Civics Answers That Change

A handful of civics questions do not have a fixed answer. They ask who holds an office now, so the correct answer changes with elections, resignations, and appointments. The USCIS question bank deliberately prints "visit uscis.gov" instead of a name, and the officer will not accept an outdated answer.

There are two kinds. The four federal offices below are the same for everyone. The senators and governor depend on where you live, so find your state in the second table, or your district or territory in the third. Everything on this page links to the official source, and each table says when the names were last checked.

Federal offices

The President's party changes only when the presidency changes party, so it is tracked in the same file as the four offices. The 2025 test does not ask for it.

Your state's answers

Two questions depend on where you live: one of your state's U.S. Senators(question 20 on the 2008 test, 23 on the 2025 test) and your governor (question 43 on the 2008 test, 61 on the 2025 test). Either senator is a correct answer.

District of Columbia and the territories

None of these jurisdictions has U.S. Senators, so residents answer that the district or territory has no senators. The governor question works differently: D.C. has no governor and USCIS accepts exactly that answer, while residents of a territory answer with their territory's governor.

The other state-dependent question asks you to name your U.S. Representative. A Representative depends on your congressional district rather than only your state — and in a territory it is a non-voting Delegate or Resident Commissioner — so instead of guessing, use the House of Representatives lookup to find yours by ZIP code.

How these answers stay current

The state senators and governors come from the unitedstates project and Wikidata, regenerated by a script in this site's repository, and reviewed before publication. The four federal offices are checked by hand against USCIS. If you spot an outdated name, treat the official source as authoritative — and check USCIS test updates before your interview, because a name can change at any time.

Practice these questions with the 2025 and 2008 quizzes, or read every question on the 2025 question list and the 2008 question list.