# 2026 Midterms Hub Operational hub for tracking the 2026 U.S. midterm elections: all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats (33 regular Class 2 + FL and OH specials), and 36 governorships. Every race file links back here; every candidate in `People/` with an active 2026 candidacy is marked with a `race_2026` frontmatter pointer. ## Navigation - [[2026 Senate Races Hub]] — **all 35 Senate race files built** as of 2026-04-23, tiered by competitiveness (files live in `Senate/`) - [[2026 House Races Hub]] — three-tier model; **15 Tier 1 files built** 2026-04-23 (files live in `House/`) — Batch 1: [[CA-13-2026]], [[IA-01-2026]], [[MI-07-2026]], [[PA-07-2026]] · Batch 2: [[NY-17-2026]], [[IA-03-2026]], [[NV-03-2026]], [[NM-02-2026]], [[OH-01-2026]], [[AZ-06-2026]] · Batch 3: [[NY-19-2026]], [[VA-02-2026]], [[WI-03-2026]], [[CA-41-2026]], [[PA-01-2026]] - **Issues** (`Issues/`) — cycle-defining cross-cutting dossiers, linked from race and candidate pages: [[Immigration]] · [[DOGE and Federal Workforce]] · [[Big Beautiful Bill]] · [[Affordability]] · [[Rule of Law]] - [[2026 Ballot Measures Hub]] — statewide ballot measures organized by issue category: abortion, LGBTQ, electoral reform, guns, minimum wage, cannabis, tax, labor, immigration, and the meta-battle over direct democracy itself - [[2026 Governor Races Hub]] — **36 gubernatorial races built** as of 2026-06-11, tiered by Cook competitiveness ratings - [[2026 Key State Races Hub]] — high-stakes legislative and downballot contests - [[2026 Stump Speeches Hub]] — notable/high-profile stump speeches of the cycle with verified quote receipts (files live in `Speeches/`); launched 2026-07-02 with the June 26 same-day pair: Trump's "godless communists" Faith & Freedom speech and Talarico's Barbara Jordan convention speech - [[log]] — archived highlights (items rotated out of Current Highlights below) - [[Folder Spec - 2026 Midterms]] — filename schema, frontmatter, update cadence - [[State Election Administration Tree]] — the ASCII structural map of who runs the November 3 election in the first place: the four designs of chief state election official, the local offices that actually conduct it, and the federal bodies that have been emptied out ahead of it — the EAC with zero commissioners since July 2026 and CISA's election security role wound down. - [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] — the ASCII process map of what happens *after* Nov 3: county canvass → state certification → certificate of election → seating Jan 3, plus the refusal, recount, and contest branches. Note the structural gap it documents — the [[Electoral Count Reform Act]] rebuilt the presidential count and left congressional elections untouched. - [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]] — the ASCII process map of what happened *before* Nov 3, and the reason several races have only two names on them: eight states where every statewide office carries only a Democratic and a Republican nominee, Illinois where every legislative race does, eleven states and D.C. with no new-party procedure at all, and the 2026 flip in which Republican challenges to minor-party and independent candidates outnumbered Democratic ones for the first time in ninety years. - [[How a Voting System Is Certified and Decertified]] — the ASCII process map of the machines themselves, on the eve of Nov 3: the standard that cannot be revised, the two accredited test laboratories that cannot be added to or revoked, the decertification appeal with no body to hear it, and the fifty-state gate that makes a voluntary federal standard compulsory in most of the country. Most equipment counting the midterms is certified to VVSG 1.0 or 1.1; only two systems in America meet the 2021 standard. Georgia went into the cycle having banned its own counting method and then postponed the ban to 2028. - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] — the ASCII process map of election night itself, five weeks out: the mark, the tabulator, the adjudication board that decides what an ambiguous mark meant, and the pre-processing window that fixes the ORDER the three piles can be reported in. That order is why a margin appears to move overnight — Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may not open a mail envelope before 7am on November 3, so their mail count necessarily arrives last, while Arizona and Florida process on receipt and report it first. The drift is the calendar, not the count. - [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] — the ASCII process map of the wire rather than the count, four and a half weeks out: how a precinct number actually reaches a television screen, and why that screen's figure has no legal status of any kind. Two facts to carry into November 3. On 15 October 2025 ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN joined Fox News in buying their vote count from the Associated Press — the first time since 2016 that every major network reads from one vendor, so the independent counts that used to cross-check each other are gone while each network's call desk remains its own. And Wisconsin has no statewide election-night reporting system at all: the state publishes no feed, 72 county websites carry the results of 1,850 municipalities, and the state's own guidance points the public at the AP wire. In a presidential battleground, the only statewide total that exists on election night is a private organization's - [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] — the ASCII process map of the physical ballots, four weeks out: who signs for them at each hand-off, what a numbered seal and a seal log actually claim, and what happens when the number does not match. Two things to carry into November 3. Almost every control in the chain is a county or state procedure manual rather than a statute, so "who checks the seal log" usually resolves to the office that kept it — which is a real limit on oversight and not, by itself, evidence of anything wrong. And the break in the chain that actually materialised in 2026 came through a warrant: in March a sheriff seized more than 650,000 voted ballots from the Riverside County registrar, and on 24 September the California Supreme Court unanimously ordered them back, holding that the statute's plain text mandates that voted ballots stay in the custody of elections officials - [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of the audit layer, four weeks out: which states check the machine count against the paper, when, and whether the finding can move a number. Three things to carry into November 3. Georgia's rules changed in June 2026 — SB 3EX expanded the audited contests to the federal and statewide slate, set the risk limit at six percent, and created an automatic full statewide HAND recount for eight statewide offices decided by 0.5% or less, with the hand count becoming the official result. Maryland's new risk-limiting audit mandate faces its first federal general election. And the thing most commentary gets backwards: an audit scheduled before certification is not automatically a check — Wisconsin's runs before the certificate and cannot change anything, while Ohio's runs after it and amends it - [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of the recount layer, four weeks out: what actually makes a second count happen, who has to act, and who pays. Three things to carry into November 3. Georgia's SB 3EX automatic hand recount applies only where one of the eight covered statewide offices appears FIRST OR SECOND on the ballot — a ballot-position condition on a recount trigger that exists nowhere else in American election law, meaning two races at identical margins get different procedures depending on where they were printed. In seven states — Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina — a candidate outside the automatic threshold has no recount at any price, and in Illinois, Mississippi and Tennessee there is no administrative recount at all, only a lawsuit. And the number that should govern every expectation: of 6,929 statewide general elections from 2000 to 2023, 36 went to a recount and THREE reversed, with an average margin shift of 551 votes — 0.03% - [[Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of what actually counts as a mark on a ballot, four weeks out. Three things to carry into November 3. **Georgia is the only state whose law tells the scanner what a vote is** — 20% or more fill of the oval is a vote, under 10% is not, and 10–20% goes to a vote review panel (r. 183-1-15-.02) — which means everywhere else the pixel threshold deciding which ballots a human ever inspects is a vendor setting, proprietary and unstated. **Washington votes on a superseded rule**: its 2026 amendment to WAC 434-261-086 changes the test from "easily be discerned" to "clearly be determined" and takes effect 1 January 2027, so any 2026 recount there is argued under the 2018 words while the state's own better words sit on the books unenforced. And the one to watch if a race goes to a hand count: in a full hand recount there is no scanner and no referral, so the state's mark rules govern **every** ballot rather than the rejected pile — which is precisely the position Georgia's SB 3EX hand recount puts eight statewide offices in at a 0.5% margin - [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of the last instrument in the chain, four weeks out: who may sue after certification, in front of whom, by when, and to what end. Three things to carry into November 3. **There is no such thing as "the state's contest forum"** — the tribunal depends on which office is contested, so a Texas state-senate contest goes to the Texas Senate itself while a Pennsylvania state-senate contest goes to a court, and in Texas a contest over the election of presidential electors is heard **by the Governor**, exclusively. **The deadlines are measured in days and two of them already moved for this election** — Idaho's H 873 cut the county canvass from 10 days to nine and Nebraska's LB 1075 created a state deadline where none existed, which shifts every contest window that runs from certification without any contest law changing. And the trap for anyone planning to wait and see: in Virginia the contest notice for presidential electors or a U.S. Senate seat is due by **5 p.m. on the second day after certification** and by statute cannot wait on a recount, while the recount petition itself runs 10 days — so the decision to challenge the count has to be made before the procedure that would justify it can even be filed - [[How a Voter Is Removed From the Rolls]] — the ASCII process flow of the stage that is already over, **less than four weeks out**. Three things to carry into November 3. **The 2026 quiet period began 5 August 2026**, and it suspends only a program to *systematically* remove voters — § 20507(c)(2)(B) exempts removals for death, conviction, mental incapacity and "corrections" outright, so three of the four doors out of the rolls stayed open all autumn. **The Supreme Court will say what "systematic" means on 8 December 2026**, thirty-five days after the election it governs: *RNC v. Mi Familia Vota*, No. 25-1017, cert granted 29 June 2026, whose second question presented is squarely whether the NVRA bars a within-90-days program to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens — and on 25 September 2026 the Court stayed, 6–3, the injunction against the rebuilt SAVE system, which now holds natural-born-citizen records, reaches SSA data and permits bulk search, with Justice Jackson's dissent noting states may still use it for *individualised* maintenance. **And the thing to check before election day, in five states that mandated SAVE checks of every registered voter this session** — Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee — is inactive status, not removal: Mississippi moved at least 50,000 voters to inactive on Experian credit-bureau address guesses, the required notices often went to the wrong Experian address, and voters found out at the polls in the 10 March primary. An inactive voter can still vote under § 20507(e) by affirming their address, and **nothing in federal law requires anyone to tell them so** - [[How a Tie Vote Is Broken]] — the ASCII crosswalk of what happens when the count comes back even, four weeks out. Three things to carry into November 3. **In six states an exact tie is the ONLY automatic recount trigger** — Alaska, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah — so the arithmetic that fires the recount is the arithmetic the recount is guaranteed to confirm, and what happens next is on this map. **In five states a tie transfers the seat to an officeholder's choice rather than to chance or to the voters:** Montana's governor appoints one of the tied candidates, Tennessee's State Election Commission casts the deciding vote (the GOVERNOR for a tied U.S. House seat), Nevada's legislature elects one by joint vote of both houses, New Hampshire's does for senate ties, and West Virginia's county canvassers choose with the governor as backstop. And the live precedent: **Hawaii broke two 2026 primary ties by drawing names from a box on 15 August**, and the candidate who WON one of the draws called the process disenfranchising and is bringing a bill in January — after this election, so Hawaii votes in November under the law as written - [[State Ballot Position Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of where the names go, three weeks out. Three things to carry into November 3. **Georgia's SB 3EX made ballot position procedural**: signed 25 June 2026, it orders an automatic full hand recount of a covered statewide office at a margin inside 0.5% *only where that office appears first or second on the ballot* — so the eight offices it names are reached in text and, in a gubernatorial cycle where governor and lieutenant governor hold the top two lines, two of them are reached in practice, which is a workload cap written as a rule about typography. **What order is actually worth is almost nothing where the stakes are highest**: the randomized-lottery estimates find no detectable effect for major-party candidates in a general election, so anyone attributing a close November result to ballot order is reaching for the one number the research does not support — the real effect lives in primaries (+2 points) and nonpartisan races (+3.44), both already run. And **the standing door opened in January**: *Bost* (No. 24-568, 14 January 2026, 7–2) gives candidates standing to challenge the election rules of their own races, which is the plaintiff class *Jacobson* never addressed when the Eleventh Circuit vacated Florida's ballot-order ruling in 2020 — though *Jacobson*'s political-question holding is an independent second lock that *Bost* does not touch - [[How a Conceded Election Is Finalized]] — the ASCII process flow of what happens after a candidate says they lost, three weeks out. Three things to carry into November 3. **A concession stops nothing by itself** — the National Archives answers the legal effect of a concession speech with the single word "None," certification is a ministerial duty decided on the face of the returns, and an automatic recount fires on the margin in 26 states and D.C. whatever anyone says on television. **What CAN stop a recount is a separate written filing with its own clock**, and that clock is the one thing nobody tracks: Pennsylvania's 25 P.S. § 3154(h) waiver expires at **noon on the second Wednesday after the election** — for 2026 that is **noon, Wednesday 11 November 2026** — while Florida and Nebraska set no deadline at all and Arizona offers no waiver; no fifty-state table of these deadlines appears to exist. **And whether a concession ends the race depends entirely on who else may sue**: Virginia's § 24.2-807 confines contests to "one or more of the unsuccessful candidates," so a concession there leaves nobody with standing, while Florida's § 102.168(1) lets any qualified elector or taxpayer file within 10 days of the last certification. The live item is the bipartisan House pledge reported 8 October 2026, co-led by [[Josh Gottheimer]] and the retiring [[Don Bacon]], to accept the results and oppose blocking members from being seated on 3 January 2027 — voluntary and unenforceable, which is the whole point: it is the concession norm written down because it is not law - [[State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk]] — the ASCII crosswalk of the clock, three weeks out: the county and state canvass deadlines in all fifty states, who may move them, and what happens when one passes unmet. The operative fact for this cycle is in Part F — **ECRA's certificate-of-ascertainment deadline is the only hard federal outer bound on a state canvass, and it exists only in presidential years**, so on 3 November 2026 the canvass runs on state deadlines alone, in 19 states with no unconditional completion date and in the modal state with no stated consequence for missing one. The enforcement answer is a writ of mandamus from outside the election code; Arizona's § 16-648 thirty-day postponement is what kept one county's 2022 refusal from running the state out of calendar. Three states changed canvass deadlines in 2026: **Idaho** cut the county canvass to nine days (§ 34-1205), **Nebraska** re-pinned its late-abstract remedies to the third Monday (LB 1075, § 32-1035), and **Wisconsin** rewrote its presidential canvass for ECRA conformity — effective 2028, so it does nothing for this election - [[How a Contested House Seat Is Decided]] — the ASCII process flow of the machinery waiting downstream of November 3: a losing candidate's 30 days from the state's declaration, and the seven-month statutory schedule the contestee spends sworn in and voting ## Current Highlights Rolling list of the most important recent developments. Items older than ~2 weeks rotate to [[log]]. - **2026-09-25 — Supreme Court's election Friday:** (1) **SAVE database revived, 6–3** — the Court stayed Judge [[Sparkle Sooknanan]]'s order and let DHS's expanded citizenship-verification system back into use (No. 26A308; Jackson, Sotomayor, Kagan dissenting); the NVRA 90-day window still bars systematic purges before Nov 3. See [[SAVE Act]]. (2) **Missouri's 2025 map blocked for the third time** (No. 26A388, no public dissents) — the 2022 lines govern November. (3) Same day, in North Carolina, Judge [[Louise Flanagan]] moved Comey's arraignment to **January 2027** — **no Comey trial before the election.** See [[Comey Indictment]]. - **2026-09-25 — Cook moves 15 House races toward Democrats:** Dems now favored in 208 seats to 205; most likely a 5–15 seat Democratic gain. [[NJ-07-2026]] → Lean D; [[NC-11-2026]] and [[TX-15-2026]] → Toss Up; six Likely R seats → Lean R. See [[2026 House Races Hub]]. - **2026-09-23 — Cook: Senate control a 'true coin flip':** [[GA-Sen-2026]] → Likely D, [[KS-Sen-2026]] → Lean R, [[SC-Sen-2026]] → Likely R. Seven Toss Ups: MI, NH, AK, IA, ME, OH, TX. Range: Democrats +1 to +5; they need +4. See [[2026 Senate Races Hub]]. - **2026-09-22 — Debate dodges:** Paxton let the first [[TX-Sen-2026]] debate lapse and has accepted none; in Florida, Sen. Moody declined to debate [[Angie Nixon]] and gubernatorial nominee David Jolly declined to debate Byron Donalds. Maine ([[ME-Sen-2026]], four debates from Oct 6) and Michigan ([[MI-Sen-2026]], Oct 8 and 21) are locked in. - **2026-09-04 — Two election-law emergencies reach SCOTUS in 36 hours:** the SG asked the Court to lift Talwani's TRO on the USPS mail-ballot rule (26A297; responses due Sept 8) and she converted it to a **preliminary injunction** Friday night; Missouri SoS Hoskins asked the Court to reinstate the HB 1 map (26A304) after the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously upheld the referendum petition Sept 3 — Kavanaugh set a noon Labor Day response deadline. Same day: **NRCC v. Brown** stay lets party committees claim candidate ad rates through November (Jackson dissenting). North Carolina mailed the first ballots of the general. - **2026-09-02 — CR signed; no Oct 1 shutdown:** H.R. 6500 (House 370–48 Sept 1) funds government through **Dec 11**. Still lapsing Sept 30: Defense Production Act authorities, the farm-bill extension. - **2026-09-01 — Massachusetts primary:** [[Ed Markey]] beat [[Seth Moulton]] **64.9–35.1**; the age argument found its ceiling. D turnout ~10% over projection, R ~8% under. See [[MA-Sen-2026]]. - **2026-09-08 — New Hampshire primary:** [[Chris Pappas]] (D) **65%** over [[Karishma Manzur]]; [[John E. Sununu]] (R) **68.5%** over [[Scott Brown]]. The cycle's marquee open Senate seat is **Pappas vs. Sununu**, which Inside Elections had already moved Tilt D → **Toss-up** on Sept 3 after UNH showed Sununu 45–43. Sununu held this seat 2003–2009 and lost it to [[Jeanne Shaheen]] in 2008 — he is running to reclaim it in the cycle she retires. See [[NH-Sen-2026]]. - **2026-09-09 — Rhode Island primary:** [[Jack Reed]] renominated with **76.8%**, sixteen points above his August polling. But the night belonged to the governor's race: **Helena Foulkes unseated Gov. [[Dan McKee]]** — the first sitting governor anywhere to lose a primary since 2018. Reed's 77% on the same ballot is the control case: 2026 is not generalized anti-incumbent weather, it is specific damage. See [[RI-Sen-2026]]. - **Stale-page sweep (Sept 14):** all **17** remaining `STALE_RACE_PAGE` / `COLD_RACE_PAGE` files cleared — NH, RI and DE Senate plus fourteen House toss-ups (AZ-06, CA-13, CA-41, CO-05, IA-01, IA-03, MI-04, MI-08, NM-02, NV-03, NY-04, NY-19, VA-07, WI-03); 11 nominee stubs added. **Two premise corrections: CA-41 is not an open seat — [[Linda Sánchez]] moved into it from CA-38; and MI-08's Republican nominee, [[Thomas Smith]], had withdrawn from the race before winning it.** - **Stale-page sweep (Sept 7):** ten Senate files (RI, MA, NJ, MT, NM, OK, OR, AL, ID, SD) and six House toss-ups (MI-07, MI-10, NY-17, VA-02, CO-08, PA-01) rewritten with primary results and general matchups; 13 nominee stubs added. Three premise corrections: **Montana and Oklahoma are open seats; Idaho has no Democrat on the ballot.** - **2026-06-09 — Maine / South Carolina / Nevada primaries:** [[ME-Sen-2026]]: [[Graham Platner]] (D, oyster farmer/veteran) won with 72% after Gov. [[Janet Mills]] suspended her campaign. [[Susan Collins]] (R) ran unopposed. Marquee general election set. [[SC-Sen-2026]]: [[Lindsey Graham]] (R) won 56.8%; [[Annie Andrews]] (D) won 61.5%. Nevada: gubernatorial primaries set — [[Aaron Ford]] (D, 66%) vs. Gov. [[Joe Lombardo]] (R, 90%+). - **2026-06-02 — Super primary night:** [[IA-Sen-2026]]: Josh Turek (D, 62.6%) vs. Ashley Hinson (R, 73.9%) — general matchup set for [[Joni Ernst]]'s open seat. Cook shifted Iowa to **Lean R** (from Likely R). [[MT-Sen-2026]]: Kurt Alme (R, 76.2%) vs. Alani Bankhead (D, 43.7%) + indie Seth Bodnar. [[NM-Sen-2026]]: [[Ben Ray Luján]] (D, 84%) vs. Larry Marker (R, write-in). [[SD-Sen-2026]]: [[Mike Rounds]] (R, 75.8%) vs. Julian Beaudion (D). [[NJ-Sen-2026]]: [[Cory Booker]] (D, unopposed) vs. Justin Murphy (R, 33.3%). California top-two: [[CA-13-2026]] [[Adam Gray]] vs. [[Kevin Lincoln]]; [[CA-41-2026]] Linda Sánchez vs. Mitch Clemmons. - **2026-05-26 — Texas runoff: [[Ken Paxton]] landslide:** [[Ken Paxton]] **63.8%**, [[John Cornyn]] 36.2%. Trump endorsed Paxton 7 days before the runoff, and the margin was devastating — 28-point blowout. Brookings called it "the end of Bush-era Texas GOP." General: [[Ken Paxton]] (R) vs. [[James Talarico]] (D). Cook shifted Texas to **Lean R** (from Likely R). See [[TX-Sen-2026]]. - **2026-05-19 — Kentucky / Georgia / Pennsylvania / Oregon primaries:** [[KY-Sen-2026]]: [[Andy Barr]] (R, 60.5%) crushed [[Daniel Cameron]] with Trump endorsement; [[Charles Booker]] (D) won Dem side. Race for [[Mitch McConnell]]'s seat now set. [[GA-Sen-2026]]: Mike Collins (R, 40.5%) and Derek Dooley (R, 30.2%) headed to **June 16 runoff**; [[Jon Ossoff]] (D) awaits winner. [[PA-07-2026]]: [[Bob Brooks]] (D, 41%) won crowded Dem field; faces Rep. McKenzie. Oregon: [[Jeff Merkley]] (D) renominated easily; safe D. Georgia governor: [[Keisha Lance Bottoms]] (D, 57%) won; GOP headed to runoff. - **2026-05-16 — Louisiana primary FINAL:** Julia Letlow (R, Trump-endorsed) **44.8%**, John Fleming (R) 28.3%, [[Bill Cassidy]] (R, incumbent) **24.8% — eliminated**. First incumbent senator ousted in a primary since Lugar 2012. Letlow vs. Fleming advance to **June 27 runoff**. See [[LA-Sen-2026]]. - **BBB backlash defining the midterms:** Hospital closures, clinic shutdowns, and 7.5M projected Medicaid losses remain the #1 attack issue for Democrats in swing districts. DCCC internal research shows "Medicaid cuts" testing as more persuasive than Jan 6 or Trump association alone. See [[Big Beautiful Bill]]. ## Completed Primaries - ~~2026-05-05 — Ohio primaries~~ ✅ Husted (R) vs. [[Sherrod Brown]] (D) set for [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]]; Conroy (R) wins [[OH-01-2026]] - ~~2026-05-12 — West Virginia primaries~~ ✅ Capito 66.5%; Solid R hold. See [[WV-Sen-2026]] - ~~2026-05-16 — Louisiana primary~~ ✅ Letlow 44.8%, Fleming 28.3%, Cassidy eliminated 24.8%. Runoff June 27. See [[LA-Sen-2026]] - ~~2026-05-19 — Kentucky / Georgia / Pennsylvania / Oregon / Alabama / Idaho~~ ✅ [[Andy Barr]] (R, 60.5%) wins KY; GA-Sen GOP headed to runoff (Collins vs. Dooley June 16); [[Bob Brooks]] (D) wins [[PA-07-2026]]; [[Jeff Merkley]] (D) renominated OR - ~~2026-05-26 — Texas Republican runoff~~ ✅ **[[Ken Paxton]] 63.8%** crushes [[John Cornyn]] by 28 pts. End of an era. See [[TX-Sen-2026]] - ~~2026-06-02 — Super primary~~ ✅ Iowa: Turek (D) vs. Hinson (R) set for [[IA-Sen-2026]]; Montana: Alme (R) vs. Bankhead (D) + indie Bodnar for [[MT-Sen-2026]]; NM: Luján (D) safe; SD: [[Mike Rounds]] (R) safe; NJ: [[Cory Booker]] (D) safe; CA top-two set for [[CA-13-2026]], [[CA-41-2026]] - ~~2026-09-01 — Massachusetts~~ ✅ [[Ed Markey]] 64.9%, [[Seth Moulton]] 35.1%; [[John Deaton]] (R) unopposed. See [[MA-Sen-2026]] - ~~2026-08-25 — Oklahoma runoff~~ ✅ [[N'Kiyla Jasmine Thomas]] (D) 61.2% over Jim Priest; faces [[Kevin Hern]] (R). See [[OK-Sen-2026]] - ~~2026-06-09 — Maine / South Carolina / Nevada~~ ✅ [[ME-Sen-2026]]: [[Graham Platner]] (D) vs. [[Susan Collins]] (R) — marquee race. [[SC-Sen-2026]]: Andrews (D) vs. [[Lindsey Graham]] (R). Nevada governor: Ford (D) vs. Lombardo (R) ## Upcoming Events to Watch - **2026-09-08** — New Hampshire primaries ([[NH-Sen-2026]]: Sununu vs. Brown; Pappas vs. Manzur) · SCOTUS responses due in USPS v. California (26A297) - **2026-09-09** — Rhode Island primaries (Wednesday) — [[RI-Sen-2026]] - **2026-09-09 – 09-10** — [[Republican Midterm Convention]] in Dallas, the first midterm-year convention by a major party. Trump both nights, Vance one; **45** Republican members and candidates told Politico they were not attending or undecided; [[Melania Trump]] is not going. Tickets for House members reportedly run $25,000 to the NRCC. - **2026-09-15** — Delaware primary, last of the cycle — [[DE-Sen-2026]] - **2026-10-17** — **No Kings 'Vote Early' national day of action** — the coalition's first announced date since July 4, reframed from protest to early-voting mobilization - **2026-10-28** — John Bolton sentencing (Greenbelt, Md.) - **2026-12-08** — SCOTUS argument, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota — the only election-law merits case on the calendar, heard five weeks after the election - **2026-09-30** — FY2026 ends: CR already runs to Dec 11; the 2018 farm-bill extension lapses (Senate Ag advanced a new bill 12–11 on Sept 16, no floor vote yet). ~~Comey arraignment~~ moved to January 2027 - **2026-10-06** — Georgia governor debate (Bottoms vs. Jackson) · Maine Senate debate #1 (Collins vs. Jackson, WGME) · **2026-10-08** — Michigan Senate debate #1 (El-Sayed vs. Rogers) · — Georgia Senate debate (Ossoff vs. Collins, [[GA-Sen-2026]]); NJ Senate debate (Booker vs. Murphy, Rider) - **2026-10-15** — North Carolina in-person early voting opens - **2026-10-21** — Michigan Senate debate #2 (WXYZ). ~~U.S. v. Comey trial~~ — vacated Sept 25; trial date to be set after a January 2027 arraignment - **2026-11-03** — **General election** ## Quick Map Senate competitive zone per Cook's Sept 23, 2026 ratings (full buckets on [[2026 Senate Races Hub]]): - **Toss Up (7)**: [[MI-Sen-2026]], [[NH-Sen-2026]] (D-held); [[AK-Sen-2026]], [[IA-Sen-2026]], [[ME-Sen-2026]], [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]], [[TX-Sen-2026]] (R-held) - **Lean D**: [[NC-Sen-2026]] - **Likely D**: [[GA-Sen-2026]], [[MN-Sen-2026]] - **Lean R**: [[KS-Sen-2026]] - **Likely R**: [[NE-Sen-2026]], [[SC-Sen-2026]] ## What gets filed here - **Hubs at root** — this index, [[2026 Senate Races Hub]], [[2026 House Races Hub]], [[log]], [[Folder Spec - 2026 Midterms]] - **Senate race files** in `Senate/` (e.g., [[ME-Sen-2026]], [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]]) - **House race files** in `House/` (e.g., [[PA-01-2026]], [[VA-02-2026]]) - **Issues pages** in `Issues/` — cycle-defining cross-cutting dossiers linked from race files and candidate profiles - **Cross-cutting analysis** at root — national trends, rating-shift pieces, primary-night recaps Candidate profiles live in `People/` with a `race_2026` frontmatter link back here. ## Related - → [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] — where the seat math comes from in the first place: the 2020 apportionment that fixed every 2026 district count, and the 2027–2028 deadlines that will decide the next one - → [[How a Redistricting Map Is Drawn and Challenged]] — the structural map behind the seat math: who draws, what constrains them, the four ways a map can be attacked, and why *Callais* and *Rucho* between them moved the fight out of federal court - → [[Redistricting Timeline 2025-2026]] — the state-by-state chronology of the mid-decade wave - → **Reading the polls** — the math behind the numbers this cycle runs on: [[Poll Aggregation]] (why averaging polls cuts noise but not shared error), [[Likely-Voter Models]] (the pollster's least visible choice), [[Herding in Polling]] (outlier suppression), and [[Reading Probabilistic Forecasts]] (what a 30% chance actually means) - [[MAGA]], [[Christian Nationalism]] — ideological frames for GOP primary dynamics - [[Dark Money]] — funding architecture behind the 2026 SuperPAC activity - **The oversight stake.** Several 2026 corruption stories have no enforcement path that does not run through control of a chamber: the [[Offshore Wind Lease Buyout Program]] (minority-side letters, no subpoenas), the [[GEO Group]] contract-then-donation sequence into [[MAGA Inc]], and the [[World Liberty Trust OCC Bank Charter Approval]]. Each is a live subpoena target if the House flips and a closed file if it does not.