--- title: "The 2026 midterms, in data" url: https://politic.design/midterms-2026/ publisher: politic.design (made by Brantopic) published: 2026-11-05 updated: 2026-11-06 license: CC-BY-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) credit: "Source: politic.design" data: https://politic.design/midterms-2026/data.json pdf: https://politic.design/midterms-2026/midterms-2026.pdf --- The issue · Midterms 2026 · 5–6 Nov # The 2026 *midterms*, in data Democrats won the House vote by 12 to 14 points, the widest midterm margin since 1974. Five stories on who moved it, why, where it won seats, and who filled the hall. House popular vote D+12–14 Widest midterm margin since 1974. Final polls said about D+9. House seats 256–60 43 seats flipped to D, 2 to R (CBS, 5 Nov). 218 for a majority. Senate 54–56 7 R seats flipped (IA, KS, ME, NC, OH, SC, TX). AK and MS still counting. Turnout 48.8% 122.7m ballots. Second-highest midterm turnout in a century. Trump approval 37% Lowest midterm approval for a president since at least 2006. Ad spending $11.2bn A record. Republicans outspent Democrats, $5.18bn to $4.77bn. In this issue ## In this issue [ Story 1 · Groups · 2.5D**Weight Transfer**Young and Hispanic voters moved furthest. The national balance moved mostly because white voters, men and people in their 30s and 40s moved, because there are more of them.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/weight-transfer/)[ Story 2 · Motive · 2D**The Receipt**Voters handed the president an itemised bill: tariffs, Iran, prices, enforcement. The news covered the items in a different order from the one voters ranked them in.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/the-receipt/)[ Story 3 · Seats · 3D**The Blue Wave**Democrats took every Republican seat Trump won by less than ten points, and a few the tide should never have reached. Most of those few were in states that had just redrawn their maps to add Republican seats.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/blue-wave/)[ Story 4 · Place · 3D**The Borderlands**Texas swung 26 points in two years and every one of its 254 counties moved the same way. The border moved furthest.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/borderlands/)[ Story 5 · Turnout · 3D**Who Won the Convention**About six points of the Democrats' margin came from who showed up. The rest came from voters who changed sides or were voting for the first time.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/who-won-the-convention/)[ Feature · Who won**Many Streams, One Chamber**The heritage and gender of this year's winners, and how much they won by.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/representation/)[ Brand Truth · Brantopic**The Midterms as a Brand**Twelve media claims checked against the data: 9 stand, 2 fail, 1 is weak.](https://politic.design/midterms-2026/brand-truth/) Why this gazette exists politic.design is a showcase made by [Brantopic](https://brantopic.com/). It runs the tools Brantopic uses for companies (watching markets, industries and trending topics, and putting a source on every number) on a subject everyone can check. [Read what it is, and what it is not](https://politic.design/about/). ## The data behind this page ### Data: senate_flips The seven Republican-held Senate seats Democrats flipped. Source: Wikipedia race pages, 6 Nov 2026. | state | winner | votes | margin | |---|---|---|---| | ME | Troy Jackson | 374585 | D+6.4 | | IA | Josh Turek | 686487 | D+4.1 | | OH | Sherrod Brown | 2301042 | D+4.9 | | TX | James Talarico | 5445156 | D+12.1 | | NC | Roy Cooper | 2467963 | D+19.6 | | SC | Annie Andrews | 1042362 | D+4.5 | | KS | Adam Hamilton | 559853 | D+5.0 | --- ## License and credit Free to reuse, adapt and republish, including commercially, by any outlet or person, as long as you credit politic.design as the source (with a link to the page where you can). Figures that politic.design took from third parties (exit polls, election results, Wikipedia, GDELT and others named on each dataset) stay under those sources' own terms, so credit them as well. Suggested credit: *Source: politic.design* (https://politic.design/midterms-2026/). License: [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Machine-readable data: https://politic.design/midterms-2026/data.json