The 2026 midterm congressional elections may be a little over 15 months away, but federal lawmakers and their campaign committees already are deep into planning for Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.
New polling numbers seem to be coming out every day, incumbent lawmakers are deciding whether or not they have the stamina (and the support) to withstand another campaign, and the two parties are trying to amass the massive amounts of money they’ll need to keep — or put themselves back into — power. Additionally, in some states, the two parties are trying to redraw congressional districts to their advantage.
What’s new when it comes to polling, lawmaker retirements, and the finances that influence the 2026 election season? Let’s take a look, but first, some history: how do the two parties normally fare during an off-year election where there is no presidential race?
Midterm Elections: A Look at Precedent
The American Presidency Project (APP) at UC Santa Barbara has tracked midterm election outcomes for the party holding the White House going back to 1932, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was sitting in the Oval Office. (Fun historical aside: FDR was the first president to occupy the current Oval Office situated at the southeast corner of the West Wing.)
For most years, the APP also offers presidential approval ratings.
In the vast majority of these midterm elections, the party that held the White House lost seats in the U.S. Senate. The exceptions to this rule are: 1932 (FDR), 1962 (John F. Kennedy), 1970 (Richard Nixon), 1982 (Ronald Reagan), 2002 (George W. Bush), 2018 (Donald Trump), and 2022 (Joe Biden). In all of those “exception” years, the sitting president had an approval rating at or above 40 percent one month out from the election and the commander-in-chief’s party benefited from his relatively strong polling numbers.
As tough as the Senate may be for incumbents, it’s even more rare for the party of a sitting president to gain seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That feat has happened only three times since 1932: in 1932 (FDR), in 1998 (Bill Clinton), and in 2002 (George W. Bush). Not surprisingly, these three exceptions were the result of remarkably high approval ratings for the president. In October 1998, President Clinton’s approval rating was an incredible 65 percent. In October 2002, just one year after the September 11th terrorist attacks, President Bush’s approval rating stood at 67 percent. (In the 2006 midterm elections, when President Bush’s approval rating was down to 37 percent, his Republican party lost 30 seats in the U.S. House and six in the U.S. Senate.)
Given that midterm outcomes for the president’s party seem to track somewhat closely to presidential approval, let’s now take a look at where those numbers stand today, with the caveat that a lot can change between now and next November.
A Look at President Trump’s Approval Ratings
As of today, Republicans hold 219 seats in the U.S. House and Democrats hold 212. There also are four vacancies, three of which are for seats previously held by Democrats and one by a Republican. If the party that previously controlled those seats holds them in the forthcoming special elections, the margin in the U.S. House is really 220-215, meaning Republicans cannot lose more than two seats in the lower chamber of Congress and keep control of the House.
In the Senate, the margin is 53 for Republicans and 47 for Democrats. Because Vice President J.D. Vance holds the tie-breaking vote, Republicans can lose up to three seats and still control the upper chamber of Congress.
Given historical precedent and where President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are, that feat is a tall order. According to RealClearPolitics average of polls, President Trump’s approval currently stands at around 45 percent. Except for the very first days of his second term in office, his average approval rating has never been above 50 percent, and for the last few weeks it has been on a steady downward trajectory.
If President Trump’s ratings hold at this level, it’s likely, based on historical precedent, that the GOP is looking at losses in the U.S. House in November 2026, and perhaps the U.S. Senate as well.
Surveys on other matters suggest the president may have a hard time raising his approval ratings. For example:
- OBBBA Is Not Popular. A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 46 percent of U.S. adults expect the president’s signature domestic policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to hurt their families. Only 26 percent of Americans expect it to help.
- Losing Independent Support. According to AXIOS, the decline in President Trump’s approval numbers has been driven by a 17-point decline in approval among independents. Only 26 percent of independent voters currently approve of the job President Trump is doing in office. The president’s numbers with the group have never been lower, AXIOS said.
- Republicans Losing Generic Ballot in Key Districts. A recent memo from Fabrizio Ward, which, as Politico called it, is “the renowned polling firm favored by the Trump campaign,” found Republicans are trailing on the generic ballot question in a survey of 28 battleground House seats. (The generic ballot question simply asks whether voters would prefer to vote for a Republican or a Democrat.)
Other factors are at play as well, of course, including whether each party can convince its incumbent lawmakers to continue serving.
A Look at House and Senate Retirements
The vast majority of incumbent lawmakers who decide to run for another term for their current seat win. In fact, according to the campaigns and elections website OpenSecrets, you would have to go back to at least 1964 to find a time when less than 80 percent of the U.S. House and Senate lawmakers who ran for reelection won. In 2022, the last congressional midterm election cycle, 100 percent of incumbent U.S. senators won their reelections. More than 93 percent of U.S. House incumbents did the same.
The power of incumbency is one reason parties try to limit retirements, but this year there already have been a number of significant departures in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. According to Ballotpedia, 23 federal lawmakers — seven senators and 16 U.S. House members — have already said they will not seek re-election in 2026.
The senators are split between Republicans and Democrats:
- Retiring Senate Republicans: Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
- Retiring Senate Democrats: Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.).
U.S. House retirements also are generally split. Seven Democrats have said they are leaving the lower chamber of Congress, while nine GOP lawmakers are departing.
These open seats will be among the most competitive in November 2026, especially in the U.S. Senate. According to the Cook Political Report, four of the six most competitive Senate seats — Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and North Carolina — are states where incumbents are retiring.
There are, most likely, many more retirements to come, at least in the U.S. House. According to OpenSecrets, during the last midterm election in 2022, 46 lawmakers (29 Democrats and 17 Republicans) retired from the lower chamber of Congress. There were 51 U.S. House retirements (18 Democrats and 33 Republicans) four years before that, in 2018. In contrast, the number of Senate retirements so far this year — again, seven — is already historically high. In 2022, six senators (five Republicans and one Democrat) retired, and in 2018, there were four Senate retirements, all Republicans.
One reason we still may see many more retirements in the U.S. House: redistricting. If states change the boundaries to make it less likely an incumbent would win, that lawmaker may choose to retire instead.
Redistricting and Other Factors at Play
Gerrymandering is the phenomenon by which state redistricting commissions or state lawmakers — whoever is in charge of drawing congressional districts in a state — craft the makeup of congressional districts to lean toward one party or another.
As Punchbowl reported last week, President Trump and Republicans are trying to “shift the House map in the GOP’s favor. Republicans are trying to muscle through new maps in Texas, Ohio, and Missouri, with more red states potentially on deck.” The GOP may also seek to make changes in Florida and New Hampshire.
In Texas, the move is particularly controversial. The Hill noted redistricting “typically happens with the new census every 10 years.” Therefore, Republicans’ moves have “provoked retaliatory threats from Democrats in blue states, who are threatening to redraw their own maps if Texas moves forward.” Indeed, Democrats may try to execute some redistricting in California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Oregon.
There is also the money game — how much cash does each party committee have to pour into their most competitive races, which will stretch from California to Maine and back again. According to Politico, “the Republican National Committee is sitting on vastly more cash than its Democratic counterpart. The RNC has nearly $81 million in cash on hand. The DNC? Just $15 million. And while the Q2 sums raised by the NRCC and DCCC are roughly similar, there too, Republicans have the financial edge: $32 million to $29 million.”
But will money matter? In his newsletter published Sunday, political analyst Bruce Mehlman said, “Money is necessary but not sufficient to win elections. The party with more spending won five of the past 11 elections and lost five, with one a split decision.”
A lot can still change in the next 15 months, but 2026 is shaping up to be a very competitive campaign year.