Midterm elections are coming to a close as voters pass judgment on Trump’s second term

Vot­ers strug­gling with high prices and an­gry over an un­pop­u­lar war with Iran will de­cide Tues­day whether to dras­ti­cal­ly shift pow­er in Wash­ing­ton in midterm elec­tions that will serve as a ref­er­en­dum on Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term.

De­moc­rats were cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic as they watched Re­pub­li­cans spend the cam­paign’s fi­nal stretch pump­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars in­to states and dis­tricts that Trump won hand­i­ly two years ago. They’re bet­ting that dis­con­tent over Trump’s fail­ure to de­liv­er on his promise to tack­le ris­ing costs and per­cep­tions that he has fo­cused more on gild­ing the na­tion’s cap­i­tal than their pain at the pump will de­press Re­pub­li­can turnout and dri­ve their own vot­ers to the polls.

Re­pub­li­cans held out hope their mon­ey ad­van­tage would help stem the tide, but they were brac­ing to lose con­trol of the U.S. House and fight­ing to hang on­to the U.S. Sen­ate — an out­come that seemed un­like­ly ear­li­er this year, giv­en a map wide­ly seen as fa­vor­ing their par­ty.

Mar­gins are tight in both cham­bers; one or two seats could tip the bal­ance. De­moc­rats need a net gain of four seats in the 100-mem­ber Sen­ate to win the ma­jor­i­ty, and most com­pet­i­tive races are in his­tor­i­cal­ly red states. In the 435-mem­ber House, they need three.

More than 57 mil­lion peo­ple had al­ready cast bal­lots as of Mon­day, with turnout sur­pass­ing the ear­ly vote four years ago in many close­ly watched states.

Trump, whose par­ty has strug­gled when he’s not run­ning to turn out the low-propen­si­ty vot­ers who’ve fu­eled his vic­to­ries, has told vot­ers to act as though he’s run­ning, even as many Re­pub­li­can can­di­dates have kept their dis­tance.

On Tues­day, he de­clared in a Fox News Chan­nel in­ter­view that “every­thing’s go­ing good” and “in­fla­tion is solved” — even though con­sumer prices rose 3.6% in Sep­tem­ber from a year ear­li­er, up from 3.4% in Au­gust, the Com­merce De­part­ment re­port­ed last week.

“I think the re­sults are go­ing to be bet­ter than you think,” Trump said of the elec­tions.

On Tues­day, Mark Bark­er, of Palm Beach Gar­dens, Flori­da, said Trump was top of mind as he vot­ed. “I’ve just been fol­low­ing Trump the whole time. I re­al­ly think he’s do­ing an awe­some job,” said Bark­er, not­ing the pres­i­dent’s promise of $5,000 for every U.S. adult if Re­pub­li­cans re­tain con­trol of Con­gress, bor­der pol­i­cy and war in the Mid­dle East. “Every­thing he’s done has been out­stand­ing.”

In Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, 57-year-old li­brar­i­an James Moore said he vot­ed for De­moc­rats to push back on Trump’s big tax breaks and spend­ing cuts bill. “I’m pay­ing more tax­es. I’m pay­ing more for my health­care. I’m pay­ing more for every­thing,” he said. “We need more rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Con­gress that are go­ing to stand up to Trump.”

Trump’s ag­gres­sive sched­ule had stops in the red­dest states, in­clud­ing Mis­sis­sip­pi, South Car­oli­na and Texas, un­der­scor­ing his par­ty’s chal­lenges.

Trump has made false claims about vot­ing fraud, such as in­sist­ing nonci­t­i­zens are cast­ing bal­lots en masse. His ad­min­is­tra­tion has filed law­suits in Alas­ka and Cal­i­for­nia. De­moc­rats fear in­ter­fer­ence and vot­er in­tim­i­da­tion as his Jus­tice De­part­ment threat­ens to pros­e­cute lo­cal elec­tion of­fi­cials.

Polling sites opened ear­ly Tues­day along the East Coast, with few dis­rup­tions. In New York’s sub­ur­ban Westch­ester Coun­ty, of­fi­cials said an is­sue with ma­chines ac­cept­ing pa­per bal­lots was re­quir­ing bal­lots to be placed in emer­gency bags for lat­er count­ing but stressed that they would re­main se­cure.

The elec­tion could re­shape the po­lit­i­cal land­scape

The re­sults will shape the fi­nal two years of Trump’s sec­ond term af­ter the Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled Con­gress act­ed as a rub­ber stamp to much of his agen­da. While Trump has proven adept at steam­rolling ef­forts to rein him in, De­moc­rats tak­ing con­trol of even one cham­ber of Con­gress would open the flood­gates to in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pos­si­ble im­peach­ments. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth and tech ti­tan Elon Musk, a for­mer top Trump ad­vis­er, are among pos­si­ble tar­gets.

An es­pe­cial­ly strong show­ing for De­moc­rats would al­so boost po­ten­tial pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, in­clud­ing Cal­i­for­nia Gov. Gavin New­som, Illi­nois Gov. JB Pritzk­er and for­mer Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Pe­te Buttigieg. It could al­so com­pli­cate the paths of Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance and oth­er Re­pub­li­cans who may be look­ing to turn their loy­al­ty to Trump in­to mo­men­tum.

Re­pub­li­cans tried to buck his­tor­i­cal prece­dent — a pres­i­dent’s par­ty al­most al­ways los­es seats dur­ing the midterms — with an ag­gres­sive re­dis­trict­ing ef­fort aimed at cre­at­ing a more fa­vor­able con­gres­sion­al map. But the plan may fall short as dis­tricts drawn in Flori­da and oth­er states to be safe­ly red may not vote that way.

Oth­er Trump choic­es could prove cost­ly. In Texas, Trump worked to oust long­time in­cum­bent Sen. John Cornyn in fa­vor of scan­dal-plagued At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton, set­ting the stage for an ex­pen­sive race against De­mo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee James Ta­lari­co, who De­moc­rats hope may help them fi­nal­ly flip the state.

In North Car­oli­na, Sen. Thom Tillis re­tired af­ter clash­ing with Trump. The pres­i­dent’s cho­sen re­place­ment, for­mer Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee Chair Michael What­ley, has strug­gled to gain trac­tion against the De­moc­rats’ can­di­date, for­mer Gov. Roy Coop­er.

“Every­thing de­pends on turnout. If we turn out our vot­ers, we win,” said Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee Chair­man Joe Gruters.

The vast ma­jor­i­ty of Re­pub­li­can tele­vi­sion ad spend­ing in the gen­er­al elec­tion, 88.1%, was spent in states and dis­tricts Trump won in 2024, ac­cord­ing to an As­so­ci­at­ed Press analy­sis of da­ta from me­dia track­ing firm AdIm­pact. That in­clud­ed more than $850 mil­lion on ad reser­va­tions in states and dis­tricts Trump won by 10 per­cent­age points or more.

The elec­torate sours on Trump

On­ly 35% of U.S. adults ap­prove of Trump’s per­for­mance as pres­i­dent, ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent polling from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press-NORC Cen­ter for Pub­lic Af­fairs Re­search. Most blame him for high prices as they strug­gle to af­ford gas and gro­ceries.

What was once his strongest is­sue is no longer: 25% of U.S. adults say they ap­prove of Trump’s han­dling of the econ­o­my. Over­all, about 7 in 10 say the coun­try is head­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion.

“The Amer­i­can peo­ple are an­gry. They want change,” said Rep. Suzan Del­Bene, chair of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, who said mo­men­tum was on her par­ty’s side.

The Sen­ate and House are in play

In the Sen­ate, De­moc­rats have been most con­fi­dent about pick­ing up North Car­oli­na and hold­ing Geor­gia, where Sen. Jon Os­soff faces Re­pub­li­can Rep. Mike Collins. Oth­er key bat­tle­grounds in­clude Ohio, where De­mo­c­ra­t­ic for­mer Sen. Sher­rod Brown is chal­leng­ing Re­pub­li­can Sen. Jon Husted, and Alas­ka, where the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion filed a law­suit to block cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Sen­ate re­sults if Re­pub­li­can in­cum­bent Dan Sul­li­van los­es the race, cit­ing the pres­ence of a sec­ond can­di­date named Dan Sul­li­van on the bal­lot.

Re­pub­li­cans hope they can hold seats in Iowa, Kansas and Maine and pick up Michi­gan, where Mike Rogers faces pro­gres­sive Ab­dul El-Sayed — one of a crop of left-wing can­di­dates who pre­vailed in De­mo­c­ra­t­ic pri­maries. El-Sayed’s for­mer pri­ma­ry op­po­nent, Ha­ley Stevens, up­end­ed the race by en­dors­ing Rogers, re­new­ing fo­cus on ten­sions over Is­rael and the par­ty’s di­rec­tion.

In the House, Re­pub­li­cans try to hang on to their nar­row ma­jor­i­ty, as De­moc­rats aim to flip seats in states Trump re­peat­ed­ly car­ried, from Flori­da to Texas to Iowa.

Dozens of states are elect­ing gov­er­nors

Be­yond Wash­ing­ton, 36 states are elect­ing gov­er­nors. De­moc­rats hope to take over a ma­jor­i­ty of state­hous­es for the first time in two decades. Com­pet­i­tive races in­clude those in heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed states such as Texas and Flori­da, plus re­li­ably red states such as Iowa.

In Ohio, Re­pub­li­can Vivek Ra­maswamy’s cam­paign faced back­lash for an ad fea­tur­ing De­mo­c­rat Amy Ac­ton’s es­tranged moth­er, who lost cus­tody of Ac­ton decades ago af­ter her hus­band, Ac­ton’s step­fa­ther, was in­dict­ed for rap­ing Ac­ton as a child.

The stakes in Wash­ing­ton are high

Trump’s fi­nal two years in of­fice will like­ly be de­fined in part by who con­trols Con­gress.

House De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Ha­keem Jef­fries of New York, in line to make his­to­ry as the na­tion’s first Black speak­er of the House if his par­ty sweeps to pow­er, has out­lined a 100-day agen­da fo­cused on low­er­ing the cost of liv­ing and ag­gres­sive­ly over­see­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Sen­ate could emerge as a key back­stop for Trump’s pri­or­i­ties if Re­pub­li­cans re­tain con­trol or as a new pow­er cen­ter for De­moc­rats who could use it to halt pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees and chal­lenge the White House agen­da.

The 2026 elec­tions will like­ly go down as the most ex­pen­sive in his­to­ry. Re­pub­li­can com­mit­tees have dra­mat­i­cal­ly out­raised and out­spent their De­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­ter­parts thanks, in large part, to mon­ey from Trump-af­fil­i­at­ed groups and Musk. But at the can­di­date lev­el, De­moc­rats out­raised Re­pub­li­can op­po­nents. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by JILL COLVIN and WILL WEIS­SERT | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Aaron Kessler and Ali Swen­son in Wash­ing­ton; Cody Jack­son in Palm Beach Gar­dens, Fla.; and Allen Breed in Raleigh, N.C., con­tributed.