Pins zu place:"United States Capitol"

Federal funding lapsed just after midnight on 1 October 2025 and stayed lapsed for 43 days, the longest shutdown ever, over a fight about expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

A stopgap covering six of the twelve appropriations bills expired on 31 January 2026, closing roughly half of federal agencies until the House passed a funding package 217-214 on 3 February.

Voters nationwide decide control of the U.S. House and Senate in the first midterm election of Donald Trump's second term. Prediction markets on Polymarket and Kalshi, along with the generic congressional ballot, have swung toward Democrats over the course of 2026, a reversal from the start of the cycle, as Trump's approval rating slid and voters cited cost-of-living pressures as a top concern.

The stopgap signed in September expires on 11 December 2026, the deadline for Congress to enact the twelve fiscal 2027 appropriations bills or pass another continuing resolution before agencies shut down.

The Congress elected in the 2026 midterms first meets on January 3, 2027, and the House can do no other business until it has a Speaker. On 20 September 2026 Kalshi's market on the next new Speaker had Hakeem Jeffries at 86% — the table's chance, against “88% chance” on the order ticket beside it — with Jim Jordan at 10% and Steve Scalise at 2.6%.

The statutory deadline for the President to send the fiscal 2028 budget to Congress is the first Monday in February 2027 - a deadline no president has met in over a decade.