All 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships are up, and the polls and the betting markets are both already trying to call the result.
Voters in all 50 states decide today who controls Congress for the next two years. All 435 House seats are up, along with 35 Senate seats, which are 33 regular elections and two special elections to fill the Florida seat once held by Marco Rubio and the Ohio seat once held by J.D. Vance. Another 36 governorships are on the ballot. Republicans hold the Senate 53 to 47, counting the two independents who caucus with Democrats, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take it.
Republicans also hold a narrow House majority, and Democrats need a net gain of a few seats there.
What the polls say
On the generic ballot, which asks voters which party they would back for Congress, Democrats lead by 8.9 points in a polling average updated Monday.
Polls have missed in a consistent direction. The polling industry’s own review of 2024 found that public polls overstated Democratic margins by 2.7 points on average, and that pre-election polls had underestimated Republican vote shares for the third straight presidential cycle. The same review found the polls were more accurate in 2024 than in 2020 or 2016, with an average error of 3.3 points against 5.3 points in 2020. A miss that size matters most in close seats, where the margin is often smaller than the error.
The betting
Traders have wagered more than $220 million on this year’s midterms at Kalshi and Polymarket, according to an analysis of trading through Sept. 30. That is more than double the $92 million bet in the 2024 cycle.
Kalshi suspended three candidates for five years in April for betting on their own races, and fined them more than $7,500 combined. Wisconsin’s elections commission has told voters they cannot place a bet on an election in which they cast a ballot, and warned that a ballot could be disqualified. Kalshi calls that advisory illegal and a form of voter suppression.
A survey of about 4,500 Americans taken Sept. 30 to Oct. 5 found that about 69 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Republicans do not support using prediction markets to bet on election results.
Before you go
Polling hours and ID rules differ by state, and vote.gov links to each state’s election office. Counting rules differ too, so some close races may take days to call.
Sources
• United States Congress elections, 2026, Ballotpedia
• Ballotpedia News, 2026 governor and Senate races
• Generic ballot average, Silver Bulletin, updated Nov. 2, 2026
• Task Force on 2024 Pre-Election Polling, Executive Summary, AAPOR
• Midterm election betting tops $220M on Kalshi and Polymarket
• Kalshi prediction site suspends three political candidates
• Kalshi attacks a Wisconsin law banning election bets
Most Americans reject betting on elections, poll finds
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