2026 United States state legislative elections

←  2025 November 3, 2026 2027 →
88 legislative chambers 46 states
Majority party Minority party Third party   Party Republican Democratic Coalition Current chambers 57 [a] 39 [a] 2 [b]
Map of upper house elections:      Democratic-controlled chamber up      Republicans-controlled chamber up      Coalition-controlled chamber up      Non-partisan legislature      No regularly-scheduled elections
Map of lower house elections:      Democratic-controlled chamber up      Republicans-controlled chamber up      Coalition-controlled chamber up      Evenly split chamber up      No lower house      No regularly-scheduled elections

The 2026 United States state legislative elections will be held on November 3, 2026, for 88 state legislative chambers in 46 states. ^[2] Across the fifty states, approximately 60 percent of upper house seats and 92 percent of lower house seats will be up for election. Additionally, six territorial chambers will be up in four territories and the District of Columbia. These elections will take place concurrently with other state and local elections, including gubernatorial elections in multiple states.

Contents

• Background
• Party switching
• Summary table
• Electoral predictions
• State summaries
• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Vermont
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming
• Territorial and federal district summaries
• American Samoa
• Guam
• Northern Mariana Islands
• U.S. Virgin Islands
• Washington, D.C.
• Special elections
• Alabama 2
• Arkansas 2
• Colorado 2
• Connecticut 2
• Florida 2
• Georgia 2
• Hawaii 2
• Kansas 2
• Louisiana
• Maine 2
• Massachusetts 2
• Michigan 2
• Minnesota 2
• Nebraska 2
• New Hampshire 2
• New Mexico 2
• New York 2
• North Dakota 2
• Oklahoma 2
• Pennsylvania 2
• South Carolina 2
• Texas 2
• Virginia
• West Virginia 2
• Wyoming 2
• Notes
• References

Background

The 2026 state legislative elections will be held as part of the midterm elections during the second presidency of Donald Trump. Republicans had seen very modest coattails in the 2024 legislative elections, flipping a net of just over 50 seats from the Democrats and breaking Democratic trifectas in two states, but establishing no new trifectas of their own. ^[3] Democrats performed very well in the 2025 elections, making substantial gains in Virginia and New Jersey and performing very well in special elections. ^[4] Entering 2026, Republicans fully control 23 state governments, Democrats control 16, with 11 states under split control.

Summary table

Regularly scheduled elections will be held in 88 of the 99 state legislative chambers in the United States. Nationwide, regularly scheduled elections will be held for 6,064 of the 7,383 legislative seats. Most legislative chambers will hold elections for all seats, but some legislative chambers that use staggered elections hold elections for only a portion of the total seats in the chamber. The chambers that are not up for election either hold regularly scheduled elections in odd-numbered years, or have four-year terms and hold all regularly scheduled elections in presidential election years.

Note that this table only covers regularly scheduled elections; additional special elections will likely take place concurrently with these regularly scheduled elections.

Electoral predictions

Several sites and individuals publish predictions of competitive chambers. These predictions look at factors such as the strength of the party, the strength of the candidates, and the partisan leanings of the state (reflected in part by the state's Cook Partisan Voting Index rating). The predictions assign ratings to each chambers, with the rating indicating the predicted advantage that a party has in winning that election.

Early predictions see a slightly more competitive state legislative landscape than at this point in previous election cycles, with most of the competitive being Republican-held. Democrats hope to capitalize on a potential wave election to win control of these chambers and break Republican supermajorities in others. ^[8]

Ratings are designated as follows:

• "Tossup": Competitive, no advantage
• "Lean": Competitive, slight advantage
• "Likely": Not competitive, but opposition could make significant gains
• "Safe" or "Solid": Not competitive at all

State summaries

Territorial and federal district summaries

U.S. Virgin Islands

Main article: 2026 United States Virgin Islands general election

All of the seats of the unicameral Legislature of the Virgin Islands were up for election in 2026. All members of the legislature serve a two-year term.

Virgin Islands Legislature

Party		Leader	Before	After	Change
	Democratic	Milton E. Potter	12
	Independent	Dwayne DeGraff	3
Total			15	15

Washington, D.C.

Main article: 2026 Council of the District of Columbia election

The Council of the District of Columbia serves as the legislative branch of the federal district of Washington, D.C. Half of the council seats were up for election in 2026. Council members serve four-year terms.

District of Columbia Council

Party		Leader	Before	After	Change
	Democratic	Phil Mendelson	11
	Independent		2
Total			13	13

Special elections

There are currently 72 state legislative special elections scheduled for 2026. ^[15] More than half of all states have procedures for special state legislative elections. ^[16]