried Mr. Trump to victory in 2024.

This does not appear to be the case.

Latino voters turned against Mr. Trump, changing politics in South Texas and South Florida, where Republicans were trying to maintain advantages. Rural voters are furious about the price of diesel fuel. Black voters, early voting data suggests, are turning out in huge numbers.

The result is that House districts drawn with the express intention of putting them in Republican hands are running competitive races. In Texas, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina, elections are getting tighter in districts that Mr. Trump would have won by double digits if they had existed in 2024.

Meanwhile, in California, voters approved a plan to give Democrats five House seats, and redistricting does not appear to have endangered the party’s seats.

How all of these races play out may have ramifications beyond the immediate control of the House. Several states are considering redrawing their congressional maps before the 2028 elections. If this year’s new maps backfire, it could temper the aggressiveness of next year’s mapmakers.

And all the Republican money?

Elon Musk spent at least $474 million supporting Republicans in the midterm elections. The next four largest donors are also Republicans. And Mr. Trump had an unrivaled war chest.

If Republicans defy expectations, it will be at least in part because of a financial advantage gained long before the races became tight in the final weeks of the campaign.

At the same time, Democratic officials involved in House and Senate elections have lamented that they don’t have the money to compete in as many districts and states as they would like.

The Texas gubernatorial race, for example, has become a source of frustration for Latino Democrats. For weeks, they have been angry that the party hasn’t invested more in Gina Hinojosa, a state representative who polls show is running tied or closely behind Gov. Greg Abbott, the three-term Republican incumbent.

House Democratic managers privately canvassed a series of districts where they believed they had a chance of winning if only they had more resources.

Will Democrats be hurt by their Senate race drama?

Senate elections in the red states of Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and South Carolina are competitive in part because Democrats have nominated a generally strong slate of candidates who have mostly avoided major problems on the campaign trail.

This is not the case for their blue state brethren.

Maine Democrats changed candidates in July after primary winner Graham Platner was forced to withdraw from the race following a rape allegation, which he denied.

Michigan was rocked this weekend by a late shift in support, with Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the Senate primary to Dr. El-Sayed, defecting and supporting the Republican in the race, Mr. Rogers.

And in light-blue Minnesota, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is leading polls in her Senate race, although she is trailing the state’s major fraud scandal and is considered running one of the party’s weakest campaigns.

There’s also Alaska, where a New York Times article last week about Democratic wrangling to help Mary Peltola, the party’s Senate nominee, by recruiting a second Dan Sullivan into the race, sparked a wave of Republican anger.

Polls show Democratic candidates leading or with an advantage in all four races, but some of those contests — particularly in Michigan and Maine, where Ms. Collins, the Republican incumbent, is a formidable opponent — have required more resources and attention than party leaders would have liked.