2026 Midterm Election Update – September 9th, 2026
Bottom Line: Since the advent of the current two-party system (41 midterm elections), we've averaged the President's party losing 3 U.S. Senate seats and 28 seats in the House of Representatives in midterm election cycles. If that were to happen this cycle, Republicans would narrowly retain control the Senate, however Democrats would gain control of the House of Representatives – which they last held in 2022.
Republicans currently maintain a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats would need to flip four net seats to gain control, as Vice President JD Vance, as President of the Senate, would split 50-50 ties.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans currently hold a 218-212 majority (with four vacancies), meaning Democrats only need to flip four net seats to gain control of the chamber.
There are only three times that the incumbent President's party has gained seats (1934 during FDR's first term, 1998 during Bill Clinton's second term, and 2002 during George W. Bush's first term) thus only 3 out of 41 midterm elections have resulted in the President's party netting additional congressional seats. Here's another way of looking at it... History suggests there's a 93% chance Democrats will gain Congressional seats this cycle.
Will history repeat itself this year? There’s been one polling indicator which has been 100% accurate in midterm election cycles. The generic ballot. Since the advent of the polling age in the 1930’s, the party favored on Election Day on the generic ballot has fared best in every cycle. In the most recent cycle, the 2022 Midterm elections, Republicans were favored by 2.5% in the RealClear Politics average of polls and ended up winning 2.8% more of the vote nationally. So how about this cycle?
As of today, the generic ballot says:
- DEM +5.8% (vs. 6.4% September 9th)
There's a little something for both parties this week. We're now into a window after Labor Day in which the party holding the generic ballot advantage at this point in the cycle has fared best nationally in every midterm election cycle. As the saying goes...there's a first for everything, however for Republicans that's what they would need to pull out the unlikely upper hand in this cycle... A historical first. For this reason, it's highly likely that with under two months until Election Day, Democrats are solidly positioned to outperform Republicans on Election Day.
On the other side of the coin, this week's update shows something that offers a ray of hope for Republicans looking to pull out that historical first. Despite the headwinds of the news cycle geopolitically, and domestically with energy prices pertaining to the Iran conflict, Republicans are showing close to a full point better than a week ago. This is almost entirely attributed to one Harvard Harris poll which showed Republicans with a 2-point edge on the generic ballot. Given that it's literally the only poll that's shown the GOP with a head-to-head edge, the odds that it is an outlier are high – however even if it is – something that's interesting is that the same pollster had Democrats with a 2-point edge in their previous poll from late July. A 4-point move towards the right with the same pollster is interesting.
Notably the Democrat Party remains historically unpopular despite the Republican Party's lack of approval and President Trump's significantly underwater approval rating. It's too early to know if the slight movement towards the right over the past week is part of a trend or an outlier, although if there is something to it, it could be the case that voters generally would say that they'd rather vote for Democrats because they're unhappy with the direction of things, and Democrats are the opposition power, but then when they're looking at the candidates – they're given pause. Candidate quality has always mattered – however in the age of the DSA embedded within the Democrat Party – we're seeing extreme positions advanced as never before. I'll be watching this dynamic going forward.
At the peak of the Iran war Democrats enjoyed a 7.7% generic ballot advantage. Their largest of the cycle and a figure exceeding 2018’s blue wave election cycle and on par with 2006’s blue wave. Republicans saw some improvement as energy prices came down from the earlier year, however that's been going the other way as energy prices have been on the rise most recently. And with oil topping $90 once again – for three-month highs – it's likely that the trend currently will continue to be the Democrats' friend.
With the generic ballot splits as they exist today, Democrats would likely win the cycle solidly if the election were today – with a performance that would sit a bit below a wave election result nationally. Notably, in midterm election cycles since the onset of the polling age in the 1930's, whatever party has had an advantage on the generic ballot at the onset of September has fared best nationally on Election Day.
A wildcard adding to the uncertainty this cycle are numerous states redrawing maps in advance of the midterm elections – including Florida. Redrawn maps will all factor into outcomes in a potentially unprecedented way.
Retirements also have historically proved to be significant. Congressional incumbents running for reelection have won over 90% of the time. It’s common for members of Congress who feel especially vulnerable to retire as opposed to potentially losing an election. Often the party with the most retirements performs worse in midterms. On that note to date here are the announced retirements in the House of Representatives:
- Democrats: 22
- Republicans: 36
And in the United States Senate:
- Democrats: 4
- Republicans: 6
I’ll track these dynamics from time-to-time as we head into this year’s midterm election cycle.