US midterm results start arriving Tuesday night, but the final count could take days
The first results of the 2026 US midterm elections are expected on Tuesday, after polls begin to close at 23:00 GMT. The first polling stations to shut, in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, close at 6pm Eastern time, which is the same moment. Al Jazeera reports that the results will keep coming in through Tuesday evening and into Wednesday as more states finish voting.
Voters are choosing all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate, the upper chamber. Republicans held a 218-214 edge in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate going into the vote, according to Reuters. Polls and nonpartisan analysts favour Democrats to take the House, while Senate control is uncertain, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Counting is expected to be slow in some places. Vote counting begins Tuesday night and could continue for days or even weeks, NPR has reported. Unofficial results are published after polls close on election night and keep being released until every ballot is counted, according to the US Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that supports election administration.
Several features of the system explain the timing. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank candidates and extra rounds of counting are needed if no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. California votes mainly by mail, so its ballots take longer to tally. Some races may take weeks to clear recounts and court challenges, Reuters reported in a separate article on October 30.
The Associated Press, which tallies results for many news organisations, has said that if a race is a decisive win, the outcome of most races might be known on election night. The AP also said it counts the midterm results through the evening of November 4. Its Voter Poll, which it announced on September 18, is designed to capture the views of Americans who vote early, by mail or on Election Day, and to provide insights as soon as polls close.
