Who will win the next midterm election?
Beyond public curiosity, forecasting lets scholars test theories against real outcomes in real time. With expanded data sources and tools, from polls and structural indicators to markets, crowds, machine learning, and AI—election forecasting has become a major engine of methodological innovation in political science.
The 2026 US Midterm Elections present especially demanding conditions: mid-decade redistricting, concerns about political stability and violence, shifting macroeconomic signals, and intense polarization. This special issue of PS: Political Science & Politics invites submissions that develop and evaluate forecasts suited to these dynamics, revisit the performance of long-run models under new stresses, or critically examine how forecasting is practiced and communicated.
We welcome point and probabilistic forecasts for House, Senate, gubernatorial, or state legislative contests; turnout modeling (including participation among key socio-demographic groups); methodological advances such as model ensembling, synthetic/combined polls, crowd or market signals, uncertainty communication, and ML pipelines; comparative perspectives from other democracies; and reflective pieces on the limits, ethics, and public consequences of forecasting.
Submission Details
Submissions should make a distinct empirical and/or theoretical contribution and be no longer than 4,800 words including notes and references.
- Submission & Format. Please submit manuscripts by July 17, 2026, via www.editorialmanager.com/ps, indicating that your paper is for the Special Issue on Forecasting the 2026 US Midterm Elections. Manuscripts should be in Word, use in-text citations with endnotes, and follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (per PS style). Authors may upload an online appendix for data, code, figures, or supplementary results.
- Review Timeline & Publication. All manuscripts will undergo accelerated peer review. Authors should be prepared to serve as referees for other submissions on the issue. If invited to revise and resubmit, the deadline for R&Rs is September 4, 2026; final accepted versions are due September 25, 2026. Accepted articles will appear on First View in mid-October 2026 on the PS website and will be compiled into a 2027 special issue of PS: Political Science & Politics.
Questions? Contact the editorial team at ps@apsanet.org.