US MIDTERMS 2026 LATEST: The storm before the vote

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera's Midterms Roundup. I'm Jonah Hull. It's good to have you with us. It's less than a week now until Election Day. The latest polls show Democrats with a nine-point national lead, but crucial Senate races remain neck and neck. The voters who decide those races say one of the things that matters most to them is affordability. For the people in power, though, the big question remains who will control Congress and what happens then? Well, we've got correspondents, as ever, in key locations in the field in North Carolina, in Maine and in Pennsylvania. We begin, though, with Scott McClain for a look at the numbers and a breakdown of that path to power in Congress. Most optimistic of Republicans will tell you that it's going to be pretty tough for the GOP to hold on to the House of Representatives. Different story when it comes to the U.S. Senate, though. So there are 100 seats in the Senate, currently 53 of them occupied by Republicans, 47 for all intents and purposes occupied by Democrats. But the map, though, is not in Democrats' favor. And I'll show you why over here. So this is the current state of play. These are the Senate seats that are up for grabs this time. Remember, 35, only one third each cycle. All of the red that you see here, these are states we expect to go Republican. Conversely, all the blue are states which are almost certain to go Democrat. and all of the yellow here, these are the toss-ups. This is where the parties are spending all their money to get their vote out. So if you believe that the political winds are at the Democrats' back, you would at least give them the states that they occupy already. They would hold the New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, and the state of Georgia. But Republicans, they're not accustomed to losing in places like Alaska, certainly not accustomed to losing in Texas, Nebraska, and Kansas. We're not even usually talking about in election cycles because they are so deep red. Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since the 1930s. Mississippi, also deep, deep red. So now you've got five states in the Senate. The Democrats are going to need to win four of those states if they want to take control of the United States Senate. So what are their options? First, you've got the state of Maine. But this woman here, Susan Collins, she is a political survivor. She's been in office for 30 years. She survived blue waves, bad polls. She always finds a way to win. Don't count her out. You've also got the state of North Carolina. You might put this one in the Democratic column, though, because of this guy, Roy Cooper, very popular, former governor of the state of North Carolina. They're also polling pretty well there. Then you've got South Carolina, a little bit redder than North Carolina. Also, the Republican candidate here, Darlene Graham, she's the sister of the popular late Senator Lindsey Graham. So this one's going to be a tough one. So now you're down to Iowa. This is an agricultural state, hard hit by tariffs, hard hit by the price of diesel fertilizer. It's also a swing state, though, voted twice for Barack Obama, three times for Donald Trump. And then you've got Ohio over here. This is usually, at least has been traditionally, a swing state. In recent cycles, though, it has turned hard to the right to become pretty reliably Republican. Democrats, though, think that they have a secret weapon in this man, Sherrod Brown. He used to be the senator before. He's tuned into the labor unions. He's tuned into the working class. This is important in the Rust Belt. And so if you'll humor me for a second, and if you give the Democrats Ohio because of Sherrod Brown and you give the North Carolina because of those strong polls for Roy Cooper, now you're up to 49. Let's say the Republicans take Iowa, South Carolina and Maine. The Democrats still need two seats to get to 51. So where are they going to find them? Well, they think they might find them in Alaska. They're polling well. They say they have a strong candidate in Mary Peltola. There are also two men named Dan Sullivan on the ballot right now. Republicans are very worried that voters are going to be confused. Advantage to the Democrat. They also think that they can win Texas. Democrats would tell you that the combination of a strong candidate in James Cal Talerico and what they would say is a weaker one in Ken Paxton, who has faced ethics allegations, corruption charges against him, puts the favor in their column. So that would get you to 51 to 49. But don't count the Republicans out because they think that they can flip the state of Michigan where polls are neck and neck. In this scenario, J.D. Vance, the Republican vice president, would cast the tie vote. If the Democrats can hold on to the state of Michigan, it gives them 51. Great news, though, Jonah, it also opens a whole new can of worms for Democrats inside the United States Capitol. Democrats are going to run up against a roadblock named John Fetterman. He is an independent-minded Democratic senator, not afraid to vote with the Republicans. And so Democrats are going to have to really tailor their agenda to make sure that it suits the senator from Pennsylvania. If the name doesn't ring a bell also, Jonah, he's a senator who doesn't appear to actually own a suit. Scott McLean there. Well, political heavyweights are out on the campaign trail. Vice President J.D. Vance is the latest among them, rallying in North Carolina. Tanya Nouri is there. And Tanya, the Senate race that's happening in North Carolina, as we were hearing from Scott, looks increasingly likely to go the way of the Democrats. But this is also a state that is struggling still two years later with the aftermath of hurricane damage. To what extent is that a political issue? Yeah. So J.D. Vance was here for the fourth time this campaign season in order to rally and speak with voters directly. He said that he has spent almost as much time here in North Carolina as he has in his home state of Ohio. And listen to what he had to tell voters. That Washington, D.C. spent 40 years forgetting. And that being an American means something. And North Carolina deserves leaders who will never let Washington forget it. Yeah, so there you saw J.D. Vance. He served as a Marine here in North Carolina at Cherry Point. But, you know, the messaging from people here in North Carolina, especially where we are in Bat Cave, North Carolina, is that they really want to hear more about how they are going to be able to recover from this hurricane that devastated their area more than two years ago. And they are still waiting for those federal resources to reach them because there has been a lot of red tape around here. But what's unique about this critical Senate race in North Carolina is that both of the candidates have had some sort of role in the recovery. The Democrat, Roy Cooper, he was governor at the time, so he's the one who initiated the recovery. And then Michael Watley, he was appointed by President Donald Trump as kind of the czar to make the recovery efforts even faster. But people are saying that they haven't really reached any of that here, and it hasn't really helped them. And so that is something that they are looking to hear rather than these sort of promises. They want they want to see action in their state. Tanya, thank you. Well, let's take a look at another of those big Democrat target Senate seats. It's Maine. Eva McKendie is there in Bath, Maine for us. And this is a race between the Democrat Troy Jackson, Eva, who I think you've been speaking to and Susan Collins, one of the longest standing senators in U.S. history. How are things shaping up? Well, Jonah, the eyes of the nation on Maine, because this is a state that could decide the balance of power in Washington. We are in Bath right now outside of a factory because Susan Collins is here and she's here to greet workers and ask them for their vote. That is key to her strategy. She has been spending the last few days touting the millions of dollars that she says she's been able to bring back to Maine over the years. And that's the message that she wants to send these workers. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate for Senate here in Maine, Troy Jackson, is campaigning in Brunswick, and he's got a relatively high-profile surrogate in Senator Kelly of Arizona. Kelly, of course, rumored to be running for president in 2028. He didn't deny that today. When asked by reporters, they spoke at an event in front of veterans to ask for their support. But another critical issue that keeps coming up time and time again as we travel across the state from voters is this issue of rural clinics closing, labor and delivery clinics closing. It's a huge issue, and it may be in part what this race comes down to. Let's listen. Well, I mean, it's hard not to blame Republicans. I mean, we just saw the big, beautiful bill that cut up to $5 billion out of Maine's health care system. I mean, some of those delivery units are being cut because the hospitals know what's coming, and they're getting rid of things that aren't as profitable, which is, you know, going to kill rural Maine. And we're seeing it happen in real time. But I think what we could be doing is one thing that I tried to bring up in one of the debates that, you know, she criticized me on, but we could be doing more for hospitals getting reimbursement rates here in this state. which is the FMAP funding that, you know, the federal government has to give us so that we can set the Medicaid rates. Jackson telling voters that this contest is not about him. It is about fighting against the policies that are coming out of Washington. Meanwhile, Collins trying to distance herself from those policies and President Trump. Jonah. Eva, thank you. And moving right along, let's go to Michigan now, where there is, of course, a big Senate race going on. but there's also a House race that could be decided by young voters. Richard Gaisford is there. He joined canvassers in Lansing who are trying to convince more young people to vote. A rock star's reception in Lansing for a congressional candidate. Will Lawrence is hoping to take Michigan's 7th district from the Republicans. It's one of the hardest-fought battles in the country over just one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We need everybody and young people are a huge part of the coalition and could really be the difference maker on November 3rd I'm rooted in this community. I grew up here in East Lansing. I've been spending time Around you know campus since I was 12 years old and people know that I'm gonna fight for them Democratic canvassers are asking students to pledge their support Hammering home the importance of each and every vote in Michigan I think a lot of people our age feel like they don't know enough about what the candidates do What policies they support, how they're funded. At Michigan State University, the more politically engaged students listen to America's youngest congressman. But what we have to do is ban super PACs so nobody can use them. 29-year-old Maxwell Frost is the first Gen Z politician to sit in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's come north from Florida to help Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other Democrats. Everybody's seen the negative, bigoted ads and Islamophobic ads, but what hasn't happened is everyone hasn't spoken with a canvasser. Everyone hasn't had person-to-person conversation about why Abdul is the right senator for Michigan. But the Republicans also have a ground game of their own in Lansing, bringing in hundreds of young people from all over the USA to try and secure the seat for the incumbent Tom Barrett, with Abdul El-Sayed also in their sights. Not only does he have direct connections to terrorist organizations in the Middle East, he also has radical policies that are going to increase taxes on Americans, the largest tax increase in history. If we lose the Senate, President Trump will not be able to carry out his agenda. Democrats will try to impeach him. I think there's definitely a movement that people don't realize in Gen Z that is turning more conservative. People are less likely to, you know, tolerate, like, just petty things. Both sides believe victory in Michigan could come down to just a few thousand people out of more than seven million registered voters. Securing their support is now a 24-7 operation. Richard Gaisford, Al Jazeera, Lansing, Michigan. President Donald Trump's been on a series of tireless campaign stops. Where's his next one? It's Ohio and Rory Challens is following events from neighboring Pennsylvania and Rory, Ohio. It's often described, I believe, as the mother of presidents. Eight U.S. presidents have come from Ohio, a place clearly then at the heart of national politics. What's the midterms picture looking like? Yeah, Ulysses Grant and James Garfield, to name just a couple of those presidents. Well, Ohio and Pennsylvania, they're both rust belt neighbors, where industrial decline has shaped voter patterns. They've both been swing states and they've both shifted rightwards. Ohio more so than Pennsylvania. But there is a huge amount going on in Ohio these midterms. There's a race for the governor position, there's a race for the Senate seat, and there's three tight house races as well. For the governorship, well, Republicans have held that office in Ohio for the last 20 years. But Vivek Ramaswamy might have scored a significant own goal by a campaign ad that for many went too far into the dirty tricks column. He dragged up the family trauma of his opponent, the Democratic Amy Acton, and put her mother, a strange mother, on camera saying that Amy Acton was a liar. That was too much for many people and that race currently looks pretty close. For the Senate, we've got the Democrat Sherrod Brown taking on the incumbent Republican John Husted and with data centres and cost of living being salient in that race, it looks to be a pretty tight campaign as well. And then with the House, there are three Democrat-held seats, Ohio 1, 9 and 13, where there could be a fight going on. You've got the Republicans who have done some redistricting in Ohio recently. If the Democrats can defend those seats, well, that redistricting will have come to naught. And if the Democrats can also take the governorship and that Senate seat, well, it's a bullseye for the Democrats in the Buckeye state. Rory, thank you. To Virginia now, where there are 11 House seats in play, three of which are Republican-held, but Democrats believe they can win. Mike Hanna reports from Virginia Beach. There's a steady stream of early voters. An election official tells me there are now over 5,000 each day, a figure far higher than that at the same time in previous ballots. And a clear awareness that the value of a vote here could extend far beyond the district. I think it's a critical one for the country. It's a midterm one, but it's going to decide a lot of changes for the next two years. I think it's critical for the citizens of Virginia Beach. I think anyone can see just in our daily life how unaffordable everything has become and just a general, like, disdain for the way that our society is going. Former helicopter pilot and Republican Jen Kiggans is the House incumbent. Two years ago, she defeated former Navy Commander Elaine Luria by three percentage points. This is a rematch, but polls indicate that the Democrat is forging ahead. And House Speaker Mike Johnson came to Virginia Beach to bolster the Republican candidate with an urgent warning. Virginia's second district will determine the fate of the country. The fact that both candidates are veterans highlights a critical issue that was not part of the previous race. Veterans organizations say this district has the third highest military representation in the country. And the war with Iran looms large. There are 19 military bases here, including the world's largest naval base. I'm a veteran as well, so it made it close to home, but I think I voted for the right one. The veteran public have a detailed knowledge of what this government can and can't do and where they're being put and where that pressure is worldwide. A lot of these people have been wherever our government has told them to go. I don't know why we're there. So I think it's important for a lot of vets who have fought a real war or understood why they were there. We don't understand. It's not transparent enough for us. So I think that any veteran will come out and vote for what they believe in. And underlying the calm waters of Virginia Beach is a high-stakes turbulent political battle, one that could offer an early indication of whether Democrats can win back control of the House. Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera, Virginia Beach. Well, you've been watching the Midterms Roundup here on Al Jazeera English. That's all we've got time for. But do catch up with all our Midterms content on YouTube and our website, aljazeera.com. And you're back now to our global headquarters in Doha.