# US midterms: what early voting and polls do and do not tell us

- By: Vote Times Newsroom
- 2026-11-02T11:33:25.000Z
- Produced with artificial intelligence under human editorial supervision.

## Excerpt

More than 53 million ballots are already in and Democrats lead the polling averages. Neither fact decides who controls Congress: a guide to reading 3 November. By 1 November 2026 about 53.14 million Americans had voted early, against about 46 million in the 2022 midterms, according to a University of Florida analysis cited by Al Jazeera. PollCheck's average of national generic-ballot polls puts Democrats at 51.0% and Republicans at 42.7% on 2 November, a lead of 8.3 points. Early voting shows how many people vote, not for whom, and a national average does not allocate seats: the Senate is decided state by state, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats, according to a CBS News overview from August 2025.

## Read the full story

https://votetimes.com/en/2026/11/02/us-midterms-early-vote-polls-guide/

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