The 2026 midterms are coming fast. Introducing CNN’s 20/26 Vision newsletter

By Aaron Blake, CNN

Washington (CNN) — I still remember my first job interview to cover politics in Washington back in 2006.

The job was writing about House and Senate campaigns, and I think I spent more time talking about which midterm races I was interested in than why I was the right candidate for the job.

(For the record, my sleeper pick – Republicans winning Vermont’s at-large US House seat – turned out to be wrong. But I got the job.)

I’ve always preferred midterm elections to the much more ballyhooed presidential ones. In presidential years, everyone focuses so much on one race – who the next president will be – but midterms really give nerds like me a chance to sink our teeth into a bunch of contests in our vast and disparate nation.

Who knows in 2026 whether the Senate majority might be decided by rural voters in the Bush of Alaska, Latino voters of South Texas, or by Mainers worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada?

Not me – at least not yet. But what I do know is that it’s all going to be fascinating and consequential, with both chambers’ majorities clearly in play and a potential early start of Trump’s lame-duck status on the line.

And that’s why we here at CNN are launching a short-run weekly newsletter devoted to keeping you updated on the most important developments in the battle for the House and Senate.

With 20/26 Vision, I’ll serve you all the major news, trends, polls and comments on Thursday every week starting in early September through the November election, and tell you why they’re important and what they mean for the race ahead.

The point is to give you everything you need to keep track of where things are, without overwhelming you – and to point you to other content if you want to go deeper.

The 2026 midterm elections will be here before you know it – so join me in examining the state of play in the coming weeks.

You might even decide they’re more interesting than electing a president.

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