Election Day 2026: Date, Holidays, Midterm Elections & School Closures

Election Day 2026 falls on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. This date sets the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, which determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives, roughly one-third of the U.S. Senate, and dozens of governorships.

It is not a federal holiday, though a subset of states close schools and government offices for it. This guide covers the date and its legal basis, what is on the ballot, holiday and school-closure status by state, what stays open, and the mechanics of registering and voting.

This page does not cover primary election dates, which vary by state and already occurred or are occurring on separate dates throughout 2026, nor does it cover results reporting, which is not available until polls close on November 3, 2026.

When Is Election Day 2026?

Election Day 2026 is Tuesday, November 3, 2026 — the statutory date set for federal general elections in every even-numbered year.

Election Day in the United States is the annual day for general elections of federal, state, and local public officials, and with respect to federal elections it is statutorily set as “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” of even-numbered years.

Why Election Day Always Falls on a Tuesday After the First Monday in November

The Tuesday-after-the-first-Monday formula exists to keep Election Day out of a fixed calendar slot (like the 1st or the 15th), so it never lands on November 1st, which is All Saints’ Day, or coincides with month-end business closings that were common in the 19th century. The date must fall within the range of November 2 to November 8.

In 2026, that range places the date on November 3. In 2025 (an off-year cycle) it fell on November 4, and in 2027 it will fall on November 2.

Election Day 2026 Marks a Midterm Election Cycle

Election Day 2026 is a midterm election, meaning it falls at the two-year midpoint of a presidential term rather than a presidential-election year.

Midterms typically draw different, usually lower, turnout than presidential years, but they carry outsized stakes for legislative control: all 435 U.S. House seats, 35 U.S. Senate seats, and 39 governorships are contested simultaneously.

This distinguishes 2026 from the 2025 election cycle, which centered on off-year state and municipal races rather than federal congressional control.

What’s on the Ballot in the 2026 Midterm Elections

The 2026 ballot centers on three federal contests — House, Senate, and the presidency’s midterm check — plus governorships, state legislatures, and local ballot measures.

Election Day 2026 involves House elections for all 435 voting members and five of the six non-voting delegates, Senate elections for 35 of 100 seats, and gubernatorial elections for 39 seats across 36 states and three territories.

U.S. House of Representatives: All 435 Seats

Every U.S. House seat is up for election every two years without exception, and 2026 is no different. Heading into the 2026 general elections, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, holding an approximately 218-seat majority in the House against roughly 214–215 Democratic-held seats, with several vacancies pending special elections.

Democrats need a net gain of three House seats to win a majority, while Republicans can lose no more than two seats and retain control. Winners are sworn into the 120th United States Congress, which convenes January 3, 2027.

U.S. Senate: 35 of 100 Seats

Senate seats are staggered into three classes so that only about a third of the chamber is up in any cycle. Class 2 senators, last elected in 2020, are up for election in 2026, and Class 2 currently consists of 20 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

Two special elections are also being held on November 3, 2026: one to fill the remaining two years of the six-year term Marco Rubio was elected to in Florida in 2022, and one to fill the remaining two years of the term J.D. Vance was elected to in Ohio in 2022.

That brings the total contested Senate seats to 35. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win control of the Senate, while Republicans can afford to lose no more than two seats net and retain their majority.

Winners of the 33 regular Class 2 races serve six-year terms expiring January 3, 2033; the Florida and Ohio special-election winners face voters again in 2028.

Governor and State Races: 39 Seats

Thirty-nine gubernatorial seats are contested in 2026, spanning 36 states and three territories. Governor races typically run on four-year terms and are decided independently of federal party control, though gubernatorial outcomes directly affect state-level Election Day policy — including which states designate the day a legal holiday, discussed below.

State Legislatures, Ballot Measures, and Local Races

Below the federal and gubernatorial level, 2026 ballots include state legislative races (state senates and assemblies, most on two- or four-year cycles), state ballot measures and constitutional amendments, and county- and municipal-level contests such as school board and county clerk races.

These vary entirely by state and county and are not standardized nationally.

2026 Federal Elections at a Glance

Is Election Day 2026 a Federal Holiday?

Election Day 2026 is not a federal holiday. It is not one of the 11 holidays established under 5 U.S.C. 6103 for federal employees, so federal offices, most banks, and financial markets remain open.

Holiday status instead varies by state, and separately, some states mandate paid or unpaid time off for voting regardless of holiday status.

States That Recognize Election Day as a Legal Holiday

Fourteen states designate Election Day a legal public holiday, and the protections attached to that status differ by state. Five states — Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and West Virginia — treat Election Day as a public holiday and separately require employers to provide paid time off to vote.

Nine more states — Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia — designate Election Day a public holiday but do not mandate paid leave from private employers.

In practice, a public holiday closes state and county government offices and, in most of these states, public K-12 schools; it does not automatically close private businesses.

Election Day Holiday and Leave Status by State Category

This classification reflects Movement Advancement Project research accessed July 31, 2026.

How Federal Holiday Status Differs From State Holiday Status

A federal holiday closes all federal government offices and applies uniformly across all 50 states; a state holiday closes only that state’s own government offices and applies only within that state’s borders.

Because Election Day is a state holiday in 14 states and not a federal one anywhere, a federal employee in, say, Ohio reports to work as usual on November 3, 2026, while a state employee in neighboring West Virginia does not.

Election Day 2026 at Work: Voting Leave Laws by State

Separate from holiday status, most states require employers to give workers time off specifically to vote, whether or not the day itself is a holiday.

Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C. require businesses to give employees time off during the workday to vote:

• Alabama,
• Alaska,
• Arizona,
• Arkansas,
• California,
• Colorado,
• Georgia,
• Illinois,
• Iowa,
• Kansas,
• Kentucky,
• Maryland,
• Massachusetts,
• Minnesota,
• Missouri,
• Nebraska,
• Nevada,
• New Mexico,
• New York,
• Ohio,
• Oklahoma,
• South Dakota,
• Tennessee,
• Texas,
• Utah,
• West Virginia,
• Wisconsin, and
• Wyoming.

Seven of those states do not require the leave to be paid: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The remaining 21 states plus D.C. on that list require paid leave.

Voting Leave Requirements by State

Leave duration typically runs one to three hours, and most states with a notice requirement ask employees to request time off before Election Day itself. Employers are not required by federal law to compensate this time; each state’s statute controls whether it is paid.

Election Day 2026 is not a federal holiday. Fourteen states make it a state holiday, and 28 states plus D.C. require employers to give workers paid or unpaid time off to vote on November 3, 2026.

Are Schools and Colleges Closed on Election Day 2026?

School closure on Election Day 2026 is decided at the state and district level, not nationally, and status varies district by district even within a single state.

There is no single federal or state law that closes all U.S. schools on Election Day; closures happen either because a state designates the day a public holiday or because an individual school building is used as a polling place.

Why K-12 Public Schools Close on Election Day

Public school closures on Election Day most commonly occur for two separate reasons: statewide holiday designation or the individual school building being used as a voting location.

Safety and access concerns around large numbers of adult voters moving through active school buildings drive many district-level closure decisions independent of state law.

States That Require School Closure When Buildings Are Used as Polling Places

In the 14 states with a legal Election Day holiday listed above, public school districts generally follow the state holiday calendar and close. Outside those 14 states, closure decisions are made by individual school boards, most often triggered by a district’s use of school facilities as designated polling sites under county election-administration rules.

This means a district’s Election Day 2026 status cannot be assumed from state law alone — it depends on that district’s specific facility-use agreement with local election officials for the 2026 cycle.

New York City Public Schools: A Case Study in Year-to-Year Closure Changes

New York State is one of the five states with an Election Day holiday and paid-leave mandate, yet its largest school district changed its Election Day policy between school years.

For the 2025-26 school year, New York City students had Election Day off, but under the 2026-27 calendar released in April 2026, students will not have the day off — instead, schools remain in session remotely for all students on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

Physical school buildings and other Department of Education facilities remain open on November 3, 2026, though employees working in borough, citywide, and central offices are entitled to take another day off without using annual leave.

This year-over-year change illustrates a broader pattern: a state’s legal holiday designation does not lock in a specific school-closure format from one year to the next, since districts can shift between full closure, remote instruction, and normal in-person operation between academic-calendar cycles even when state holiday law is unchanged.

Do Colleges and Universities Close for Election Day 2026?

Most U.S. colleges and universities do not automatically close for Election Day, even in the 14 states with a legal state holiday.

State-employee holiday status governs administrative and payroll operations for public institutions; it does not automatically cancel academic instruction, since course scheduling is typically set independently by a university registrar or academic senate.

A state holiday, in other words, tells you whether the state closes its offices — it does not by itself tell you whether a specific public university cancels class.

K-12 School Districts: Confirmed November 3, 2026 Status

New York City, Chicago, Fairfax County, and Montgomery County close schools or shift to remote learning for Election Day 2026. Houston, Miami-Dade (partially), and Los Angeles do not designate it a day off.

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and Election Day Participation

Independent of state holiday law, a large number of U.S. colleges participate in a nonpartisan campus voter-engagement initiative that affects Election Day programming without necessarily canceling classes.

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, a national nonpartisan initiative housed under Civic Nation and founded in 2016, has partnered with over 1,000 campuses across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., reaching more than 10 million students.

Participating institutions commit to voter-registration drives, polling-place information, and campus-based civic programming; participation does not, by itself, indicate that classes are canceled on Election Day 2026.

What’s Open and What’s Closed on Election Day 2026

Because Election Day is not a federal holiday, most everyday institutions operate on a normal schedule. Financial markets, most banks, and the postal service are not affected, while state and local government offices vary depending on that state’s holiday designation.

Election Day 2026 Operating Status

The stock market does not follow the same schedule as federal holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas, and investors can buy and sell securities on Election Day as they would on any other Tuesday.

The NYSE and Nasdaq typically observe 10 stock market holidays each year, and Election Day is not among them.

How to Vote in the 2026 Midterm Elections

Voting mechanics — registration, polling-place lookup, early voting, and identification — are governed almost entirely at the state level, so the applicable rule always depends on the voter’s state of residence.

Voter Registration Deadlines and Same-Day Registration

Registration deadlines and formats differ by state and by registration method. As of January 2026, 42 states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington, D.C. offer online voter registration, and one state, North Dakota, does not require voter registration at all.

For the November 3, 2026 general election, most state registration deadlines fall between October 4 and October 26, 2026, and 22 states plus D.C. allow same-day registration at a polling place on Election Day itself.

Same-day registration for the 2026 general election is available in California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Finding Your Polling Place

County and state boards of elections publish polling-place lookup tools tied to a voter’s registered address; there is no single national lookup source, since polling locations are set at the county level.

Voters should confirm their specific polling location for November 3, 2026, close to Election Day, since polling sites can change between election cycles due to facility availability.

Early Voting and Absentee/Mail Ballots

Early in-person voting and absentee/mail voting rules vary by state on three dimensions: whether an excuse is required to request an absentee ballot, how many days before November 3, 2026 early voting opens, and the ballot receipt or postmark deadline for mail ballots.

These rules are set independently by each state legislature and change between election cycles, so voters should confirm current-year rules with their state’s Secretary of State or board of elections rather than relying on a prior cycle’s dates.

Voter ID Requirements by State

Identification requirements at the polls are among the most state-variable rules in U.S. elections. As of January 2026, 21 states require voters to present photo identification when voting in person, while 12 states require non-photo identification.

Sixteen states do not require any in-person identification at the polls at all. In states requiring ID, voters unable to produce it are typically permitted to cast a provisional ballot pending eligibility verification rather than being turned away outright.

Election Day 2026 FAQs