2026 Midterm Elections
Issues touching on arts funding, censorship, AI regulation, and more are at stake for the country’s cultural sectors across key Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races.
Midterms are tomorrow, marking the first nationwide election since President Donald Trump started his second term in the Oval Office. In the wake of Trump’s financial and ideological crackdowns on Smithsonian, unapproved pet projects around the US Capitol, devastation to cultural landscapes through border construction, and dozens of other policies targeting history and heritage, many will be lining up at the polls with arts and culture policies on their minds.
Because Congress ultimately decides appropriations for federal arts entities, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, control of the House and Senate is incredibly important for the cultural sector. (Republicans currently have narrow majorities in both chambers.) From artists running for Congress, like Claire Valdez in New York and musician Bobby Pulido in Texas, to longtime culture advocates like Angie Nixon in the Senate race, we zeroed in on some of the key campaigns to watch in the United States if you care about artistic freedom, affordability for artists, and cultural funding.
We’ve organized this guide into three sections: Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races. Click through each section below.
Rebecca Schiffman and Lisa Yin Zhang also contributed to this guide.
Senate Races
Michigan
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed leads Republican Mike Rogers by an average of five points in one of this election cycle’s most-anticipated races. El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and the former head of the Detroit and Wayne County health departments, has been subject to repeated racism and culture war tirades over his Muslim faith and criticism of Israel by Rogers and President Trump throughout his campaign. Rogers, a former FBI agent and United States Representative, was endorsed by Trump in July 2025 and has received major funding from pro-Israel lobbying groups during this election cycle.
Here’s what you should know.
- At the center of Abdul El-Sayed’s platform is “Medicare for All,” which he co-authored a book guide on with Micah Johnson in 2021. This is particularly relevant for artists, among whom only 84% have access to health insurance, according to a 2023–25 survey by the National Opinion Research Center. El-Sayed also believes “unions are one of the most important bulwarks for the dignity of work in a moment when AI is coming for a lot of that.” He has been a member of the National Writers Union, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the AFT (American Federation of Teachers), and the Michigan-founded UAW (United Auto Workers), which represents workers at museums including Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
- Mike Rogers has routinely aligned with President Trump on key issues. Encore, a local Michigan performing arts news outlet, notes that “his congressional majority is the one that proposed zeroing out the federal arts education funding,” making his contrast with El-Sayed’s across-the-board pro-educational funding initiatives “not subtle.” Also in opposition to his Democratic opponent, Rogers has fiercely fought Medicare for All proposals and has consistently battled against UAW in Congress.
