What the 2026 Midterms Mean for Gun Safety

On Tuesday, voters elected gun safety majorities in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, flipped state legislatures, and built trifectas by electing gun safety governors in key battleground states. They chose leaders focused on protecting their families' economic and personal security, not the gun lobby's bottom line. These results put a check on a Trump administration that spent the last year gutting ATF, rearming domestic abusers, and shredding federal gun safety laws.

Many of the new leaders elected on Tuesday night were Moms Demand Action volunteers who spent years fighting for gun safety in their communities before ever running for office. They proved to be a political powerhouse: 447 volunteers were up for election this week across 44 states and, of the 403 races that had been called by Friday morning, 325 (81%) won. They join the more than 600 former volunteers who have been elected since 2021. All in all, Everytown organizations invested more than $53 million this election cycle to help elect gun sense champions across the nation - and it paid off.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The House: Voters elected a gun safety majority. The Everytown Victory Fund's $43 million program focused on the eight battleground districts where former Moms Demand Action volunteers were running. All eight volunteers won their House races, and Everytown was also successful in helping elect gun safety champion Jared Moskowitz in Florida's 25th Congressional district.
  
• The Senate: Voters flipped the Senate to a gun safety majority and elected Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina, the first former Moms Demand Action volunteer elected to the Senate.
  
• State Legislatures: The Everytown Action Fund and Everytown VF MN ran a $3 million campaign to elect former volunteers in battleground state legislatures in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where control of 10 chambers was at stake. As of Thursday morning, at least 34 Moms Demand Action volunteers have won state legislative seats across these 10 chambers, and gun safety trifectas have been established in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
• Governors: The Everytown Action Fund and Victory Fund partnered with the Democratic Governors Association to successfully elect or re-elect gun sense governors in 6 target states - Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Wisconsin. Additionally, gun safety champions won critical governor's races in Colorado, Maryland, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, making more life-saving progress possible.

GUN SAFETY MAJORITIES IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE:

Establishing a gun safety majority in the House was Everytown's top federal priority this cycle. The Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund invested more than $43 million to elect former Moms Demand Action volunteers in eight of the most competitive districts in the country (AZ-06, FL-22, IA-01, IA-02, IA-03, MI-08, MI-10 and PA-08). Working with House Majority PAC, the campaign highlighted the candidates' public safety records and the threat MAGA extremists pose to commonsense gun safety laws and our communities.

President Trump carried all 8 districts in 2024. Our volunteers won all 8 in 2026 - and at least 15 volunteers will be serving in the next Congress. Everytown also supported gun safety champion Jared Moskowitz in his re-election to Florida's 25th Congressional district.

Moms Demand Action volunteers were also at the center of the battle for the Senate, with the historic election of pediatrician and former Moms Demand Action volunteer Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina. Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund invested $500,000 in support of her campaign. A graduate of the Everytown Victory Fund's political training program, Demand a Seat, Senator-elect Andrews becomes the first Moms Demand Action volunteer elected to the United States Senate.

Here's what these new majorities will mean for gun safety over the next two years:

• A Congress that will hold the Trump administration accountable for weakening popular, bipartisan federal gun safety laws. With Leader Jeffries as Speaker, the administration will face oversight and subpoena power that only comes with the majority.
  
• A Senate that stands up to the administration instead of rubber-stamping its attacks on our gun laws or extreme MAGA judicial nominees.
  
• Defeating a federal concealed carry mandate and the rest of the gun lobby's agenda in Congress.
  
• Stopping further ATF cuts and bringing rigorous oversight of the only federal law enforcement agency tasked with combating gun crime. In April, ATF rolled out more than 30 changes that make it easier for guns to end up in the hands of violent criminals and harder for police to trace.
  
• Scrutiny of the change that opens the U.S. mail as a new trafficking channel, a lifeline for GrabAGun, whose investor and board member Donald Trump Jr. stands to profit.
  
• Restoring the community violence intervention funding the Trump administration cut. In April 2025, the Justice Department abruptly terminated $158 million in CVI grants, more than half of all federal CVI funding, pulling support from community-based programs proven to reduce gun violence.

MOMS DEMAND ACTION VOLUNTEERS WIN UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT:

Across the 2025-2026 election cycle, nearly 550 Moms Demand Action volunteers across 47 states stepped into the arena and put their names on the ballot in primary and general elections, including 40 who ran for Congress. Of the 447 up for election on Tuesday, 325 Moms Demand Action volunteers have won and at least 15 are heading to Congress - including Annie Andrews, the first volunteer elected to the United States Senate.

Many were trained through Demand a Seat, which Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund launched in 2021 to educate and train grassroots volunteers and gun violence survivors to run for office and work on campaigns. The program has trained more than 1,600 volunteers across 49 states and Washington, D.C. Before this election, more than 600 former volunteers have been elected, including six who were already serving in Congress before this election.

FLIPPING STATE LEGISLATURES, ELECTING GOVERNORS, AND BUILDING TRIFECTAS:

Progress in the states has long been the bread and butter of Everytown. This cycle, the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and Everytown VF MN ran a $3 million campaign to elect former volunteers in state legislative battlegrounds where control of 10 chambers was at stake, and the Everytown Action Fund and Victory Fund partnered with the DGA in 5 governor's races. As of Thursday morning, 34 Moms Demand Action volunteers have won state legislative seats, and gun safety champions won all five governor's races. Here's where things stand in our target states:

• Arizona: Flipped the state House, flipped the state Senate, and re-elected Gov. Katie Hobbs. New gun sense trifecta.
  
• Michigan: Flipped the state House, held the Senate and elected Jocelyn Benson governor. New gun sense trifecta.
• Minnesota: Flipped the state House, held the Senate and elected Amy Klobuchar governor. New gun sense trifecta.
• Nevada: Elected Aaron Ford governor, replacing Gov. Joe Lombardo, who vetoed every gun safety bill that reached his desk for two sessions in a row. With gun sense majorities in both chambers, Nevada is a new gun sense trifecta.
• Pennsylvania: Flipped the state Senate for the first time in more than three decades, held the House and re-elected Gov. Josh Shapiro. New gun sense trifecta.
• Wisconsin: Flipped both chambers and elected David Crowley governor. New gun sense trifecta.

Every gun safety bill has to reach a governor's desk. Paired with gun sense legislatures, these governors make their states a check on federal overreach and a bulwark against the gun lobby's agenda. Gun safety champions also won their gubernatorial races in Colorado, Maryland and Oregon.

Voters elected gun safety attorneys general, who defend state gun laws in court and can hold the gun industry and the administration accountable when the federal government won't. Kris Mayes in Arizona and Keith Ellison in Minnesota were re-elected, Josh Kaul won a third term in Wisconsin, and voters elected Nicole Cannizzaro in Nevada and Eli Savit in Michigan.

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT ON CRIME ATTACKS:

The candidates fearmongering loudest about crime are often the same ones backing policies that make it easier for guns to end up in dangerous hands and harder for law enforcement to keep communities safe. Everytown's research and testing consistently find that when gun safety candidates go on offense and call out MAGA opposition to common-sense gun safety laws, they defuse misleading "soft on crime" attacks while speaking to the real concerns voters have about public safety. The strategy is strongest when it's paired with the candidate's own record of keeping communities and law enforcement safe from gun violence.

This cycle, Everytown again put our money where our mouth is and successfully used this messaging frame in paid media across state and federal races. In Iowa's 1st District, Everytown Victory Fund ads introduced Christina Bohannan as the candidate running "to put public safety first." In Pennsylvania's 8th, they pointed to Paige Cognetti's record as mayor of Scranton, where she "got millions for police and cut violent crime by eighty percent."

It's a playbook Everytown has been building since 2022, when we set out to help gun safety candidates answer public safety attacks from the very candidates blocking the policies that protect police and communities. In Virginia in 2023, Everytown ran ads on this frame and Democrats erased the GOP's historic advantage on crime and public safety. In 2025, our Virginia program paired statewide ads highlighting Abigail Spanberger's law enforcement background and record on public safety with battleground district ads on how the MAGA agenda would make it easier for children, dangerous people and violent criminals to get guns. This cycle further vindicates the strategy.

NRA NOT REALLY AROUND AS SPENDING PLUMMETS FURTHER:

Everytown is now spending more on elections than the NRA did at its peak as the embattled organization limps out of election day focused on suing its former attorney for $200 million. The NRA spent just over $3 million on elections, with Everytown alone outspending them more than 17 to 1.

Even worse? Where the gun lobby did direct its meager resources, it lost. Gun extremist groups put their biggest electoral investments towards Senate races in Texas, Ohio and Michigan. Their candidates lost all three. Nearly half of the NRA's electoral spending went into the Texas Senate race, targeting James Talarico with ads. Voters made Talarico the first Democrat to win a Senate seat there since 1988 - a mere three years before Wayne LaPierre took over as the NRA's executive vice president and chief executive officer.

No one has stepped in to fill the vacuum left by the NRA's collapse. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Association for Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America spent a combined $713,000, with the latter spending more during the primaries than the general election.