Early voting is underway in the 2026 midterms, and the live tracker is now following national and statewide totals as ballots are cast across the country. The tally also includes states with competitive Senate battlegrounds, where early turnout often gets the closest scrutiny.
That is why voters are looking for the numbers now: the tracker is meant to show how many ballots have been requested or sent, and how many have already been returned, as the campaign enters its first measurable stretch. The national total is built from daily state totals sourced from TargetSmart and state officials, while party registration is estimated using state-provided partisanship when available and TargetSmart’s model of party affiliation.
What makes the count slightly harder to read is that not every state reports the same thing in the same way. The national figure for ballots requested or sent can also include the total number of registered voters in universal vote by mail states, where ballots are automatically sent to every registered voter. That means the headline number is not a simple one-state snapshot; it is a stitched-together picture of early voting across different systems.
The tracker is built to update as new state data arrives, so the numbers are only as complete as the latest reports from TargetSmart and state officials. In that sense, the story today is not just that early voting has started. It is that the first live read on the 2026 midterms is now in motion, and the totals will keep changing as more states post their counts.
