The 2026 midterms decided who sits in the next Congress. Here is the new balance of power, every member who is arriving or leaving, how the delegation from your own state changes, and what happens between now and the first day.
Democratic majority: Democrats are projected to hold 257 seats to Republicans’ 170, with 8 not yet decided. The outgoing House had 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, 1 independent, and 2 vacancies on Election Day.
Democratic majority: 53 Democrats and 2 independents who caucus with them make 55, to 44 Republicans, with 1 seat not yet decided. Only 35 of the 100 seats were on the ballot; the other 65 senators carry over.
17 of 38 seats have a new, moved, or undecided occupant. 21 members return unchanged.
35 defeated a sitting member in November, 11 won the nomination from one, and 62 won a seat with no incumbent running.
7 have served in Congress before, most of them moving up from the House.
46 in the House and 8 in the Senate.
Never served in either chamber before. Their backgrounds are listed in the directory.
These seats have no projected winner yet, so they are left out of every count above rather than assigned to a party.
A new majority means new leaders, but none of them is chosen by the election itself. Each post is filled by a vote of the chamber or of a party caucus, and a post is shown as filled here only after that vote has happened.
The majority party chairs every committee and subcommittee and holds most of the seats on each. Chairs decide which bills get a hearing, which get a markup, and which never come up. Each caucus picks its own chairs before the new Congress opens.
In the House, the Speaker and the majority leader decide what comes to a vote, and the Rules Committee sets the terms of debate. In the Senate, the majority leader has the first right to be recognized, which is what lets him or her set the agenda.
Committee chairs call hearings and issue subpoenas for documents and testimony. With the chairs changing parties, so does the choice of what gets investigated.
Judges, cabinet officers, and ambassadors need Senate confirmation, and the majority controls whether and when a nominee gets a hearing and a vote. Confirmation takes a simple majority.
The president's term runs to January 20, 2029. Any bill Congress passes still needs a signature, and overriding a veto takes two-thirds of each chamber: 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate.
Most legislation needs 60 votes to end debate in the Senate under the cloture rule. No party is projected to hold 60 seats, so most bills will still need support from both.
The outgoing Congress keeps its full powers until its term ends. Sessions held after an election are called a lame-duck session, and they can pass laws like any other.
A new majority does not undo existing law by arriving. Repealing or amending a statute takes a new bill through both chambers and the president, like any other.
Members who will not hold the same chamber’s seat in January, grouped by how they left. Some are moving rather than leaving: a House member elected to the Senate is counted here for the House seat they gave up.
Six House members represent the District of Columbia and the territories. They serve on committees but cannot vote on final passage, and they are not part of the 435.
Congresses are numbered in two-year terms starting from the first one in 1789. The 119th runs from January 3, 2025 to January 3, 2027, and the 120th runs for the two years after that.
No. A race call is a news organization's projection that the remaining votes cannot change the outcome. The official result comes when each state certifies its count, and the Clerk of the House later publishes the certified totals for every race.
They expire. Legislation does not carry over from one Congress to the next, so anything unfinished has to be introduced again and start over, with a new bill number.
Possibly. Several states redrew their congressional maps before 2026, so some returning members now represent a differently numbered district and some districts have no returning member at all. Your address decides your district, not last term's number.
Members-elect have no official office until they are sworn in. Until then, the sitting member remains your representative for casework and votes. New members' offices and contact details are published once the term begins.
Attend orientation, hire staff, enter the lottery for office space, and vote in their party's leadership elections. They cannot vote on the floor or introduce bills until they take the oath.