More than 50 million Americans cast their ballots in early voting three days before the midterm elections | 2026 US midterm elections

There has been a surge in early voting for the US midterm elections, with millions more Americans heading to the polls than in the last such election, amid a series of close contests that will determine control of Congress.

More than 50.5 million early votes were cast in the United States as of Saturday morning, according to an analysis by the University of Florida. This already represents almost 5 million votes more than the total number of early votes cast during the last midterm elections, in 2022.

Voter enthusiasm for Tuesday’s election appears to be strongest among Democrats, with 10.7 million registered Democrats having voted so far, according to the states that gather this information, compared to 7.8 million registered Republicans.

These partisan affiliations are not indicative of actual votes cast, but polls have shown widespread dissatisfaction with Donald Trump’s presidency and unusually close elections in states typically won comfortably by Republicans.

Republicans are defending a 53-47 Senate majority in a midterm election in which the battleground has widened significantly, with Democrats aiming for victories in traditionally conservative-leaning states like Texas, Alaska and even Kansas that could allow them to take control of the Senate.

In Texas, a state at the heart of Democratic ambitions, more than 7 million people have already voted early, according to data from the University of Florida. That’s already 1.5 million more people than the number of people who voted early in the state in the 2022 midterm elections.

In Harris County, which includes Houston, 862,700 people had voted as of Wednesday, according to an Associated Press analysis, compared with 564,500 at the same time in 2022.

This surge comes in a county that has voted reliably Democratic in recent elections, although by varying margins. In 2024, Kamala Harris beat Trump there by nearly 6% in the presidential race, while Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred won the county by about 11% over incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

This year, Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico in a closely watched Senate race, while Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking re-election against Democrat Gina Hinojosa.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the Senate race as Republicans fight to defend a state where Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in more than three decades. Trump visited Texas earlier this week, his third trip there in a month.

In other hotly contested Senate elections, early voting also increased during these midterm elections, according to the AP. In South Carolina, which Trump won by nearly 18% in the 2024 presidential election, early voting is up 83% compared to the 2022 midterm elections.

In Kansas, where another unusually close Senate battle is underway in a normally reliably Republican state, early voting is up 34%, while in Maine early voting is up 44%. In Michigan, home to another key Senate race, early voting is up 32%.

The midterm elections will decide the makeup of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for the final two years of Trump’s second term, with rising prices for food, gasoline and other essential goods, as well as the war in Iran and concerns about government corruption, forming the backdrop to the vote.

Trump, weighed down by deep unpopularity among voters, has sought to support struggling Republican candidates with rallies held in various previously safe states. The effort led the U.S. president to repeatedly comment on candidates’ physical appearance and dismiss concerns about rising gasoline prices as secondary to the profits of fossil fuel companies.

Trump hinted at the difficulty of that effort at a rally in Florida Friday night. “I thought that was it,” he said. “I thought I could relax. Twenty-eight days of this shit in a row is a lot. It’s a lot.”