Midterm Elections 2026: 54 Million Early Votes, a Supreme Court Ballot Ruling and What to Watch Tuesday

Featured photo: Voting booths at a polling place on Election Day (file photo, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Nov. 7, 2023). Photo: Lorie Shaull, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Americans vote Tuesday, Nov. 3, in midterm elections that will decide control of the House and Senate, with more than 54 million ballots already cast before Election Day, according to the University of Florida’s election lab as cited by CBS News. On the eve of the vote, the Supreme Court turned away a Trump administration bid to set aside about 20,000 California mail ballots, and candidates in the closest Senate races made their final pitches.

Follow the race-by-race picture, including polling averages, the Senate map, governor’s races and results as they are called, on our election tracker.

What is at stake

Republicans hold 218 House seats plus an independent who usually votes with them, Democrats hold 214, and two seats are vacant, CBS News reported. In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats to Democrats’ 47. Democrats would need 51 seats for outright control, since a 50-50 split is broken by Vice President JD Vance.

CBS News counts 11 key Senate races: eight in Republican-held seats (Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas) and three in Democratic-held seats (Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire). We profiled the closest of them in The 7 Most Contested Senate Battlegrounds of the 2026 Midterms.

What the final polls show

Democrats led the national generic congressional ballot by nearly 9 points in the Silver Bulletin average, a margin that has held for about a month, Yahoo News reported. CBS News’ Battleground Tracker, last estimated Oct. 25, put Democrats at 229 House seats, within a range of 215 to 237. Silver Bulletin’s average of President Donald Trump’s job approval stood near 38%.

Polls are a snapshot, not a result, and in several Senate races late surveys differ from one another by several points. The Boston Report will not call any race; we report calls made by the Associated Press and other named news organizations.

Supreme Court rejects bid to set aside California ballots

The Supreme Court on Monday denied the Justice Department’s emergency request to require California officials to set aside mail ballots from about 20,000 people the government says are likely noncitizens, CBS News reported. The one-line, unsigned order noted no dissents. State and local officials had questioned the accuracy of the government’s list and warned that complying could disenfranchise U.S. citizens wrongly included on it. A federal district judge and a divided Ninth Circuit panel had already refused the request.

In Alaska, a federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block certification of the state’s Senate results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, ruling the department lacked standing, CBS News reported. The department filed a notice of appeal.

The final push

Trump held his last campaign rallies Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa, and Salina, Kansas, backing Republican Senate candidates in both states, CBS News reported. In Michigan’s open-seat race, Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers on Sunday. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the endorsement, and El-Sayed’s campaign said it raised more than $1.2 million after it, according to CBS News, citing Politico.

In Texas, Republican Ken Paxton’s campaign canceled an Election Day-eve event at the Alamo, CBS News reported; the campaign did not comment.

Record early vote

As of Sunday morning, about 53.1 million people had voted early, roughly 29 million in person and 23 million by mail, compared with about 46 million early votes in the 2022 midterms, Al Jazeera reported, citing the University of Florida. Registered Democrats had cast more than 11 million early ballots and registered Republicans about 8 million, though party registration does not show how anyone voted. Texas alone topped 7 million early votes.

How and when to vote

Polling hours differ by state. Find your state’s hours and polling place through vote.gov or your state election office. In Massachusetts, polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and voters in line at 8 p.m. can still cast a ballot, according to the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth. Boston voters can find local details in our Boston Election Day guide.

What to watch Tuesday night

Results will come in state by state as polls close, and close races may take days to count, especially in states that process many mail ballots. We will update the 2026 midterm election results section of our tracker as the AP and other outlets call races, along with House and Senate control.

Sources

• CBS News: 2026 election live updates, Nov. 2
• CBS News: Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to force California to separate mail ballots from alleged noncitizens
• Yahoo News: The 2026 midterms are tomorrow and the final polls are here
• Al Jazeera: More than 50 million votes cast in US midterm elections
• Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth: 2026 voting options
• Vote.gov