Key facts
- Democrats captured majorities in both the Senate and House in the November 3, 2026 midterm elections.
- Nearly 9 in 10 voters identified cost of living as a crucial or major factor in their vote, SSRS exit polls for US media outlets found.
- Diesel and gasoline prices were at their highest ever on an Election Day, price tracker GasBuddy said.
- Trump announced an $8 billion program to offset farmers' high diesel costs during the autumn harvest.
- A Trump administration official said the farm aid would not be disbursed until after the election.
- Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Republican Susan Collins in Maine's US Senate race, according to the report.
Democrats captured majorities in both the Senate and House in the November 3, 2026 midterm elections, scoring victories that reached into Republican strongholds, Reuters reported. Exit polls conducted by SSRS for a consortium of US media outlets showed nearly 9 in 10 voters identified the cost of living as a crucial or major factor in their vote, and many said they felt worse off than two years earlier.
Diesel and gasoline prices were at their highest level ever on an Election Day, according to price tracker GasBuddy, surpassing 2022 levels and pushed higher by the Iran war and Russia's war in Ukraine. High diesel costs can feed inflation because the fuel is burned in farm equipment, fishing boats, and trucks and trains that haul goods. Heating oil warms homes in northern states such as Maine, where Democrat Troy Jackson beat Republican Susan Collins, who had served nearly 30 years.
In October 2026, Trump told a campaign rally the US oil and gas business was making hundreds of billions of dollars after the Iran war and that fuel prices would come down. He also announced an $8 billion financial support program for farmers to offset high diesel costs during the autumn harvest. A Trump administration official said in late October that the aid would not be disbursed until after the election, and farmers said on Wednesday they did not know whether it would cover all their increased costs.
Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmers Union for 25 years, said high fuel and fertilizer costs helped convince farmers to back Democrats. Teske, 71, voted for Adam Hamilton, the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932. "That price of diesel, it goes way beyond what goes in the combines and the tractors," he said. "It's a Band-Aid," Teske said of the aid program.
Dan Atkisson, who grows grain sorghum near Stockton, Kansas, said he voted for Republican incumbent Roger Marshall for US Senate but that high diesel costs were impossible to avoid. "At the end of day, you still have to use diesel fuel to plant, to harvest, to spray, to haul the grain away," said Atkisson, 41. Jamie Ager, a Democrat who flipped North Carolina's 11th congressional district on November 3, told Reuters that farmers and rural residents cited high fuel prices as a key reason for their interest in his campaign.