District of Columbia elections in 2026
3 electoral votes · 0 House seats · Mid-Atlantic · no statewide race on the 2026 ballot
No District of Columbia race has been through a scheduled simulation yet. When one has, the statewide call appears here and on the Midterms 2026 tab of the homepage, labelled as a simulation.
How District of Columbia votes
The District of Columbia participates in presidential elections with three electoral votes but has no voting representation in Congress, which keeps statehood and home rule at the center of its politics. It is the most reliably Democratic jurisdiction in the country.
Its largest population centers include Washington. Where a state's people live, and what those places do for a living, is the starting point for how Electorate HQ simulations reason about it.
On the ballot in District of Columbia
Election day is November 3, 2026. District of Columbia has no statewide race; DC elects a non-voting delegate to the House.
Statewide races
No Senate seat or governorship is up in District of Columbia this cycle.
Find your exact districts
Your address goes to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder to find your districts. It is not stored, and no AI sees it.
Before you vote in District of Columbia
Registration deadlines, early voting windows, mail ballot rules and identification requirements are all set at the state level and change between cycles, so the authoritative source is your own election office rather than any national site. The federal directory at vote.gov links to every state's registration system, and the DC Board of Elections publishes the sample ballot that includes local contests.
The ballot section above covers the federal and statewide offices on the District of Columbia ballot for November 3, 2026. Each statewide race links to a page with current coverage and an AI-generated simulation of the contest, always labeled as a simulation rather than a poll.
Local races
Local councils and commissions, school boards, judges, sheriffs and municipal offices are also on many District of Columbia ballots, and they vary block by block. The DC Board of Elections publishes the authoritative local sample ballot.
District of Columbia's weight in Washington
District of Columbia carries 3 electoral votes, which ranks it 47 of 51 by that measure, and sends no voting members to the House, electing a non-voting delegate instead.
That arithmetic is why the same national argument lands differently here than in a state of another size: a candidate courting District of Columbia is competing for a specific share of the map, and the issues below are the ones that share actually turns on.
How District of Columbia is represented
District of Columbia sends a delegate to the House who may debate and vote in committee but not on final passage, and it elects no senators. Its three electoral votes come from the Twenty-third Amendment rather than from congressional representation, which is why statehood remains a live argument here rather than a settled one.
Electoral votes follow the same arithmetic, House seats plus two, which is why District of Columbia carries 3 in a presidential year and why small states carry proportionally more weight there than population alone would give them.
Latest District of Columbia political headlines
Election 2026: Employers’ State + Local Obligations for Employee Voting Time OffStates, civic groups urge Supreme Court to leave order in place prohibiting Trump administration from implementing parts of mail-in ballot ruleGovernor Newsom signs bill to protect California’s sovereignty and guard against unauthorized military deployments2026 Elections Put Statehouses, Ballot Measures in the SpotlightJustice Department directs states to hold on to 2024 election records as it seeks their voter dataGovernors Homeland Security Advisors Council 2026 Summer MeetingJudge questions Trump's ban of three prominent news outlets from White HouseWhat is the unemployment rate in District of Columbia, DC right now?Simulate District of Columbia
In the Electorate HQ simulator, District of Columbia is one of 51 delegations that reads current reporting and decides a presidential race issue by issue. Results are AI simulations, clearly labeled, with the reasoning shown for every call. See the methodology for what that does and does not mean.
Analysis covering District of Columbia
In five states, the House race is the entire federal ballot in 2026
Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah and Washington have no Senate or governor race in 2026. Thirty-two House contests are the entire federal ballot.
Six states have exactly one representative, and they are not alike
Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming each elect a single at-large member. The largest is 266 times the smallest.
Election night is reported in 3,142 counties and decided in 435 districts
The unit America counts votes in and the unit America allocates House seats in are different shapes, and they do not nest inside each other.