The 2026 US Midterms: A Democratic Victory, but Not the End of the Threats

In this commentary, Professor Lane Kenworthy examines the implications of the November 3, 2026, US midterm elections for American democracy. Despite concerns about electoral interference, the elections proceeded relatively smoothly, with high voter turnout and Democrats securing majorities in both chambers of Congress. Professor Kenworthy highlights the resilience of electoral institutions, the judiciary’s role in safeguarding voting procedures, and the significance of strengthened congressional oversight. Yet he cautions that democratic vulnerabilities persist, particularly regarding the influence of wealthy donors, partisan redistricting, and unequal political representation. While economic dissatisfaction, corruption, and foreign policy concerns largely shaped voting behavior, the results could reinforce institutional checks and electoral accountability. The ultimate test, he argues, lies in sustaining democratic safeguards beyond 2026.

By Lane Kenworthy*

American voters delivered a rebuke to the Trump administration and the Republican Party in the 2026 midterm election. The Democratic Party won comfortable majorities in both the House of Representatives (about 57% of the seats) and the Senate (55%). What does the election and its outcome imply for current and future democracy in the United States?

Despite efforts by President Trump and his administration, the election went relatively smoothly. While the Trump administration in the months leading up to the election made a host of attempts to prevent early voting, to block certain people from voting, to criminally prosecute election workers, and to have some election results (such as the Senate election in Alaska) thrown out, courts consistently—in 30 out of 30 cases—ruled against the administration. Many of the justices ruling in these cases, including on the nation’s Supreme Court, had been appointed by Republicans. Nor was there any significant interference with election-day in-person voting. Elections are run by state governments, and a number of those governments signaled they were prepared to counteract any efforts to intimidate voters on election day. Another fear, that the administration would seize ballot boxes or voting machines, also didn’t come to pass.

In the end, voter turnout is estimated to have been 49%. That’s the highest in any midterm election since the 1940s. From 1950 to 1970, turnout in US midterms averaged 45%. From 1974 through 2018, the average fell to just 37%. In 2018 and 2022 it jumped to 47%, and 2026 looks to have furthered this recent upward trend. One reason for the recent rise in voter participation is increased opportunity to vote early. About half of Americans who voted did so before the November 3 election day, either in person or by mail.

In the year leading up to the election, President Trump encouraged state governments in conservative states to redraw the boundaries of House of Representative districts in a way that would maximize the number of Republicans elected. Several, such as Texas, did so. However, some left-leaning states, such as California, responded by redrawing their districts to maximize the number of Democrats elected. The vote margin in favor of Democrats turned out to be so large—nationwide, about 13 percentage points—that red-state redistricting was of little or no help to Republican candidates.

On the night of the election, after it had become clear that the Republican’s had lost their majority in both houses of Congress, President Trump, in an interview with the New York Times, said he would accept the election results. That’s encouraging, though it wouldn’t be surprising if he changes his mind. Following his defeat in the presidential election in 2020, his administration filed 76 lawsuits attempting to have the results overturned in various states. When those suits failed, a violent mob attempted to prevent the sitting Congress and the vice president from certifying the election results on January 6, 2021.

Will the winning candidates in the House and Senate actually be seated in January 2027? The Trump administration and its Justice Department might attempt to collude with state officials to refuse to certify the election results. In this election, the margin of defeat for Republicans in both the House and the Senate was so large that this type of effort would be unlikely to make a difference even if were to succeed. But if it’s tried, it will once again be up to courts to compel the certification.

The Democratic majorities in both congressional bodies will provide a significant check on the Trump administration over the next two years. The House of Representatives can investigate wrongdoing by the administration and its officials, and the Senate can block appointment of judges, including Supreme Court justices, who may share Trump’s limited commitment to democracy.

The midterm election results in the states might turn out to be equally significant for democracy’s future in America. Recent presidential elections have tended to hinge on the results in six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In 2028, when the Republican Party may nominate another Trump-like candidate for the presidency, each of these five states will have a Democratic governor. And most of them will have a Democratic Party majority in one or both of the state legislative bodies. This should help to safeguard against election interference by the outgoing Trump administration.

Was democracy “on the ballot” in the 2026 midterms? Did Americans reject Republicans because they see the Trump administration, or the Republican Party as a whole, as a threat to democracy? This may have mattered, but probably not very much. Public opinion surveys suggest cost-of-living concerns, the war in Iran, and corruption were the top issues. By “corruption” most Americans likely had in mind Trump’s efforts to use the presidency to enrich himself and his family, his pardoning of assorted criminals, and his appointment of unqualified billionaires to his cabinet, rather than his attempts to interfere in elections or call their fairness into question.

This interpretation is consistent with what we saw in the United States in 2022, when, as Larry Bartels points out, “scores of Republican members of Congress who had supported or condoned Trump’s ‘stop the steal’ effort following the 2020 election stood for reelection. In contested general elections, they did not fare significantly worse or better than their counterparts who had bucked Trump—the electoral cost of ‘disregarding democratic principles’ was essentially zero.”

Another threat to democracy in the United States—at least to democracy understood as equality of opportunity to influence policy—is money in politics. There are few effective limits on the use of private money in American elections (especially since the Supreme Court’s Citizens Unitedruling in 2010), so the country’s massive inequality of income and wealth makes it possible for the rich to have a sizeable advantage in influencing who gets elected.

Because its tax and regulatory policy preferences tend to be closer to those of rich individuals and large companies, the Republican Party is more likely to benefit from this. Prior to 2026, Democrats had been able to offset that disadvantage: total campaign expenditures by and for Democrats and Republicans tended to be roughly equal. In 2026, however, money from rich individuals, especially but not only Elon Musk, tended to heavily favor Republicans.

We don’t yet have the money totals for the 2026 midterms, and early figures indicate that Democratic candidates may have offset the big-donor money by far outraising Republicans in contributions from smaller donors. So, it’s possible that overall campaign expenditures were once again pretty similar between the two parties. Moreover, if Republicans did have a large money advantage in this election, it doesn’t seem to have helped them much, if at all. Still, this development may be a worrisome signal for what the future holds.

Even so, for supporters of democracy there is much to cheer about the 2026 US midterms—the fact that they occurred, the fact that they went smoothly, the fact that voters punished the political party that has failed to stand firmly in favor of liberal democracy, the fact that (so far) the election results haven’t been contested, and the fact that both the national and state-level results are likely to help protect democracy in 2028 and perhaps beyond.

(*) Lane Kenworthy is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego. He studies the causes and consequences of living standards, capabilities, poverty, inequality, mobility, employment, economic growth, social policy, taxation, public opinion, and politics in the United States and other wealthy, long-standing democracies. His books include The Good Society (thegoodsociety.net), Is Inequality the Problem? (2025), Would Democratic Socialism Be Better? (2022), Social Democratic Capitalism(2020), How Big Should Our Government Be? (2016), Social Democratic America (2014), Progress for the Poor (2011), Jobs with Equality(2008), Egalitarian Capitalism (2004), and In Search of National Economic Success (1995). More information on his research and teaching is available at lanekenworthy.net.