About Map the Midterms

What this site is

Map the Midterms is a voter guide to the 2026 midterms. It has a sample-ballot sketch you can narrow by ZIP, race guides that cite their polls and name the outlet behind each rating, and a results page for Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026. It explains how the election works. It does not try to persuade anyone.

• Neutral, factual framing for voters, journalists, and students
• Cross-links among ballot, races, polls, and results
• Visible sources on candidate facts, ratings, and poll rows
• Pointers to official state, county, and Vote.gov sources

What this site is not

• Not an official government, secretary of state, or county election website
• Not a voting guide endorsement and not legal, campaign-finance, or election-administration advice
• Not a political committee, PAC, or candidate campaign
• Not a place to donate to candidates or committees
• Not a voter-file product and not a registration or ballot-request processor
• Not a live certified-results service

How the site is funded

Readers who find this site useful can leave an optional tip through Stripe (“Keep this map free”). Tips are not political contributions and are not tax-deductible. In the future we may add affiliate links, for example to civics and election books; any page with affiliate links will say so directly above them. We take no money or advertising from candidates, campaigns, parties, or PACs, and tips or commissions do not affect what we cover or how we describe it.

Editorial methods and sources

The byline on explainers, race previews, and state briefings is the Map the Midterms Editorial Team. It is an organization, not a personal name. Pages that identify the operating company are the legal pages linked below. Explainers do not repeat that identification.

A fact in an explainer or a preview is tied to a page a reader can open. Election offices, the Clerk of the U.S. House, the Senate’s class and terms pages, the Constitution and the U.S. Code, the Census Bureau’s voting and registration series, and a state’s canvass are the usual primary sources. A poll appears only when this site stores the pollster, the dates, the sample, and a link. A race rating appears only with the outlet’s name, the label that outlet used, and the date on the guide. The label is that outlet’s judgment. It is not a forecast by this site.

The wording is written here. Pages link to a statute, a canvass, a candidate’s site, or a news report. They do not paste those pages. A candidate’s public statement is included only when the sentence cites the page where the candidate, or a reputable outlet quoting the candidate, published it. When the citation on hand is an election-office candidate list, the preview says the list identifies who is on the ballot. It does not invent a speech.

The team does not predict who will win, does not call a race, and does not average polls into a model. One survey can be described with its sponsor and its dates. A reader who wants a forecast should open the outlet that publishes one and read that outlet’s methods.

“Last updated” is the latest stored date among the sources and deadline checks the page renders, including this methods section where it appears. It is not a promise that every figure was re-read that morning. The sources page lists the Census files behind place directories. Those directories stay on that file list.

The learn library is evergreen civics: how a House or Senate majority is counted, how mail and provisional ballots move a total, what a recount and a certification are, and what the Electoral Count Reform Act changed about presidential electoral votes. Those pages are linked from the navigation and from the state and race pages that use the idea.

Candidate names and party labels, when they appear, identify an office or a ticket only. Bios are short original paraphrases with outbound links. We prefer a narrower sentence over a louder one. Corrections use the contact form. The copyright and corrections page says what a report should include.

Use of AI tools

The team uses AI writing and research tools to help draft, check, and organize pages. A draft is not published because a tool wrote it. Facts, dates, and figures are checked against the official or reputable source the page cites, and an independent automated review screens new text for unsupported claims before it goes live. Where the site shows an illustration made with an AI image tool, it is labeled as AI-generated. Results and vote counts are never generated by AI; they come from the cited election office or a named outlet. If you find a mistake, use the contact form.

Read the disclaimer, privacy policy, terms of use, copyright and corrections page, and advertising disclosure. Corrections: use the contact form.