2026 Midterms Explained: Exit Polls and Analysts

While party politicians argue over who deserves credit or blame for the 2026 midterm results, election analysts are testing those claims against the data that exists so far. Early evidence suggests the polls were right about the direction of the vote but underestimated its size, that prices and the Iran war both weighed heavily on voters, and that Republican redistricting did not protect the party as intended. Most of this evidence comes from exit polls and incomplete counts. The more reliable studies, which match surveys to official voter records, will not arrive for weeks or months.

Background

Democrats won both chambers of Congress, flipping at least seven Republican-held Senate seats and well over two dozen House seats. Estimates of the number of House flips have varied widely depending on the source and the point in the count, and some races remain uncalled. Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi were still too close to call on Nov. 4.

By historical standards the result is large. It is the first time since 2006, under George W. Bush, that a Republican president has lost both chambers in a midterm, and Bush’s losses that year were smaller, according to Al Jazeera: Republicans fell from 232 to 202 House seats and from 55 to 49 in the Senate. If current leads hold, Democrats could reach their largest House majority since 1990.

Did the Forecasts Get It Right?

The forecasters. Going into Election Day, the major forecasters expected a Democratic win but not quite this one. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, at the University of Virginia, projected in its final ratings that Democrats would gain six Senate seats and 24 House seats, the Washington Examiner reported. Other major forecasters rated Democrats as clear favorites for the Senate in their final updates, while cautioning that polls could still be wrong. On current counts, Democrats exceeded the Crystal Ball’s Senate projection and appear to have exceeded its House projection as well.

The pollsters. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg told NPR that the polls were directionally correct and anticipated a wave, but not the size of it. She gave two reasons. Many pollsters were cautious about Democratic strength because Democrats tend to be more willing to answer surveys, which can inflate their numbers, and a large number of new voters turned out who were harder to model.

Disputed: Assessments of polling accuracy differ. Al Jazeera’s results summary described this year’s polls as broadly matching the results, after misses in several recent cycles, while Greenberg and NPR’s reporting describe a wave that pollsters underestimated. Both can be partly true: polls can match the winner in most races while missing the margin. A full accuracy review requires certified results, which take weeks to finalize in many states.

What the Exit Polls Say About the Iran War

The clearest example of how the same data can be read in different ways is the war with Iran. Two major exit surveys asked about it with different wording.

The AP’s voter survey found that 6 in 10 voters believed the United States made the wrong decision in taking military action against Iran, but only about one-third said the war was crucial to their vote. The NBC News exit poll, conducted by SSRS, asked whether the war was a crucial, major, minor or non-factor and found 74% chose crucial or major, with Democrats winning roughly 62% to 63% of those voters, depending on the report. The Washington Times led with the first finding, that the war was not the top motivator. The Federalist led with the second, which fits more closely with Vice President JD Vance’s argument that the war was decisive.

Context: Neither reading is wrong, but each answers a different question. “Crucial” is a high bar, and many voters who called the war a major factor may also have been voting on prices. The two issues are also linked: higher gas prices were among the war’s most visible effects at home, so a voter angry about fuel costs may be reacting to both at once.

Prices and the President

On the economy, the exit polls point in one direction. In the NBC News exit poll, 39% of voters named the economy as the most important issue facing the country, and more than 60% held Trump responsible for high prices, The Daily Signal reported. The same report noted that Trump’s approval was 38% in the CBS News exit poll, and that 59% of voters said the president was a factor in their House vote.

The referendum model. These figures fit the standard political science account of midterms as a referendum on the party in power. The president’s party has lost House seats in nearly every midterm for close to a century. Political scientists also describe a “thermostatic” pattern, in which public opinion moves against whatever direction the governing party is pushing. On this reading, the main surprise of 2026 is not that Republicans lost, but how far the loss reached into states Trump won comfortably in 2024, such as Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.

Realignment, or not? A central question after 2024 was whether Trump’s gains among Latino, young and working-class voters reflected a lasting realignment or a temporary protest over prices. Before the election, some analysts argued that these groups were drifting away from both parties rather than settling into the Republican coalition. This article could not locate reliable group-level data from the 2026 results that would test that claim. Exit polls can estimate it, but voter-file studies are the stronger evidence.

Turnout

Before Election Day, University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald said turnout could surpass the 2018 rate, the highest for a midterm since 1914. Early voting data from his University of Florida Election Lab showed registered Democrats making up 44% of early votes against about 31% for Republicans, with notable engagement among young and minority voters, though Republicans were expected to narrow the gap on Election Day. Greenberg’s observation that many new voters turned out fits this picture. Final national turnout figures were not yet available at the time of writing, and this article could not confirm whether the 2018 record was broken.

The Redistricting Gamble

Ahead of the midterms, Republican-led states redrew several congressional maps in the middle of the decade to add Republican seats, and some Democratic-led states responded with their own maps. Analysts were divided in advance over whether the new Republican maps would hold in a bad year or backfire, spreading Republican voters too thinly across districts. Critics of the backfire theory argued that most maps were drawn with enough margin to survive.

Early results favor the backfire side, at least in part. A number of Democratic candidates won House districts that Republican-controlled legislatures had redesigned specifically to elect Republicans, CNBC reported. How many seats each party gained or lost from the new lines, compared with what the old maps would have produced, will take district-by-district analysis. For background on how these maps are drawn and challenged, see How Redistricting Works.

Moderates, Progressives and the Data

The debate inside the Democratic Party over whether moderates or progressives performed better will turn heavily on data. The AP’s voter survey found that about half of Democratic House voters described themselves as moderates, a larger share than in recent elections, while about one-third of Democratic voters identified as democratic socialists. Analysts have spent the past two years disputing how to measure whether moderate candidates outperform progressive ones, and the 2026 results are likely to produce new rounds of that argument rather than end it.

Analyses Still to Come

Several deeper reviews are scheduled. The Brookings Institution will hold a webinar on the consequences of the midterms on Nov. 9, and the Niskanen Center will host one on Nov. 10 examining how the results matched historical patterns and which voter shifts are hidden in early returns. Alaska aims to certify its results before Nov. 25. Studies based on validated voter files, which match survey responses to official records of who actually voted, typically appear several months after an election and will be the strongest test of the claims above.

Discussion Questions

Why do you think pollsters might underestimate the size of a wave, even when they predict the winner correctly?
How can the same exit poll be used to support two different conclusions?
Is it possible to separate voters’ views on a war from their views on prices? Why or why not?
What is a referendum election, and does 2026 fit that description?
Have you ever answered a survey? Did the questions allow you to express what you really thought?
Why might people who are angry with the government be more likely to vote in a midterm?
Should states be allowed to redraw election maps in the middle of a decade?
Imagine you are an election analyst. Which piece of data would you most want before drawing conclusions about 2026?
Why do more reliable studies of an election take months to complete?
Do election forecasts help voters, or do they risk influencing who turns out?

2026 Midterms: What the Exit Polls and Analysts Say