WASHINGTON — Polls opened across the country Tuesday morning for the 2026 midterm elections, a single day that will decide control of the U.S. House and Senate, dozens of governor's mansions and, allies and rivals of President Trump agree, the trajectory of his final two years in office.

More than 54 million ballots had already been cast before a single polling place opened, according to the Associated Press's early-vote tracker — nearly 9 million more than at the same point in the 2022 midterms. Republicans are defending slim majorities in both chambers, running up against a historical pattern in which the party holding the White House almost always loses House seats in a first-term midterm.

A Democratic edge, on paper

Heading into Election Day, CNN's Poll of Polls gave Democrats roughly a 9-point edge on the generic congressional ballot, while independent tracker PollCheck had it slightly narrower at 51.1% to 42.4%. Trump's approval rating sat near the low 30s in multiple late-October surveys. None of it, pollsters caution, guarantees anything once actual votes are counted.

"IF OUR VOTERS TURN OUT, WE WIN," RNC Chair Joe Gruters told reporters, a line Republicans have repeated anxiously for weeks as Democratic enthusiasm has outpaced their own in most public polling.

IF OUR VOTERS TURN OUT, WE WIN.

President Trump, for his part, has predicted Republicans will hold both chambers for the remainder of his term, even as persistent inflation, an unpopular standoff with Iran and his own sinking approval numbers weigh on the party's midterm map.

The races to watch

Several Senate contests are drawing outsized national attention. In Texas, Trump-backed Ken Paxton faces state Rep. James Talarico in a race that polling suggests is far closer than the state's recent history would predict. In Michigan, Trump-endorsed Mike Rogers faces Abdul El-Sayed after Rep. Haley Stevens — who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed — crossed party lines over the weekend to endorse Rogers, a move Vice President JD Vance said "certainly" helps the Republican. Stevens called her decision "a decision of conscience."

South Carolina's Senate race pits Trump-backed Sen. Darline Graham, appointed to the seat after the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, against Democrat Annie Andrews. Governor's races in Florida (Byron Donalds vs. David Jolly) and Ohio (Vivek Ramaswamy vs. Amy Acton) are also being watched as early signals of the night's direction.

Polls begin closing as early as 6 p.m. ET in parts of Kentucky and Indiana, with most of the country's polling places shutting down by 7 or 8 p.m. ET. Full results in close races could take days to finalize given the scale of early and mail voting.