Allan Lichtman, the historian who correctly called nine of the last 11 United States presidential elections, has issued his final verdict on the 2026 midterms: Democrats will win back both chambers of Congress when voters go to the polls on Tuesday, November 3. The Lichtman midterm prediction puts Democratic chances of retaking the House at more than 90 percent, and their chances of winning the Senate at 67 percent, with a narrow 51-49 Democratic majority his most likely outcome.
In an interview with The Times of London published on October 30, Lichtman said the political winds were blowing heavily against President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, pointing to the president's low approval ratings, a clear Democratic lead in the generic congressional ballot, a reversed enthusiasm gap and an early vote that, in his reading, looks favourable to Democrats.
Lichtman, 79, a professor of history at American University in Washington, delivered the forecast in interviews with The Times and with the Ukrainian outlet hromadske in the final days of the campaign. Both interviews landed on October 30, four days before Election Day, as more than 43 million ballots had already been cast in early and mail voting, according to University of Florida Election Lab figures reported earlier in the week.
"I think it's almost certain, 90 percent plus, that Democrats will take over the House," Lichtman told hromadske. On the Senate he was more cautious, but only relatively: "The Senate is more difficult because Democrats have to win quite a few seats, four or five seats in deep red states. That's certainly possible, but it's difficult," he said, putting the odds at about two-thirds.
To The Times he gave the same shape of forecast in plainer terms: "I have predicted a 67 per cent chance that the Democrats would take back the Senate. I think the most likely but not necessarily definitive outcome is 51-49. This is not based on a model, understand, it's just based on my knowledge of history and current politics."
The House arithmetic explains his confidence. Republicans hold the chamber by just 218 seats to 214, so Democrats need to win only a handful of seats to take the majority. "Democrats need to win only a handful of seats to take the majority," Lichtman told The Times. "I put the odds above 90 percent."
Lichtman's reputation rests on the "13 Keys to the White House", a forecasting system he developed with geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok that judges presidential elections on 13 historical indicators about the incumbent party's governing record, rather than on conventional polling. The system correctly called nine of the past 11 presidential elections, but it missed in 2024, when Lichtman predicted that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would defeat Trump, and it also missed the extremely close 2000 race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
That record is precisely why his midterm call comes with an important caveat, one Lichtman himself insists on: the 13 Keys are for the presidency, not for midterms. His midterm assessment instead draws on four indicators he has described in earlier interviews: historical midterm patterns that punish the president's party, the generic congressional ballot, voter enthusiasm, and Democratic overperformance in off-year and special elections since 2024.
On the first of those, Lichtman cites a stark historical average. "When the approval rating for a president is as low as Trump's, on average the White House party loses 40 House and six Senate seats," he told The Times. He immediately qualified it: "It's not a prediction, that's just showing how heavily the winds are blowing against Republicans." In the hromadske interview he gave the same caution: "I'm not predicting that because that's an average."
The polling backdrop is consistent with his reading. Emerson College Polling's final national survey, conducted October 24-26 among 1,000 likely voters, put the generic ballot at Democrats 52 percent to Republicans 42 percent, with Trump's approval at 37 percent and disapproval at 57 percent. The RealClearPolling average cited by Al Jazeera put Democrats ahead 51.4 percent to 43.2 percent. Prediction markets pointed the same way, with Polymarket giving Democrats a 94 percent chance of winning the House and a 69 percent chance of taking the Senate.
Lichtman said Democrats hold a seven- to 11-point lead on the generic ballot, a measure he considers more reliable than polls of individual races. "The other thing I look at is not just the horse-race polls but the generic congressional poll, and that's very heavily favouring Democrats, by seven to 11 points," he told The Times.
Beyond the headline numbers, Lichtman named four forces behind his call. The first is approval: Trump's rating has fallen into the low-to-mid 30 percent range, and Lichtman told hromadske that roughly 70 percent of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. The second is enthusiasm: usually Republicans turn out at a higher rate, Lichtman said, "but this time it looks like the Democratic enthusiasm is higher" — a finding echoed by Emerson, which found 76 percent of Democrats "very excited" to vote compared with 64 percent of Republicans.
The third is the early vote. "The final thing I look at is the early vote. Over a third of voters have already voted. So far, it looks pretty good for Democrats," Lichtman told The Times. The fourth is the map itself: Democrats are competitive in states that should, on recent history, be out of reach. "It's amazing that Democrats are competitive in South Carolina, which Trump won by 18 points," he said. "Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the Great Depression in 1932 and yet that's a neck-and-neck race, as is Iowa."
On the Senate map, Lichtman expects Democrats to flip Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas while holding the closely fought contest in Michigan. He added that Democrats could well win Alaska, so his prediction was erring on the side of caution. In Alaska, former Representative Mary Peltola is the Democratic candidate in a race complicated by a legal dispute over two candidates named Dan Sullivan — the Republican incumbent and an independent also registered as a Republican — which could delay the result for days or weeks if Senate control hinges on it.
Lichtman also blamed what he called weak Republican candidates for some of the party's difficulties, naming Ken Paxton in Texas, Roger Marshall in Kansas and Darline Graham in South Carolina. And he criticised the influence of wealthy donors and outside spending, pointing to billionaire Elon Musk's support for Republican candidates.
Lichtman's own words frame the forecast as history speaking, not as a model spitting out a number. "My system is based on history, and historical patterns can be broken," he told hromadske, addressing his 2024 miss directly. He offered two explanations for that failure: the unprecedented pressure that led President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race shortly before the election, and what he called the "misinformation election". "Never before, and I've studied American history from the founding to the present, have political leaders so openly and viciously trashed their sitting president and their almost unanimously elected nominee, and then forced him not to run right before the election," he said. "That is without precedent."
Pollsters urge caution about reading any forecast as a result. Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, told Al Jazeera this week: "Polls are not perfect predictions of outcomes. We could see those close races go either way, either due to polling errors or due to voters moving just a little more in one direction or the other." Franklin added that Democrats are more enthusiastic and more certain they will vote, "giving Democrats an important edge, and reflects Republican disappointment in current national conditions."
Lichtman himself sounded a similar note about the limits of his method. In an earlier USA TODAY interview on October 23, he said of the Senate: "If you had asked me a few months ago, I would have said absolutely not, no chance. Now I would say there's about a two-thirds chance that Democrats will, in fact, take back the Senate." The shift, he said, reflected the same four factors — history, generic polls, enthusiasm and off-year results — moving together against the president's party.
If Lichtman is right, the consequences reach far beyond bragging rights for a forecaster. A Democratic House would give the opposition subpoena power, control of the legislative calendar and the ability to block the remainder of Trump's second-term agenda. A Democratic Senate would change confirmations, oversight and the fate of any vacancy on the Supreme Court. Together, both chambers would transform the final two years of Trump's presidency from one-party rule into divided government.
The forecast also matters because of what Lichtman says is driving it. He identified inflation as the leading issue for voters, followed by broader economic concerns, and argued that Trump's tariffs and the war with Iran have contributed to rising prices, higher gasoline prices, sluggish job creation and declining real wages. He also said concerns about democracy and political corruption have risen sharply since 2024, when they were not among voters' principal concerns, and that the war in Iran has eclipsed the war in Ukraine as a voting issue. "Typically when America goes to war, at least early on, you'll have a rally around the flag effect," he said. "That never happened in this war." He estimated that roughly two-thirds or more of Americans oppose the Iran war, though he did not cite specific polls in the interview.
For the same reason, the forecast is a test of Lichtman's standing. He compared the current climate to the 1966 midterms, when Democrats suffered major losses under President Lyndon B. Johnson amid growing opposition to the Vietnam War and domestic unrest — the mirror image of today's backlash, with the parties reversed. If Democrats do sweep both chambers, his reputation as America's election oracle will be burnished despite 2024. If they fall short in the Senate, the miss will be counted alongside Harris and Gore.
Voters decide on Tuesday, November 3. Trump returns to the campaign trail on Sunday, November 1, with restored in-person rallies in Kansas and Iowa after briefly cancelling them in favour of tele-rallies, and both parties are running telephone rallies across nearly 20 states in the final 72 hours. Early voting ends in most states on Saturday, October 31, and the final weekend is expected to set the tone for turnout on Election Day itself.
Some races may not be called on Tuesday night. Close contests can remain uncalled while mail, provisional and other eligible ballots are counted, and the Alaska Senate dispute could leave control of the chamber unresolved for days or weeks. Lichtman, for his part, declined to look further ahead: asked about the 2028 presidential election, he told hromadske, "I don't have a call yet. It's much too early to make that call. There's so much that can happen over the next two years. So check in with me later and I'll give you my prediction."
Allan Lichtman is a 79-year-old professor of history at American University in Washington, known for the "13 Keys to the White House" forecasting system, developed with Vladimir Keilis-Borok, which correctly predicted nine of the last 11 US presidential elections.
He predicts Democrats will win both chambers: more than a 90 percent chance of retaking the House, and a 67 percent chance of winning the Senate, with a 51-49 Democratic majority his most likely Senate outcome.
No. Lichtman stresses the 13 Keys forecast presidential elections only. His midterm call is his own assessment based on history, polling, enthusiasm and early voting, not a formal model output.
Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, while holding Michigan. He also named Alaska as a possible further pickup, saying his forecast errs on the side of caution.
Yes. He predicted Kamala Harris would win in 2024 and missed the extremely close 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. He attributes the 2024 miss to Biden's unprecedented late withdrawal and to misinformation.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Midterm Polls 2026: Democrats Lead Republicans 52-42 in Final Emerson Survey, Ted Cruz Texas Warning: We Could Lose Every Statewide Race Before Midterms, and Trump Kansas-Iowa Rallies Back On for Sunday After Abrupt Cancellation.
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