On Tuesday, Nov. 3, voters across the nation will head to the polls to cast their ballots in the 2026 midterm elections. This year, students, faculty, and staff registered in Swarthmore will vote in elections for Pennsylvania Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania’s fifth congressional district, the state senator from the 26th District, and the state representative for the 165th District.
They will also vote on a referendum to authorize Delaware County to take on debt to fund environmental projects and conservation efforts.
While the Democratic incumbents running for re-election to all these offices are favored to win, close midterm races for U.S House and Senate seats around the country have captured national attention. These elections are often seen as a referendum on the presidential term for which they mark the half-way point; due to historical trends and President Trump’s unpopularity, Democrats are favored to take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and have a strong chance to win a majority in the U.S. Senate.
Warren Snead, assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore, wrote in email correspondence with The Phoenix that the most important thing about midterm elections is that the President’s party almost always loses seats.
Snead attributed this in part to the tendency for the losers of the previous election to be more motivated to vote than those currently in power and complacent. Furthermore, the party not in power is able to capitalize on the perceived failures of the current administration, without the president up for re-election and garnering attention for their party’s downballot nominees.
Beyond historical trends, however, the results of specific elections in Pennsylvania and nationwide hold far-reaching implications for major policy priorities and political approaches.
What’s on our Ballots?
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has been polling far ahead of Republican challenger and current state treasurer Stacey Garrity throughout his campaign for re-election.
Shapiro, who has been in office since 2023 and made his ambitions for national office clear, has enjoyed notably high approval ratings throughout his term in a swing state that voted for President Trump in 2024. Many credit his moderate and pragmatic style and strong constituent services, but Shapiro has also struggled to win major legislative victories in a divided state house and was notably passed over to be Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024.
Mary Gay Scanlon, who has represented Swarthmore as the Congresswoman for Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District in Washington since 2018, is also likely to beat her opponent, financier Nick Manganero, in a district that voted for Kamala Harris by 29 points.
In an April interview with The Phoenix, Scanlon highlighted her connection to Swarthmore and focused on the strengths and shortcomings of the Democratic Party’s response to the Trump administration. In contrast, Manganero describes himself as an “America First, Constitutionally and fiscally Conservative Republican.”
At the state level, Sen. Tim Kearney (D – 26) and Rep. Jennifer O’Mara (D – HD 165) are also running for re-election to the state general assembly in districts that have offered them strong support in the past. Both have backed major state Democratic priorities like raising the minimum wage, finding new funding for mass transit, legalizing recreational marijuana, and expanding renewable energy. In May, 2024, O’Mara sat down with The Phoenix for an interview about her approach to politics and stances on controversial state issues like criminal justice and education.
Those state Democratic priorities, however, have been stifled in recent years by a stubborn Senate Republican majority. Democrats are aiming to flip at least three state Senate seats in tight districts (mostly in the Philadelphia suburbs) and gain a majority, while keeping the House and the governorship. Such a result would give the party full control of the state government for the first time since 1993.
On a more local level, the Delaware County referendum on conservation funding is supported by local environmental groups, who see it as a necessary financial step for important environmental protection and initiatives. If passed, the county could take on up to $120 million in debt to pay for water quality projects, habitat preservation, and new public spaces.
However, increased national attention to housing shortages have created common cause between local Republican groups skeptical of new public spending and real estate developers who argue that the measure would make it harder to build around the county. According to CBS News, the government of Delaware County estimates that borrowing the full $120 million would cost the average household about $24 per year.
Alums Turned Candidates
Some Swatties won’t just be voters next Tuesday, but candidates themselves. Swarthmore alums Phil Weiser ’90 and Will Lawrence ’12 both won competitive Democratic primaries in their races for governor of Colorado and U.S. Representative from Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, respectively.
Weiser has served as Colorado’s Attorney General since 2019 and made waves leading multi-state lawsuits against Meta, the Trump administration, and perpetrators of the opioid epidemic. He upset Colorado Senator Michael Bennet by thirteen points in a June primary on a platform advocating for a stronger state response to the Trump administration.
As the Democratic nominee in a state that has swung blue in recent years, Weiser is favored to win the general election matchup next week.
Lawrence co-founded the youth-led climate organization Sunrise Movement and is a longtime proponent of the Green New Deal. With support from the progressive side of the Democratic base, he won the party’s nomination against Bridget Brink, a former ambassador to Ukraine during the Biden administration who had many of the state’s highest-profile Democrats behind her, and another centrist candidate.
Lawrence will face incumbent Republican Tom Barrett next week to decide who represents a district that voted for Trump in 2024 by just one percentage point, making it one of the Democrats’ highest-priority targets.
A National Referendum
Lawrence’s race is one of around 35 expected to decide the majority. While Democrats did lose seats in the last midterm elections, during former President Joe Biden’s term, the phenomenon was less strong than usual. Snead thinks this was because Democrats ran on popular pro-abortion platforms soon after the Dobbs vs. Jackson Supreme Court ruling and were up against Republican candidates who were widely seen as unpopular.
Currently, Republicans currently hold a very slim 219-214 majority in the House of Representatives, which is re-elected every two years, giving Democrats a very good chance of flipping the chamber amidst rising disapproval of the Iran War and President Trump.
For the Senate, in which only 35 seats are up for election this year, Democrats have to win four seats currently held by Republicans, all while defending incumbents in tough states like Georgia and Michigan.
Still, a national environment favorable to the party’s priorities is resulting in strong poll numbers for Democratic senate candidates in North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska, and Iowa, and even bringing life to long-shot candidates in GOP strongholds like South Carolina, Kansas, and Nebraska.
In primary elections this year, candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America have had a newfound level of success. Nineteen DSA-backed candidates, including Lawrence in Michigan and Chris Rabb in nearby Philadelphia, have won primaries for Congress this year. These candidates have largely run campaigns focused on bringing costs down through taxing the wealthy and substantially increasing the social safety net, sparking national conversations about the place for such policies within the Democratic party and American politics at large.
If the Democrats win back at least the House, there will be a divided government come January 2027. With control of only the House, Democrats would be in charge of the chamber’s voting agenda and its power to conduct congressional investigations.
“I suspect they will use this power to play hardball on budget questions, investigate alleged corruption in the Trump White House, and advance legislation that will split the GOP coalition,” Snead wrote, highlighting tricky issues for the Republicans like data center construction, AI regulation, and abortion rights.
With control of the Senate, however, Democrats would have much more power to block President Trump’s nominations for District Court judgeships and spots on the Supreme Court. “If the Democrats can get to 52-53 Senate seats,” Snead wrote, in part to buffer against the unpredictability of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, “I have trouble imagining them allowing Trump to fill a SCOTUS vacancy.”
Therefore, Snead predicted that in the event Democrats win a senate majority next week, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito may retire immediately in order to give Trump time to get a new conservative nominee confirmed by the incumbent Republican caucus.
Snead also told The Phoenix that midterms tend to serve as a “note of caution” to those who think the country’s political tides have turned permanently. He referenced the 2010 midterms, in which Democrats lost a huge number of seats in federal and state chambers. The results came just two years after many had thought the large and racially diverse majority that carried President Obama to a commanding victory would be impenetrable.
Similarly, Snead highlighted, after Trump won a second term in 2024 by making inroads with young men and Hispanic voters, many saw the results as indicative of a major cultural shift that squashed the chances of progressive politics.
“It looks like the 2026 midterms will offer a stark reality check to the notion of a new ascendent GOP coalition and support those who argued that economic frustration powered Trump in 2024, not a transformative cultural shift,” he reflected.
