By: Sabrina Ahmed, Policy & Public Affairs Manager
The Electoral Landscape
On November 3rd, American voters will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and 39 governorships. The result will determine which party holds control in Congress for the next two years, and it will symbolize a judgement on the administration’s first half-term. What it will not do, however, is change the underlying conditions facing infrastructure delivery – and for investors, that’s the distinction that matters.
Republicans currently control both chambers, but the House majority is narrow enough that Democrats need only three additional seats to take over – and history has rarely favoured the governing party; the President’s party has lost ground in the House in twenty of the past twenty-three midterm cycles. Redistricting carried out after 2024 was expected to provide Republicans with some insulation, but that advantage has been eroded by falling approval ratings and cost-of-living pressure, with rising fuel prices as a result of tensions in the Middle East.
The Senate may be a tougher climb, as Democrats would need a net gain of four seats whilst holding everything they already have. With twenty-two of the thirty-five contested seats are Republican-held, current forecasts point to Republicans retaining it. A split Congress is therefore the most plausible outcome – Democrats taking the House, Republicans retaining the Senate.
What a Split Congress Means for Infrastructure
The most tangible consequence of that split will be a legislative slowdown. Revenue and spending bills must originate in the House, so an opposition majority can stall the administration’s fiscal agenda outright, with committee chairs gaining subpoena power and a sharper oversight remit. In practice, this means less legislation, but not necessarily different legislation.
Whilst a Democratic House can stop the administration passing laws, it won’t be able to pass laws of its own: any bill clearing both chambers would still require the President’s signature, which he can simply refuse. Overturning a veto takes a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, a margin no realistic November result comes close to delivering. The blockage will therefore run in both directions, and the outcome is stalemate rather than a reversal of policy direction.
For infrastructure, that stalemate holds fewer consequences than at first glance. Whatever happens in November, states will retain the authority to legislate, procure and permit, and they have continued to do all three whilst federal reauthorization has stalled in the Senate. Thirty-nine governorships are on the ballot, twenty-one of them held by incumbents who are term-limited or not seeking re-election, so a substantial cohort of new state executives will take office in January with wide latitude over how infrastructure gets delivered. The appetite to build is there and will not depend on the composition of Congress.
The outstanding issue of funding certainty remains – an issue only partially influenced by the outcome of the midterms.
Fiscal Uncertainty for States
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the BUILD America 250 Act – a five-year, $580 billion package – by a bipartisan 62-2 vote in May, but the bill has not reached the floor and the Senate has produced no text of its own. The current programme – authorised under the IIJA – is set to expire on September 30th. With no successor ready, Congress is expected to extend it by attaching a short-term patch to the stopgap bill that keeps the federal government funded. Investors should not read too much into this however; every surface transportation bill since 1991 has required an extension first.
What is specific to this cycle is the deadline that follows: Legislation does not carry over between Congresses, meaning if the bill is not enacted before the current one ends on January 3rd, it must be reintroduced, returned to committee and marked up again. If the House changes hands, it will return under a different chairman with different priorities. This means further delays in the legislative process, with states needing to start long-term projects without assurances that the promised funding will still exist by the time they finish.
Regardless of the outcome, states still don’t have the fiscal capacity to deliver infrastructure on their own; Of the $580 billion from the BUILD America Act, only $474.4 billion is guaranteed from the Highway Trust Fund contract authority, with the remaining $106 billion authorized from the General Fund. This is, however, subject to annual appropriations, and can be cut, delayed or dropped.
Private Capital’s Expanding Role in the U.S.
That points to a larger role for private capital, which does not rest on who wins in November. States have the mandate, the authority and the appetite to build. What they cannot supply themselves is a multi-year funding framework – and the federal government is heading towards a position where it cannot reliably supply one either.
The 21 new governors taking office in January will inherit both problems – a federal framework that may have to restart from scratch, and a Highway Trust Fund approaching depletion by FY2028. Each will have to decide how to mitigate against these. Those decisions, taken in state capitals over the next twelve months, will shape the American infrastructure market more than anything settled on November 3rd.