Elections Stats

The House of Representatives is the larger chamber of the United States Congress. It has 435 voting members, who each represent one congressional district. The number of districts per state depends on its population and is redistributed after every census: California has the most with 52, while Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming have only one at-large district each.

Representatives serve two-year terms, so the whole chamber is up for election at the same time. The 2026 elections are midterm elections, held halfway through the presidential term, together with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate. In several states, new district maps were drawn ahead of the election, some of them in the middle of the decade.

The election takes place on 3 November 2026. To win a majority of the House, a party needs 218 seats.

In addition to the 435 voting members, the District of Columbia and five territories send non-voting delegates who can take part in debates and committees but cannot vote on the final passage of bills. In 2026, the delegates of D.C., American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands are elected, they are shown separately below the states and are not part of the 435 seats. Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner is elected every four years and is not on the ballot in 2026.

The country is divided into single-member districts. Every voter has one vote for one candidate in their district, and in most states the candidate with the most votes wins, even without an absolute majority.

Some states use different rules: In California and Washington, all candidates run in one primary and only the top two advance to the general election, even if they belong to the same party. Maine uses ranked-choice voting. In Louisiana, all candidates run on the same ballot on 3 November, and a candidate with more than 50 % wins directly; otherwise a runoff follows on 12 December. Candidates can be nominated by several parties at once in some states, for example in New York.

The delegates are elected under local rules: D.C. uses ranked-choice voting for the first time in 2026, and in American Samoa, where elections are officially nonpartisan, a runoff follows two weeks later if no candidate wins a majority.

Candidates must be at least 25 years old, have been a US citizen for seven years and live in the state they represent.