The November 3 midterms will help determine what the Trump Administration can achieve on the economy and foreign policy for at least the next two years.
The election comes after Trump’s approval fell from 52% in early 2025 to an average of 37% now. His net approval rating stands at -23.1 points two weeks out from Election Day.
Gas was $2.98 on February 28, 2026, when Trump announced the start of Operation Epic Fury. The national average price is now $4.28 a gallon, a 44 percent increase. Two-thirds of Americans regard Trump’s war as a mistake.
An AP-NORC poll found that 6 in 10 US adults believe Trump is profiting from the presidency in unethical or illegal ways.
Voters will choose every one of the 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, 39 governorships and more than 6,100 state legislative seats. Most observers expect Republicans, Trump’s party, to lose their slim House majority. The Senate contest remains too close to call.
Democrats hold a 9 percentage point lead over Republicans in an average of national polls on the generic congressional ballot. The result will decide which party has greater power to advance or block the administration’s plans.
More than 43 million Americans have already voted with less than a week left before the midterms. University of Florida Election Lab data indicates that four to five million early votes have been cast each day.
Texas has passed its 2022 total by around 1.75 million voters, with more than 5.8 million ballots cast. Hispanic communities are recording much higher turnout than usual. Overall turnout appears on course to exceed 2020 and could also surpass 2018, which beat the 1914 record for turnout in a midterm election.
The contest is also a test of trust in capitalism, politics and business leaders. A Shearwater Strategies survey found that 58% of participants believe technology leaders prioritise ‘making money for themselves and shareholders’. When asked what those leaders should prioritise, 58% chose ‘protecting user safety and privacy’, while 12% cited making money.
Political advertising in federal and state races is projected to cost $11.6 billion during the 2025-26 midterm cycle, $400 million more than was spent in the 2023-24 presidential cycle. Elon Musk has spent almost half a billion.
For more than two centuries, midterms have served as one of the country’s most direct measures of public sentiment towards the party holding the White House. This vote will show whether the public’s frustrations translate into a change in congressional power, or whether the divided picture in national politics holds.
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