Crime, Healthcare and Immigration Top Google's 2026 Midterm Election Searches
On the eve of Election Day, Google's own tally of what Americans searched this cycle puts crime first at 31 percent of issue searches, healthcare second at 27 and immigration third at 20 — and Senate races are drawing four times the searches of House races.
What voters type into a search box is not a vote, but on the night before the midterms it is a clear map of what is on their minds. Google's report on the 2026 cycle, covered by the Washington Examiner, found that crime made up 31 percent of issue-related searches, followed by healthcare at 27 percent, immigration at 20 percent, the economy at 17 percent and the Iran conflict at 5 percent. The figures were compiled from searches between October 2025 and October 18, 2026.
The order was not fixed all year. Crime has held the top spot since June 28, after healthcare led at points in May and June. Iran reached the highest single-week share any issue recorded — 35 percent of issue searches in the week of March 1 — while the economy dominated only the week of February 1 and immigration never held the top slot. Taken together, Google says the 2026 midterms are already the third-most searched midterm cycle in its history, behind only 2022 and 2018.
The searches also show where the attention sits in Congress: searches for Senate elections ran four times higher than searches for House elections over the past month of the data. That fits a map on which Senate control turns on a handful of states, even as every capital-region voter on Tuesday also decides House races — Virginia's 8th, 10th and 11th Districts among them — along with the District's mayor and Council and Maryland's statewide offices.
Search data comes with an honest limit, and Google's own summaries state it plainly: the trends show what people want to know, not which candidates they support, how they will vote, or whether they will vote at all. For voters in the District, Maryland and Virginia still deciding on Tuesday, the practical searches remain the local ones — where to vote, when the polls open, and what is on the ballot — and the answers are on the elections pages this desk has been publishing all week.
