WASHINGTON.- More than 54 million Americans had already cast their ballots before Election Day in the 2026 midterm elections, a record early-vote total that already surpasses the roughly 45.9 million early votes of the entire 2022 midterm, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab tracker, as President Donald Trump delivers his closing message on Monday afternoon at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, capping a final blitz of campaign appearances in states where Republicans face competitive challengers.
The surge spans the battleground map: states with competitive Senate races such as Texas, Maine and Kansas are showing large increases in early voting, according to an Associated Press analysis, and Ohio set a new midterm early-voting record with more than 1.7 million ballots cast, including nearly 1.1 million in person through November 1, the final day of early voting, plus about 632,000 mail-in ballots returned, according to the Ohio secretary of state. Texas alone surpassed 7.6 million early votes, Georgia topped 2.8 million, up 13 percent from 2022, and North Carolina closed early voting on Saturday with 2,816,821 ballots, 35.7 percent of registered voters, up from 29.0 percent four years ago.
The early-vote totals do not by themselves predict the outcome: in the 27 states that report party registration, Democrats have turned out in higher numbers than Republicans or unaffiliated voters so far, and national polling points the same way, with the RealClearPolling average at 51.5 percent to 43.1 percent for Democrats and an NBC News poll finding 52 percent preferring a Democratic-controlled Congress against 45 percent for Republican control. But analysts caution that early-vote counts cannot show who will flip the key Senate seats, and Tuesday's results will decide control of the House, now held by Republicans 218-214, and the Senate, 53-47, for Donald Trump's final two years in office.
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Sources: USA Today (live updates, November 2, 2026), University of Florida Election Lab, Associated Press, November 2, 2026.