Voters to decide control of Congress in major test of Trump's second term
Election Day is here. Voters nationwide will decide control of the U.S. House and Senate. Democrats must flip four seats in the Senate and three seats in the House to wrest control of the chambers from Republicans. Control of Congress would give Democrats a way to push back against President Donald Trump's agenda during the final two years of his term. The battle for control is playing out mostly in states and districts Trump previously won by wide margins.
All eyes are on Senate contests in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas, while House battlegrounds are scattered across the country.
Democrats have homed in on Trump's poor approval rating, public dissatisfaction with the war in Iran and affordability concerns. Republicans have focused on social issues, while Trump has made himself the central character of the midterms.
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The nation's longest Senate winning streak is at stake in Kansas
Sen. Roger Marshall is trying to fend off an unusually strong challenge from Democratic megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in a race that's generated a Kansas record for spending on advertising.
A Democrat hasn't won a Senate race in the state in 94 years.
But Marshall is seeking a second term at a moment of deep frustration with Trump's handling of the economy, and Hamilton made affordability a key issue while positioning himself as a moderate who could work with Republican colleagues in Washington.
Hamilton is the founder and senior pastor of the Kansas City-area Church of the Resurrection. With 25,000 members, it's the nation's largest United Methodist congregation.
DeSantis urges Trump, Republicans not to 'gaslight' voters
In a Monday interview with commentator Stephen A. Smith, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Trump originally promised not to start new wars in the Middle East, but is currently in an "open-ended" conflict in Iran, which has driven up fuel prices.
DeSantis said some Republicans have tried to blame former President Joe Biden for the higher prices, but he urged them to be honest.
"Gas is higher and it hurts people, working-class people," he said. "And it's higher because of this conflict. That's just a fact. If you can't admit that to voters, then you're gaslighting them and they're not going to listen to you on other things."
DeSantis unsuccessfully competed with Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination and could run again in 2028.
Sen. Susan Collins tries to keep her seat while fending off Troy Jackson
Collins is running for her sixth term on a pledge to continue serving Maine as one of the few remaining moderates in the Senate.
The Republican faces a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, who entered the race late. Jackson has tried to paint Collins as too close to Trump, while Collins has touted her willingness to break from the rest of the Republican Party on key votes.
Collins is the only Republican senator from New England, and she has triumphed in previous tough elections.
This time, Democrats focused on unseating her from the beginning, but the party's June primary winner, Graham Platner, withdrew from the race after facing sexual assault allegations that he denied.
Jackson became the new nominee after winning a special nominating convention in late July.
Justice Department dispatches 1,000 election monitors to the polls
The Justice Department announced early Tuesday that it is sending roughly 1,000 federal election monitors to all 50 states to observe Election Day voting.
Many are expected in populated areas that tend to vote for Democrats. They include past hot spots for election tensions, like Detroit, Philadelphia and Georgia's Fulton County.
The monitoring program isn't new, but it has faced criticism from voting rights groups concerned about federal interference and voter intimidation.
The NAACP sued after the department said it would include law enforcement officers in the program, but a judge ruled against the group overnight, arguing the government had made it clear that monitors would be in plainclothes, would not carry firearms and wouldn't have the power to make arrests at poll sites.
The Justice Department has said its monitors will observe and will not interfere with voting.
House races playing out deep in Trump country
Republicans are mostly on defense in the battle for control of the U.S. House.
Most of the top battlegrounds are districts Trump won in 2024, sometimes by a lot.
Republicans and allied groups pulled spending from several House races in October, shifting, for example, away from GOP incumbents in Iowa and New Jersey.
At Trump's urging, Republicans in states including Texas and Florida tried to give themselves a boost with early redistricting, but that may turn out to be a flop.
Democrats are defending a handful of seats in Trump country as well, and there are pockets of potential GOP upside around the country.
The AP has a detailed rundown of the House districts in play and the fight for the House majority.
Senate control up for grabs in states Trump carried
Control of the Senate hangs in the balance in a way few could have foreseen.
Originally, Democrats believed they only had a narrow path to the majority, and their plan required flipping seats in Alaska, Ohio, Maine and North Carolina.
However, the map has shifted, and Democrats believe they have a shot at Texas, Kansas and Iowa as well.
Many of these are states Trump won by double-digit margins two years ago.
Democrats need to play defense as well. Although they're expected to hold Georgia, they also need to lock down Michigan and Minnesota.
In Maine, a voter feels 'the weight of the world'
In Falmouth, Maine, 60-year-old Susan Myers said she's optimistic that Senate candidate Troy Jackson can take advantage of anti-Trump sentiment and defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. She's also aware of how recent elections have gone for diehard Democrats like herself.
"I'm hopeful. I feel like there's been so much disappointment these last few election cycles that I don't want to get my hopes up," she said.
Myers voted early at Falmouth Town Hall and was picking up an absentee ballot for her daughter.
She said so much national attention on Maine this election has been overwhelming. The Senate race is one of this year's most competitive and could decide which party controls the chamber.
"It feels a little bit like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders," Myers said.
Latinos form a crucial bloc of swing voters
Latinos helped return Trump to the White House in 2024. Now they're poised to play an outsized role in the midterms.
The path to a U.S. House majority runs through heavily Latino districts in states such as Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas. The front-line Senate race in Texas likewise could hinge on Latinos.
About 6 in 10 Hispanic adults disapprove of Trump's handling of the presidency, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from October. About 7 in 10 disapprove of his performance on the economy.
One key factor will be how effective Democrats have been at making the case for themselves. Will disaffected Trump supporters vote for Democrats, or just sit out the midterms?
In Michigan's Senate race, history and control of the chamber are on the line
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is seeking to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. Republican Mike Rogers wants to be the first member of his party to win a Michigan Senate race in more than three decades.
The contest to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is among a handful that could determine which party controls the Senate.
Although Michigan Democrats have been successful in recent midterm elections, Trump carried the battleground state in two of his three campaigns. That divided political landscape helped set the stage for one of the most bitter and contentious Senate races of the cycle.
El-Sayed has accused Rogers of being a "puppet" for Trump. Rogers has accused El-Sayed of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, while Trump has falsely called the Democrat a "jihadist."
Progressives are hoping an El-Sayed victory will signal their agenda can resonate in a battleground state ahead of the next presidential election.
Millions of Americans will be voting in new congressional districts
Mid-decade redistricting shook up the House map ahead of the midterms, changing the boundaries of around one-third of congressional districts.
The AP analyzed each district's 2024 presidential vote margin before and after redistricting and found that while many individual districts saw dramatic shifts in partisanship and demographic makeup, the national U.S. House map did not shift significantly toward either party.
Learn more about how redistricting shaped the 2026 midterm elections and see how your district boundaries changed in this map.
Midterm results will chart the course of Trump's final two years
Trump is staring down twin threats from Capitol Hill for his last two years as president if his party loses at least one chamber in Tuesday's midterms: investigations and impeachment.
Democratic lawmakers are eager to exercise oversight, with senior officials long telegraphing how they would go after an administration they believe has escaped accountability for policies, personal profits and abuses of power.
The majority party controls gavels on powerful House committees, which come with larger staff budgets and more expansive resources, including subpoena powers.
Less certain are prospects for impeaching Trump, although House Democratic leaders will almost certainly come under pressure from their left flank to do so. Rather than Trump, who was impeached twice during his first term but acquitted by the Senate both times, Democrats may instead try to impeach Cabinet officials.
If Republicans lose the Senate, Trump's ability to push his judicial and executive branch nominees through to confirmation will also be severely weakened.
Races for Senate, governor in Iowa are open for the first time since 1968
Iowa's top of the ticket is up for grabs after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids.
Republicans control state government and comprise the entirety of Iowa's federal delegation. But the openings have given Democrats opportunities to win over voters who may want a new direction amid high grocery and gas prices, manufacturing job losses, a crippled agricultural economy and growing cancer rates.
In the governor's race, Rob Sand, the state auditor and only Democrat in statewide elected office, faces Republican Zach Lahn, a political newcomer who stunned even members of his own party when he won the primary over a Trump-endorsed congressman.
Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson are competing for a U.S. Senate seat. Hinson, a congresswoman endorsed by Trump, has tried to assure voters she will push back when his policies are wrong for Iowa. Turek, a state lawmaker, was endorsed by Barack Obama, the last Democrat seeking federal office to win Iowa before Trump won the last three presidential elections.
Judge blocks Trump administration from sending lists of alleged noncitizen voters
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must stop sending voter lists of alleged noncitizens to election officials, as it has done in California and Washington state, while urging the states to set aside those ballots.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., said in her decision late Monday that more voter data transmissions would likely confuse voters and election officials at a time when election resources need to be focused on administering the midterms.
States and voting rights groups have pushed back on the administration's claims and said the lists are riddled with errors.
The decision is one in a string of court losses for the administration in its efforts to expand federal authority over elections, which are run by the states.
Southwest flooding forces the Navajo Nation to change some Election Day voting plans
The Navajo Election Administration says it has altered five polling locations — two in Arizona and three in New Mexico.
The tribe's reservation surrounds the Four Corners Monument, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet. The area has seen major flooding since October, with rivers overflowing their banks and some residents having to evacuate.
The tribe says it has more than 298,000 members.
GOP loses immigration advantage
Trump roared back to power due to the Biden administration's border troubles. He cut illegal crossings of the border, which were already plummeting, to close to zero.
That's when the trouble started.
The president turned to the trickier task of deporting people in the U.S. illegally from the interior. Soon the main image of illegal immigration wasn't desperate people crossing the border, but mothers screaming as they were torn from their children, or masked federal agents chasing people — sometimes citizens — through streets.
Trump openly bemoaned how the U.S. didn't get enough migrants from Scandinavian countries and only accepted white South Africans into the country as refugees. And then two citizen protesters were shot and killed by immigration agents during the administration's raids on Minneapolis.
Now the GOP fears it will especially lose ground in immigrant-rich areas running from New Jersey to Florida to Texas. And polls show more voters oppose Trump on immigration than support him.
Democrats are hopeful — but not optimistic — in South Carolina
Lindsey Graham's sudden death left South Carolina Republicans scrambling to pick a new nominee in a special primary, which his sister, Darline Graham, ultimately won.
The switch-up left the state's Democrats with renewed hope they could break a 20-year drought on winning a statewide race.
But even some of Democratic nominee Annie Andrews' supporters acknowledge their state might not yet be ready to go blue, despite Democrats' advances in neighboring North Carolina and Georgia.
South Carolina has consistently backed Trump, who endorsed Graham, urged her to run and has stumped twice for her in the state.
Graham and Andrews have portrayed each other as ill-prepared for the role.
Latest views on Trump from AP-NORC polling
Trump might not be on the ballot, but Americans are very unhappy with his performance so far in his second term.
Only about one-third of U.S. adults, 35%, approve of how Trump is handling the presidency, according to AP-NORC polling from October.
Trump's approval tends to stay within a fairly narrow range, but the most recent measure is below where his overall approval stood shortly after he started his second term, when 42% of U.S. adults approved of how he was handling the presidency.
He's seen modest declines in approval among Republicans and independents. About 70% of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the presidency, down from 82% at the start of his term.
Trump's current approval rating is slightly below where it stood in October 2018.
Voters are frustrated by inflation and appear ready to penalize Republicans
Over the past two elections, voters turned out against Democrats because of high inflation.
But Trump's promise to bring down prices has failed. Inflation is running at 3.7% annually, up from 3% when the president's second term started.
Trump's tariffs pushed up inflation last year, and his decision to start a war with Iran has caused higher oil, gasoline and diesel prices.
As a result, consumer sentiment is lower than it has been during recent recessions. And the unemployment rate is still a healthy 4.2%.
The voter anger over inflation makes it harder for Republicans who campaigned on low prices to defend their House and Senate majorities.
The Georgia governor's race pits a billionaire against a potentially historic figure
Republican nominee Rick Jackson is a billionaire businessman making his first bid for public office.
Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms is the former Atlanta mayor and would be Georgia's first Black governor. Nationally, no Black woman has been elected governor of any state.
The winner will succeed Republican Brian Kemp, a two-term governor who by law could not run again. Republicans have won every Georgia governor's election since 2002.
Jackson initially pledged to govern "like Trump, but with a Southern tone." He's since loosened that embrace and emphasized his personal biography as a former foster care teenager who became a healthcare magnate.
He's said his childhood struggles make him ideal to represent 11 million Georgians. And he's spent nearly $200 million of his own money trying to prove it.
Bottoms disputes Jackson's self-made everyman narrative, saying he's trying to buy the office to be a Trump lackey.
Polls have opened on the East Coast
In-person Election Day voting has begun. Polls are open in a handful of East Coast states, including Connecticut, Maine, New York, New Jersey, and parts of Kentucky and Indiana.
At 6:30 a.m. ET, polls in Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia will open. Polls in 14 more states will open at 7 a.m. Polls will be open in every state, plus Washington, D.C., by noon ET.
Trump's economic approval has taken a hit with Republicans
Americans are broadly frustrated with Trump over the economy and other pocketbook issues, according to AP-NORC polling.
About one-quarter of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling the economy, down from about 4 in 10 in the months after he started his second term. The decline is particularly notable among Republicans, only about half of whom approve of Trump's economic approach right now. That's down from 78% in March 2025.
Trump has similarly low ratings on his handling of the cost of living. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults approve of him on this issue, while about 8 in 10 disapprove. That includes roughly 6 in 10 Republicans who disapprove of Trump on costs.
The poll showed about 8 in 10 voters say the economy or the cost of living are among their top issues for the election.
Democrat Roy Cooper looks to flip a Republican-held Senate seat in North Carolina
Cooper, a former governor, was hailed from the start as Democrats' top Senate recruit.
Republicans countered with Michael Whatley, Trump's handpicked Republican Party chair whom the president urged to run for the seat.
The winner will succeed Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement and became an outspoken Trump critic.
The race became a testing ground for the two parties' fight over how to frame the economy and Republicans' sweeping tax-and-budget law that Trump called the "one big, beautiful bill."
Cooper avoided personal criticisms of Trump but hammered Whatley and Republicans on inflation. Whatley cheered GOP tax cuts on tips, overtime and Social Security.
Republicans have dominated Senate elections in North Carolina for the last half-century. But Cooper has never lost an election, starting as a state senator before winning four terms as attorney general and two terms as governor.
A handful of House Republicans face headwinds in seats Harris carried in '24
Those congressmembers are trying to hold onto their seats in districts Democrat Kamala Harris carried in 2024.
There were just three such Republicans until redistricting complicated the picture: Don Bacon, who is retiring in Nebraska's 2nd District, and Mike Lawler in New York's 17th and Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's 1st District — both of whom are running in contested races this year.
After redistricting battles touched off by Trump, who sought to pick up more seats for his party, the number of Republicans in Democrat-leaning seats climbed.
Four seats in California represented by Republicans became more favorable for Democrats. In one of them, Rep. Kevin Kiley said he was leaving the GOP and would serve as an independent.
And another seat currently represented by a Republican in Utah became Democratic leaning after legal wrangling following redistricting there.
Midterm elections coming to a close as voters pass judgment on Trump's second term
Voters struggling with high prices and angry over an unpopular war with Iran will decide whether to drastically shift power in Washington in midterm elections Tuesday that will serve as a referendum on President Donald Trump 's second term.
Democrats were cautiously optimistic about their prospects as they watched Republicans spend the campaign's final stretch pumping tens of millions of dollars into states and districts that Trump won handily just two years ago. They are betting that discontent over Trump's failure to deliver on his promise to tackle rising costs, and perceptions that he has been more focused on gilding the nation's capital than their pain at the pump, will depress Republican turnout and drive their own voters to the polls.
Republicans held out hope that their overwhelming money advantage would help stem the tide, but they were bracing to lose control of the U.S. House and fighting to hang onto the U.S. Senate — an outcome that seemed unlikely earlier this year, given a map widely seen as favoring the party.
Still, the margins are tight in both chambers and just one or two seats could tip the balance. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the Senate to win the majority, an uphill climb because many of the most competitive races are in historically red states. In the House, they only need three.
Source: Associated Press
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