The 2026 midterms, as the polls model them
Weighted averages of 3,194 polls, corrected for each pollster's measured lean, blended with partisanship, incumbency, and fundraising, and given the uncertainty that 2,313 past races say they deserve. How it works.
- SenateDemocrats win control: 72%
- HouseDemocrats win control: 91%
- GovernorsDemocratic governors: 26.9 of 50
Senate
All races →If the polls overstate Democrats the way they did in 2016–24 (about 1.8 points here): Democrats 48%, Republicans 52%. If they miss the other way by as much: Democrats 88%, Republicans 12%.
House
All races →If the polls overstate Democrats the way they did in 2016–24 (about 1.6 points here): Democrats 77%, Republicans 23%. If they miss the other way by as much: Democrats 97%, Republicans 3%.
Governors
All races →If the polls overstate Democrats the way they did in 2016–24 (about 4.2 points here): 23.0 Democratic governors. If they miss the other way by as much: 31.1 Democratic governors.
Democrats are favored to take the House and are slight favorites in a Senate fight that is close to a coin flip. The model gives them an 80% chance of a House majority against 20% for Republicans, with the simulations averaging 227 seats, 218 needed, and a 90% range of 209 to 247 that still contains defeat. The Senate is close to a toss-up: 54% Democratic control, 46% Republican, with the simulations averaging 50.2 seats from 47 now and a 90% range of 46 to 54. The party with more seats organizes the chamber, and the vice president only breaks ties, so Democrats need 51 seats, or 50 if an unaligned independent holds a seat Republicans would otherwise have. In 8% of simulations Democrats get control that way, most often through Dan Osborn in Nebraska; in 9% Republicans keep it only on the vice president's tie-breaking vote. Democratic governorships average 26.3, up from 24, in a range of 21 to 32.
Six or seven races decide the Senate. North Carolina (Roy Cooper at 90%) and Maine (Troy Jackson at 71%) are the likelier Democratic pickups, and Michigan (Abdul El-Sayed at 69%) is the least secure seat Democrats already hold. The fight sits in Texas, where James Talarico projects at D+1.1 and 58%, and Ohio's special, where Sherrod Brown projects at D+1.0 and 57%. In both, polls are better for Democrats than fundamentals: Texas polls average D+2.6 against fundamentals of R+3.7, Ohio D+2.9 against R+3.2. The model weights polls at 76% and 68% there, so the projection lands closer to the polls without fully believing them. Alaska (Mary Peltola, 42%) and Iowa (39%) lean the other way. Nebraska's non-Republican is independent Dan Osborn, at 44% on six polls.
The scenarios matter more than the headline. If polls overstate Democrats as they did on average from 2016 through 2024, Senate control odds fall to 27% and House odds to 59%. A miss of the same size in the other direction, as in the 2025 governor's races, puts them at 80% and 92%. The headline numbers assume no direction to the error. That assumption is doing most of the work.
The generic ballot
Asked which party they want in Congress, voters favor Democrats by 8.1 points in our average of 495 polls. Since 1998 that question has overstated Democrats by about 1.7 points at this stage, so the model reads the national environment as D+6.3, give or take 2.6.
12 Senate races in play
Each row is one race: the dot is the projected margin, the bar holds half of simulated outcomes, and the line holds nine in ten. The hollow diamond is where the polls alone sit, and the heavy rule is the line for control: Democrats need every race above it. Shown: races where each party has at least a 1-in-20 chance; the rest are on the full Senate page.
19 governor's races in play
Governor's races lean far less on partisanship than Senate races do, so the fundamentals get little weight here and unpolled races carry wide intervals. All 36 races.
The 46 closest districts
Most districts have no public polls, so House projections lean on district partisanship, incumbency, fundraising, and the national environment, with district polls blended in where they exist. All 435 districts.
Latest polls
The newest race polls in the database. See all of them, including the generic ballot.
| Dates | Race | Pollster | Sample | Dem. | Rep. | As published | Adjusted | Share of average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 20–31 | Florida Governor David Jolly v. Byron Donalds | ActiVote | 400 LV | 48 | 52 | R+4 | R+3.9 moved 0.1 toward D | 8.3% | source |
| Oct 23–31 | Illinois Governor JB Pritzker v. Darren Bailey | ActiVote | 400 LV | 59 | 41 | D+18 | D+18.1 moved 0.1 toward D | 61% | source |
| Oct 17–31 | California Governor Xavier Becerra v. Steve Hilton | ActiVote | 400 LV | 63 | 37 | D+26 | D+26.1 moved 0.1 toward D | 15% | source |
| Oct 27–30 | Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa v. Greg Abbott | Kreate StrategiesREP.-ALIGNED | 900 LV | 47 | 49 | R+2 | D+1.4 moved 3.4 toward D | 6.3% | source |
| Oct 27–30 | Texas Senate James Talarico v. Ken Paxton | Kreate StrategiesREP.-ALIGNED | 900 LV | 48 | 45 | D+3 | D+6.4 moved 3.4 toward D | 5.4% | source |
| Oct 26–30 | Florida Senate (special) Angie Nixon v. Ashley Moody | Stetson University Center for Public Opinion Research | 852 RV | 45 | 49 | R+4 | R+3.9 moved 0.1 toward D | 4.7% | source |
| Oct 26–30 | Florida Governor David Jolly v. Byron Donalds | Big Data Poll | 1,067 LV | 42.5 | 45.5 | R+3 | R+3.0 | 7.6% | source |
| Oct 26–30 | Florida Senate (special) Angie Nixon v. Ashley Moody | Big Data Poll for 1776 Law Center and Public Polling Project | 1,067 LV | 43.5 | 50 | R+7 | R+6.5 | 7.8% | source |
| Oct 26–30 | Florida Governor David Jolly v. Byron Donalds | Stetson University Center for Public Opinion Research | 852 RV | 45 | 51 | R+6 | R+5.9 moved 0.1 toward D | 4.6% | source |
| Oct 21–30 | Illinois Senate Juliana Stratton v. Don Tracy | ActiVote | 400 LV | 56 | 44 | D+12 | D+12.1 moved 0.1 toward D | 61% | source |
| Oct 28–29 | Florida Governor David Jolly v. Byron Donalds | InsiderAdvantage | 1,200 LV | 45 | 49 | R+4 | R+3.5 moved 0.5 toward D | 7.8% | source |
| Oct 23–29 | Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa v. Greg Abbott | ActiVote | 400 LV | 47.9 | 52.1 | R+4 | R+4.1 moved 0.1 toward D | 6.4% | source |
LV: likely voters. RV: registered voters. A: all adults. “Adjusted” is the published margin after removing the sponsor shift and the pollster’s measured house effect; the small print says how far that moved the poll. Dem.-aligned and Rep.-aligned mark polls paid for by a party, a campaign, or an allied group, or taken by a firm whose published work is mostly for one side. They are shifted by the average lean of such polls, then counted at full weight.