US Midterm election 2026 early voting, mail-in, in-person votes before polling day surge higher than previous years. What does this mean for Donald Trump, Republican party?

US Midterm election 2026 polling day is on November 3 and early voting has commenced two weeks before the election day. In Texas, early voting is up 74 per cent compared with 2022. In Kansas it’s more than doubled. Maine, North Carolina and Ohio also have seen increases of more than 30 per cent in early in-person and mail voting compared with the same point in 2022. Voter turnout is soaring compared with the last midterm election in many of the states that are expected to decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to an Associated Press analysis of early voting two weeks before Election Day.

Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held Senate seats in each of those states. In most of them, Republicans are accounting for a smaller share of advance voters than they did four years ago. Dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the persistently high cost of living, and high gas and diesel prices caused by the Iran war have generated political blowback against Republicans in places the party didn’t anticipate having to defend this year, as per AP report.

Mail-In, Early In-Person Votes


Nationally, more than 13 million mail-in and early in-person votes have been cast, compared with 9 million at the same point in 2022. The increase also reflects a few additional states that expanded their early voting opportunities and ones that made more of their data available since the last midterms.

Midterm elections typically favor the party out of power in Washington. With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, it's a distinctly different environment than 2022, when Democrats were in charge.

Early Voting in Key States

Texas also has seen a massive surge, even though early in-person voting just started Monday. The number of ballots cast two weeks from Election Day has reached nearly 1 million, up from roughly 550,000 at the same stage in 2022. Texas’ data doesn’t show ballots returned by party registration.

Ohio has top races up and down the ballot this year, with tight contests for U.S. Senate, House and governor. Total spending on the Ohio Senate race will reach close to $500 million, according to AdImpact.

In Maine, where five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins is seeking reelection against Democrat Troy Jackson, there’s been an increase of 39 per cent in ballots cast this year compared with two weeks before the election in the 2022 midterm.

In Michigan and Georgia, two states where Democrats are defending Senate seats, the total number of early votes cast is high, but similar to four years ago.

Both states shattered their midterm voting records in 2022, with reproductive rights on the ballot in Michigan and a highly competitive U.S. Senate race in Georgia that year.

Iowa, which voted three times for Trump in presidential years, has competitive contests for governor, Senate and in three of its four House districts. Early voting there two weeks out from the election is down about 6 per cent from the same period four years ago.

Democrats vs Republicans for Senate Races

Senate Democrats were expected to face a tough map this cycle, defending a number of battlegrounds with only a few opportunities to flip seats in areas Trump won by single digits in 2024. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber.

But with gas and diesel prices up significantly from where they were a year ago and Trump increasingly unpopular among voters, Democrats have been wading into traditionally Republican states, hoping to win there for the first time in decades.

Earlier this month, Republicans pulled back spending in a once-competitive North Carolina Senate race and dumped close to $12 million into Kansas, a state Trump won by 16 percentage points in 2024, to support GOP Sen. Roger Marshall against Democrat Adam Hamilton.

Trump held a rally Monday in the state, where more than 55,000 people have cast their ballots so far — more than double the 27,000 people who had voted at this point in the cycle in 2022. That year, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won reelection while Republican Senator Jerry Moran won overwhelmingly.