Why Today’s Elections Matter: 5 Things to Watch, From Control of Congress to Turnout

Featured photo: The west front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington (file photo). Photo: Architect of the Capitol (derivative by O.J.), Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Tuesday’s elections are the 2026 midterms themselves, and their results will set the balance of power in Washington for the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term. Voters are deciding all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships, along with mayoral races in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and ballot questions in dozens of states. Here are the five things The Boston Report is watching, and where to follow each one.

Results for every race below will be posted on our 2026 election results tracker as the AP and other named news organizations call them. The Boston Report does not call races.

1. Control of Congress and the balance of power

Republicans hold 218 House seats plus an independent who usually votes with them, Democrats hold 214, and two seats are vacant, CBS News reported. CBS counts 47 House battleground districts: 27 held by Republicans and 20 by Democrats. A small net shift either way decides the majority.

The stakes are concrete. A House or Senate majority controls what bills reach the floor, which investigations go forward, how money is spent and whether nominees are confirmed. If Democrats win one chamber, Trump would face divided government for the rest of his term; if Republicans hold both, his party keeps unified control. Pre-election polling favored Democrats on the national generic ballot, by about 8.5 points in the average of five published averages compiled on our election tracker, but polls are not results. Pennsylvania’s four competitive Republican-held seats, covered in our Pennsylvania election guide, are among the earliest signals to watch in the East.

2. High-profile governor’s races

Governors decide how states run elections, spend federal money and respond to Washington. The races rated toss-ups by the Cook Political Report before Election Day include Georgia, where Rick Jackson (R) faces Keisha Lance Bottoms (D); Nevada, where Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) faces Aaron Ford (D); Wisconsin, where David Crowley (D) faces Tom Tiffany (R); and Kansas, where Ty Masterson (R) faces Cindy Holscher (D), according to the ratings on our tracker.

Other closely watched races include Ohio, where Vivek Ramaswamy (R) faces Amy Acton (D); Pennsylvania, where Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) faces state Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R); and Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey (D) faces Mike Minogue (R). Full matchups are in the governor’s table of our governor results section.

3. Closely contested Senate races

Democrats need 51 seats to win the Senate; Republicans need 50, because Vice President JD Vance breaks ties. Of the 35 seats on the ballot, 22 are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats (TBR count). Cook rated seven races toss-ups before Election Day: six Republican-held seats, in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas, and Michigan’s Democratic-held open seat. CBS News lists Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire as the key Democratic-held seats.

Michigan’s open seat drew late attention after Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, CBS News reported. In Alaska, a federal judge dismissed a Justice Department suit over certifying the Senate result. Our race-by-race preview is in the 7 most contested Senate battlegrounds, and live calls are in the Senate results table.

4. Mayoral and local races with national implications

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass faces City Council member Nithya Raman, two Democrats who advanced from the June 2 primary with 34.3% and 29.0% of the vote, Ballotpedia reported. The race pits Bass’s record on homelessness and crime against Raman’s focus on housing, infrastructure and city services, and coverage has framed it as a contest between established Democratic leaders and younger progressives.

In Washington, D.C., where Mayor Muriel Bowser is not seeking re-election, Democrat Janeese Lewis George won the June 16 ranked-choice primary with 54.1% and faces Green Party candidate Robert Gross and independent Rhonda Hamilton, Ballotpedia reported. In Massachusetts, voters decide nine statewide ballot questions, including Question 3 on all-party primaries and Question 4 on same-day voter registration; see our explainer on Massachusetts Question 3 and more Boston politics coverage.

5. Turnout, election integrity and early voting

More than 54 million Americans voted before Election Day, according to the University of Florida’s election lab, as cited by CBS News, compared with about 46 million early votes in the 2022 midterms, Al Jazeera reported. In Massachusetts, early in-person voting reached 347,346 ballots, up from 188,175 in 2022, and Boston’s turnout reached 19.78% by noon Tuesday, as we report in Boston Election Day turnout.

The Justice Department plans to send more than 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states, more than double the 2022 deployment, PBS NewsHour reported, citing Votebeat. Monitors must follow state and local law and can only observe and take notes; federal monitors are a long-standing practice, and the Biden administration also deployed them in 2024. On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected the Justice Department’s request to make California set aside about 20,000 mail ballots, CBS News reported. Experts cited by PBS said illegal voting is extremely rare and that refusals to certify results have been resolved in court. What monitors may and may not do is explained in our guide to federal election monitors.

A big early vote also shapes the count. States that process mail ballots before Election Day tend to report faster; Pennsylvania could not begin until Tuesday morning, so close races there may take days. Results are not official until states certify them.

Where to follow tonight

• 2026 election results: control of Congress, key Senate and governor’s races, Massachusetts
• Midterm Elections 2026: What to Watch Tuesday
• Trump’s closing midterm message
• More national and Massachusetts coverage on our politics news page and Boston local news

Sources

• CBS News: 2026 election live updates, Nov. 2
• PBS NewsHour: 5 expert takeaways on 2026 midterm election security
• Al Jazeera: More than 50 million votes cast in US midterm elections
• Ballotpedia: Mayoral election in Los Angeles (2026)
• Ballotpedia: Mayoral election in Washington, D.C. (2026)
• WBUR: Mass. voters hit the polls on Election Day