US Midterms 2026: One Day to Go, Early Voting Passes 53 Million and Polls Hold Steady
With one day to go before the 3 November midterms, 53.14 million Americans have already voted early — past the entire 2022 early total — while RealClearPolling puts Democrats ahead 51.5% to 43.1%. Polls are not results, and early votes do not reveal who voters chose.
Highlights
- America votes on Tuesday 3 November 2026, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate contests on the ballot.
- 53.14 million Americans had already voted early by 6:56am Eastern Time on Sunday 1 November — already past the entire 2022 midterm early-voting total.
- The early ballots split into about 29 million in-person votes and about 23 million mail-in ballots, out of roughly 210 million registered voters.
- RealClearPolling’s national average puts Democrats ahead 51.5% to 43.1% — but polls are not results, and early votes do not reveal who voters chose.
- Texas alone has passed 7 million early votes, and early voting is sharply up in South Carolina, Kansas, Maine and Michigan.
With one day to go before the United States midterm elections, the voting has largely already happened. More than 53 million ballots were in before most voters had even reached the final weekend of campaigning — a record for a midterm, and a number that changes what election night will actually decide. The question is no longer whether Americans will turn out. It is which of the voters still to come on Tuesday will break the races that polls say are close.
This is a follow-up to our earlier report on the midterm polling picture three days out, when early voting had passed 43 million. In the days since, the total has jumped by about 10 million, while the national polling lead has barely moved.
The early-voting record, in numbers
Out of about 210 million registered voters, 53.14 million had voted early as of 6:56am Eastern Time (11:56 GMT) on Sunday, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab analysis reported by Al Jazeera on 1 November 2026. That includes 29 million in-person votes and 23 million mail-in ballots, the same Al Jazeera report says.
The comparison with 2022 is stark. In the 2022 midterm elections, 46 million people had voted early in total, Al Jazeera reports, citing the same University of Florida analysis — so the 2026 figure had already beaten the whole of 2022’s early vote with two days still to go. Other trackers put the 2022 pre-Election Day total at 45.9 million; the difference is a rounding and timing matter, not a disagreement about the story, which is that 2026 is far ahead.
One honest caveat on timing: 53.14 million is the latest verified snapshot, taken on Sunday morning. Early voting was still open in parts of the country after that, so the true total on Monday will be higher — but no newer verified national total had been published at the time of writing, and this article does not guess at it. What is certain is the floor, not the final figure.
Where the surge is strongest
Early voting has particularly surged in Texas, a key battleground, where more than 7 million people have already voted early — over 1.5 million more than voted early in the 2022 midterms, according to the University of Florida analysis reported by Al Jazeera.
The pattern is not confined to Texas. According to an Associated Press polling analysis cited by Al Jazeera, in South Carolina — where Donald Trump won by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024 — early voting has surged 83 percent compared with the same point in 2022. In Kansas, early voting has increased 34 percent, with roughly 83,000 more ballots cast than at the same point four years ago, the AP analysis found. In Maine, early voting is up 44 percent, and Michigan has recorded roughly 409,000 more early votes than at the same point in 2022, a 32 percent increase, according to the same analysis.
The surge also covers states that were not in the closest Senate fights, which is the first reason not to read a national total as a partisan result. High turnout in a state can reflect a competitive governor’s race, a ballot measure, or simply voters choosing convenience over Election Day queues.
What the polls say — and what they do not
With two days left to go before Election Day on Tuesday, support for Democrats was 51.5 percent and for Republicans 43.1 percent in the latest national polls, Al Jazeera reported on 1 November, citing the RealClearPolling average. That is almost unchanged from the 51.4% to 43.2% average in our three-days-out report — stability, not momentum, in the final stretch.
Individual polls point the same way but with different margins, which is normal and worth stating plainly. A THP/MM poll conducted on 28–29 October found Democrats ahead 54% to 41%, and an Emerson College poll from 24–26 October showed the Democrats leading by 10 points, as reported on 2 November 2026. Neither poll is the outcome; they are snapshots with margins of error, taken before the final weekend.
One Senate race illustrates why the national average cannot settle individual contests. In Kansas, a Washington Post–Schar School poll released on Friday showed Democrat Adam Hamilton leading Republican Senator Roger Marshall 52% to 43%, as reported on 2 November 2026. That is a single poll in one state, and it sits alongside a national picture in which the Senate remains the harder chamber for Democrats to flip — a point made in our earlier five-days-out look at the House and Senate races, when Republicans held a 53–47 Senate majority.
Why so many people voted before Tuesday
According to the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE), there are many reasons why Americans are voting early, Al Jazeera reported. The centre said:
“Many voters report voting early because of anxiety about the election or a feeling of wanting to ‘get it over with’ or ‘cross it off their list’ as soon as possible.”
The centre also noted that some voters find early voting more logistically convenient than Election Day voting, or have been mobilised to vote early, and that efforts such as “Parties at the Polls” try to create a more celebratory environment at certain voting locations, Al Jazeera reported.
The practical backdrop matters too. The number of states offering in-person early voting before November expanded from 24 in 2000 to 47 in 2026, plus Washington, DC, according to Al Jazeera. Early voting is now the normal route for a quarter of the electorate, not an exception — which is why a record early total does not automatically mean record final turnout. Many early voters are simply people who would have voted on Tuesday, voting sooner.
What voters are saying
Democratic political strategist Celinda Lake told Al Jazeera this past week that many voters were looking for change, Al Jazeera reported:
“You got a lot of voters who say, ‘I’m going to do a Hail Mary for change, but I hope you do something.’”
One young voter told Al Jazeera:
“We all just really want a better future for everyone, especially like the next generation.”
Another young voter pointed to social media as a reason for the increased interest in the election, Al Jazeera reported:
“Definitely social media. Social media and the media have put voting in the limelight.”
Those voices cut against any single explanation for the surge. Anxiety, convenience, mobilisation and attention are all in the mix, and the early-voting data cannot separate them.
What the early numbers cannot tell us
This is the most important section of a story like this, because it is where misreading is easiest. Early turnout figures do not show which candidates voters have chosen or what the final results will be, Al Jazeera notes. Ballots are not counted by candidate before Election Day in most states.
Party-registration data is only a partial picture. Among states that record it, registered Democrats have outnumbered registered Republicans among early voters — more than 11 million registered Democrats compared with about 8 million registered Republicans, according to the University of Florida analysis reported by Al Jazeera — but registration is available in only 27 states, and registration is not vote choice. A registered Democrat can vote Republican, and vice versa, and millions of early voters are unaffiliated.
The same caution applies to the wider political context. The United States is also navigating high-stakes diplomacy in the same week, as covered in our report on US, South Korean and Japanese talks on North Korea — a reminder that Tuesday’s vote lands in a crowded news cycle, not in isolation. Voters are not deciding one issue; they are delivering a verdict on a whole term.
What to watch on Tuesday
Three things will settle the story the polls and early votes can only sketch. First, the Election Day electorate itself: if Tuesday voters lean differently from early voters, the registration balance in the early data could narrow or widen sharply. Second, the handful of Senate races within polling error, where a normal polling miss changes the winner. Third, the House count, which should show quickly whether the national polling lead translates into seats, or whether it is spread inefficiently across safe districts.
Until those counts arrive, the honest summary is this: turnout is historically high, Democrats lead the national polls by about eight points, and neither fact, alone or together, decides control of Congress. Tuesday does.
