Weekly check-in · Week of Monday, November 9, 2026
Voters delivered a mandate. Every week, we check who is following it.
All 264 Democratic senators and representatives — scored from the primary record: roll-call votes, official statements, and their own words in news reports and video. One scored vote this week. Eleven empty chairs. A leadership fight in the Senate. Here is where everyone stands.
208Following the Mandate
22Advancing the Establishment
34No scored action
Following the Mandate — 208Advancing the Establishment — 22No scored action — 34
Every square is one tracked member — the Senate and the House, scored for the week of November 9, 2026.
The senators at the center of this week's story — the ones who drew a line, and the ones who closed ranks. Their records are in the spotlights below.
Last updated: Friday, November 13, 2026 — the first check-in, published early. Next check-in: Monday, November 23, 2026, covering the week of November 16. New check-ins every Monday. Read the full first check-in →
Pick your state and see the people who represent you — their portrait, their verdict for the week of November 9, 2026, and the record it rests on. Every state and territory with Democratic members is in the roster: 264 members tracked.
Choose a state above and your senators and representative will appear here, with their verdicts for this week.
This week: how the scoreboard was built
The vote
On Tuesday, November 10, the House voted on shelving the impeachment resolution against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (H.Res. 1655, Roll Call 317). The motion carried 211–204 — and every one of the 203 Democrats who voted, voted NAY to keep impeachment alive. Each earns a Following the Mandate week.
The eleven empty chairs
Eleven Democrats were listed Not Voting on Roll Call 317 — on a margin of seven votes. Under the published method, an absence from a significant vote is a finding, and each of the eleven is scored Advancing the Establishment and named on the scoreboard, explanations included where they offered one. How absences count →
The Senate: scored on their own words
The Senate took no roll call on government funding this week, so there was no Senate vote to score. Sixteen senators are scored instead on their public statements — five Following the Mandate, eleven Advancing the Establishment — each with the quote, the outlet, and the date on their record.
The story that wasn't
Accounts circulating this week described a 60–40 Senate “shutdown deal” vote with eight Democratic “defectors.” That vote did not happen in November 2026 — it is November 2025 coverage recirculating with new dates. The Senate held no funding vote this week. We check the record before we score it; so should everyone else.
The Senate's week was told in statements. One group of senators refused to fund the Iran war and demanded new leadership; another closed ranks behind the incumbent. These are their records, in the project's own words — the full text of each entry is on the scoreboard.
Standing with the mandate
Holding the line for the establishment
The backdrop · 2015 vs. 2027
12 Years of Drift
Why a mandate exists at all: in 2015, Republicans held the Senate, the House, most governorships and most state legislative chambers — while the federal debt climbed from $18.2 trillion toward a projected ~$42 trillion, and what cost $1.00 came to cost about $1.45. The November 3, 2026 midterms answered it. The projections for 2027:
U.S. Senate
100 seats · 51 to control
201554 R46 D
2027 Projected56 D44 R
U.S. House
435 seats · 218 to control
2015247 R188 D
2027 Projected255 D168 R
Governors flip too: 31 Republican in 2015, a projected 30 Democratic in 2027. State legislative chambers: 68 Republican in 2015, a projected 51 Democratic in 2027.
Current government funding runs to a December 11, 2026 deadline — and this week's statements were the opening moves of that fight: whether a funding deal keeps paying for the Iran war, whether leverage gets traded away, and who leads the caucus into it. When the votes come, they will be scored the same way as everything here — from the record.
Every Monday, we re-score. The next check-in posts Monday, November 23, 2026, covering the week of November 16. Between check-ins, the most useful thing you can do is make sure your members know the record is being kept — the letter tool addresses your specific senator or representative, keyed to the week they just had.
