About Congress Countdown

What This Is

Congress Countdown answers questions that change over time. A congressional term ends on a specific date; a Senate seat is or is not on the next ballot; the party split shifts with each resignation and special election. Reference works go stale on exactly these facts, so every number on this site is computed from current data rather than written by hand.

The site covers all 535 voting members of Congress plus the six non-voting delegates, all 50 state delegations, the 2026 election calendar, and roughly thirty explainers on how Congress works. It is free, requires no account, and is supported by advertising.

Congress Countdown is nonpartisan. It takes no position on candidates, parties, or legislation, and does not accept political advertising or sponsorship. Party colors on this site indicate affiliation only.

Where the Data Comes From

Every figure on this site traces to a public source:

• Member records — names, parties, states, districts, term dates, and Senate class come from the Congress.gov API, maintained by the Library of Congress.
• Committees, birthdates, and biographical details come from unitedstates/congress-legislators, a public-domain dataset maintained by the civic-technology community.
• Election dates and primary rules come from state election offices and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Early-voting dates are approximate by design — statutes count days differently from state to state — and the early-voting page defers to vote.gov for exact local dates.
• Primary results are entered by hand after races are called by state election authorities, never scraped automatically.
• District boundaries come from the unitedstates/districts project.

Race ratings, where shown, are attributed to their source (for example the Cook Political Report) and are not our own forecasts.

How Often It Updates

• Member data refreshes weekly, every Monday, and more often when membership changes during election season.
• The whole site rebuilds daily, so countdowns, ages, and “days remaining” figures stay accurate to the day.
• Election results are added as races are called, after verification against official state sources.

The member dataset powering this site was last refreshed on 2026-08-17. Pages that present computed figures show their own “data as of” date.

Accuracy and Corrections

Congressional data changes constantly, and automated pipelines make mistakes. Two categories of information on this site are verified by a human before publication: election results and state voting rules. Everything else is computed directly from the sources above.

If you find an error, please report it to congresscountdown@fastmail.com with the page and the specific figure. Corrections to factual errors are made promptly, and the underlying data is fixed at the source so the correction persists through the next refresh.

Citing and Reusing This Data

Journalists, educators, and researchers are welcome to cite figures from this site. The underlying facts are public record and free to use. When quoting a computed statistic — average age, party breakdown, seats up for election — please link the page it came from, since those numbers change and the page stays current.

For classroom or newsroom use, the embeddable widgets and countdown badge are free and require no account. Questions about a specific use are welcome at the address below.

Contact

Corrections, questions, embed help, and press inquiries: congresscountdown@fastmail.com

See also our privacy policy and terms of service.