Leia com OPEU, n.4: What are the midterms, and what is at stake in 2026?
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By Wayne Selcher, selected with the support of Perplexity AI* [Leia com OPEU] [Midterms]
In this edition, I share with OPEU readers a few articles that may be of interest to those who follow or conduct research on the United States—more specifically, on the country’s electoral process. This list should be viewed as a starting point for further reading, rather than an end in itself. All the selected sources have been verified.
CAMPAIGN SPENDING
Recent Articles
| Article | Author(s)/Affiliation | Date | Focus |
| Midterm political ad spending reaches $565 million | Wesleyan Media Project (Fowler, Franz, Ridout) | Mar 5, 2026 | Ad spending by medium, sponsor type, state/district; outside groups driving >60% of spending |
| AdImpact Reveals 2026 Election Cycle to Reach Record $11.6 Billion in Ad Spending (see also Reuters coverage) | AdImpact | Jun 11, 2026 | Record cycle-wide ad spending projection, driven by Senate races |
| Statistical Summary of 12-Month Campaign Activity of the 2025–2026 Election Cycle | Federal Election Commission | 2026 | Official summary of candidate, party, PAC, and independent-expenditure activity for the cycle |
| New Data Illuminates How Secret Money Fuels 2026 Midterms | Issue One | Jul 22, 2026 | Dark-money groups funding major Democratic- and Republican-aligned super PACs |
| Top super PACs raise nearly $200 million and counting ahead of the 2026 midterms | Issue One | Jul 22, 2026 | Super PAC fundraising totals across House/Senate races |
| Players Guide 2026 | FactCheck.org (Annenberg Public Policy Center) | Aug 2026 | Profiles of eight major outside groups — leaders, funders, positions, spending |
| The new kingmakers: Crypto, AI and betting firms fuel record spending in 2026 midterms | Reuters | Aug 20, 2026 | Emerging industries (crypto, AI, sports betting) as new major outside-spending sources |
| Corporate Money in the 2026 Midterms Surges to $650 Million | Public Citizen | Aug 27, 2026 | Advocacy-group report on corporate-linked super PAC spending (note: advocacy org, not academic — use with appropriate framing) |
CANDIDATE QUALITY & CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Scholarly & Data Sources
| Source | What it covers | Link |
| Split Ticket — Wins Above Replacement (WAR) Database | Quantitative measure of individual candidate over/under-performance relative to district fundamentals; the modern empirical successor to Jacobson-style candidate-quality research | split-ticket.org/full-wins-above-replacement-war-database |
| “Do Quality Candidates and Incumbents Still Matter in the Partisan World?” (Politics & Policy, 2024) | Peer-reviewed trend analysis of candidate-quality/incumbency effects on U.S. House outcomes, 1900–2022 | tandfonline.com |
| “Policy and Quality Differences in Congressional Elections” (Buttice & Stone, Journal of Politics) | Foundational peer-reviewed candidate-quality literature building on Gary Jacobson’s framework | journals.uchicago.edu |
| “Candidate Quality in U.S. Elections to Congress” (Northeastern University, Congressional Challengers project) | Academic research initiative studying challenger quality and its effects on competitiveness | cssh.northeastern.edu |
| “Candidate quality and the congressional vote: A causal connection?” (Electoral Studies) | Peer-reviewed causal analysis of the candidate-quality-to-vote-share relationship | sciencedirect.com |
Recent Articles
| Article | Author(s)/Affiliation | Date | Focus |
| Assessing the role of candidate quality in the 2026 midterms | Brookings Institution | Sep 25, 2025 | Candidate-quality effects on House/Senate outcomes |
| Candidate Quality And The Democrats’ 2026 House Playing Field | Split Ticket | Aug 6, 2025 | Empirical assessment of Democratic recruitment quality across the 2026 House map |
| Intraparty tensions shape the 2026 midterm primary landscape | Brookings Institution | 2026 | Whether Trump’s grip on the GOP is waning and the Democratic progressive wing is gaining strength, and how that shapes primary candidate selection |
| The 2026 Midterms: What the Democratic Party can learn from the 1986 Midterms | Joe Ryan-Hume, LSE US Politics and Policy blog | Aug 19, 2026 | Base-mobilization vs. ideological-moderation campaign strategy debate |
ELECTION ADMINISTRATION & VOTING ACCESS
| “Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes” (Journal of Politics, 2017) | Peer-reviewed empirical study of voter-ID laws’ effects on minority turnout | journals.uchicago.edu |
| “Strict Voter Identification Laws and Turnout: Differential Effects by Election Type and Adoption Timing” (SSRN, 2024) | Peer-reviewed working paper on how voter-ID effects vary by election type and timing | papers.ssrn.com |
INTERFERENCE IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS
| Article | Author(s)/Affiliation | Date | Focus |
| The EAC Calls on Americans to Become Poll Workers Ahead of 2026 Midterms | U.S. Election Assistance Commission | Jan 27, 2026 | Poll-worker recruitment ahead of the midterms |
| State Voting Laws Roundup: May 2026 | Brennan Center for Justice | May 19, 2026 | State-by-state voting-law legislative changes |
| States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies Requiring Proof | Brennan Center for Justice | Apr 23, 2026 | Documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements spreading at the state level |
| SAVE Act: Will you need a photo ID to vote in the 2026 midterms? | Nick Beauchamp & Martha Johnson, Northeastern University (political science) | Feb 18, 2026 | Expert analysis of the SAVE Act’s potential disenfranchisement effects |
| The Battle Over Mail-in Voting May Disrupt the 2026 Midterm Elections | James M. Lindsay, CFR, citing Steve Vladeck (Georgetown Law) | 2026 | Supreme Court rulings and USPS mail-in voting restrictions |
| Trump team scrutinized election agency over 2020 vote before firing its leaders | Reuters | Jul 17, 2026 | EAC leadership turnover and independence concerns ahead of the midterms |
MEDIA COVERAGE, AI AND MISINFORMATION RISKS
| 2026 midterms: Expert says news media, voters will struggle to keep up | Yini Zhang, Asst. Professor of Communication, University at Buffalo | Jan 13, 2026 | AI-generated misinformation, platform fragmentation, and distorted perceptions of public opinion |
| AI deepfakes blur reality in 2026 US midterm campaigns | Reuters | Mar 28, 2026 | AI-generated deepfakes entering campaign advertising and messaging |
| Midterms, Media, & Data with Steve Kornacki | Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics | Apr 24, 2026 | Panel discussion on how media coverage is shaping the midterm narrative |
| Americans’ Knowledge of Civics Increases, Annenberg Survey Finds | Annenberg Public Policy Center (Univ. of Pennsylvania) | Sep 2025 | Rising civics knowledge alongside declining, more polarized trust in the Supreme Court |
| News Use, Political Knowledge, and Misperceptions in 18 Countries Across the Global North | Stuart Soroka, UCLA | 2026 | Cross-national comparative evidence on media type, knowledge, and misperception (useful for comparative work) |
POLARIZATION
| Public Opinion Quarterly | Peer-reviewed articles on polarization’s effects on turnout/participation, e.g. “The Stuck Electorate” and “Effects of Polarized Evaluations on Political Participation“ | academic.oup.com/poq |
| Stark partisan divide in who thinks their side is winning and losing in politics | Pew Research Center,
Feb 24, 2026 |
Record 50-point partisan gap in perceived political “winning,” a proxy for distorted political information/perception |
REDISTRICTING
Scholarly & Legal Sources
| Article | Author(s)/Affiliation | Date | Focus |
| Mid-Decade Congressional Redistricting: Key Issues | Sarah J. Eckman & L. Paige Whitaker, Congressional Research Service | Mar 4, 2026 | Legal constraints (constitutional, VRA Section 2) on mid-decade redistricting — nonpartisan legal analysis |
| Explainer: What’s happening with gerrymandering in the United States | Benjamin Schneer, Assoc. Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School | May 4, 2026 | Court-sanctioned partisan gerrymandering’s effects on proportionality and minority representation |
| Supreme Court decision alters 2026 midterm election outlook | Brookings Institution | Apr 30, 2026 | Legal/redistricting shock to the congressional map |
| Will Virginia be the final mid-decade redistricting battle? | Brookings Institution | Apr 23, 2026 | State-by-state mid-decade redistricting wars |
TURNOUT
| American Journal of Political Science | Peer-reviewed turnout research, e.g. “Compulsory voting increases men’s turnout most“ | onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15405907 |
GENERAL MIDTERM DYNAMICS (fundamentals, approval, issues, forecasting)
Articles that inform the broader 2026 midterm picture but aren’t specific to polarization, turnout, redistricting, candidate quality/campaign strategy, media coverage/advertising, voter knowledge/political information, campaign finance/outside spending, or election administration/voting access.
| Article | Author(s)/Affiliation | Date | Focus |
| What history tells us about the 2026 midterm elections | Brookings Institution | Aug 28, 2025 | Historical midterm-cycle patterns |
| GOP midterm prospects darken as Trump approval falls | Brookings Institution | Apr 28, 2026 | Presidential approval and generic-ballot dynamics |
| Why affordability will be a key issue in the 2026 midterm elections | Brookings Institution | Apr 16, 2026 | Cost-of-living as dominant issue |
| Generic Ballot Model Gives Democrats Strong Chance to Take Back House in 2026 | Sabato’s Crystal Ball, UVA Center for Politics | 2025 (model updated through cycle) | Quantitative generic-ballot forecasting model |
| As the 2026 Midterms Approach, Economy Is Front and Center | Pew Research Center | Jul 23, 2026 | Survey evidence on economy as top voter concern |
| What do special elections mean for the midterm elections? | Brookings Institution, citing Kyle Kondik (UVA) | Apr 16, 2026 | Low-turnout special elections as partisan-enthusiasm/turnout indicators ahead of the midterms |
Note: Brookings pieces are written or reviewed by resident scholars but bylines are not always displayed on the page; treat as institutional (non-peer-reviewed) analysis. The CRS report and Harvard Kennedy School/IOP pieces carry named academic/nonpartisan authorship and are the strongest citations for scholarly work. 
* Wayne A. Selcher, PhD, is Professor of International Studies Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA, USA, and a regular contributor to OPEU. His major academic interests are Comparative Politics, American society and politics in comparative context, American Foreign Policy, Latin American Politics and Foreign Policy (especially Brazil), and Internet use in international studies teaching and research. He is the creator and editor of the WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources, a web guide for online international studies research in many topics. E-mail: wayneselcher@comcast.net.
** Review and edit: Tatiana Teixeira. This content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of OPEU, or INCT-INEU.
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