Democratic polling leads in Michigan and Maine have come with questions.

LatestHere’s the latest.Turnout appeared strong in battleground states on Tuesday, as millions of people cast votes that will determine control of Congress and deliver a verdict on an unpopular president who has implored the country to act as if he were on the ballot. Voting was in its final hours in many states, with the first polls set to close at 6 p.m. Eastern time.Democratic candidates have blamed President Trump, and the war he started this year in Iran, for the economic hardships that have driven a current of frustration across the nation, putting Republicans on defense in even reliably red states. They have tried to change the subject from the economy by portraying their Democratic opponents as extreme.In Texas, which is hosting a hotly contested Senate race, overall turnout could exceed 10 million votes, which would exceed the total in each of the last two midterms. In Georgia, Election Day turnout was on track to exceed that of the 2024 presidential election, the Georgia secretary of state said.Full results won’t be known until well into the evening — and maybe not for days or longer, particularly if many of the races are close — but it’s clear that voters were eager to have their say after an acrid and an intense campaign, with early voting surpassing recent midterm totals. In each of the major Senate battlegrounds, including Texas, North Carolina and Michigan, early turnout eclipsed that of the last midterm cycle. And in several states, the share of registered Democrats increased in the early vote.A handful of polling places across the country, including in Westchester County, N.Y., reported voting problems on Tuesday, although there was no evidence of major issues as of the afternoon. After a tense campaign season, an office of Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican, was vandalized with fake blood overnight, according to a spokeswoman for the senator.Democrats are hoping they are on the precipice of major gains that will stymie Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda and show that their party can win in red states where they have struggled since the onset of the Trump era. Opinion polls show they are widely favored to win control of the House, although it is not clear how deep into Republican terrain their victories might extend.Surveys also indicate that Democrats are on track to increase their numbers in the Senate, and party leaders are hopeful about winning a majority. But doing so remains a challenge, since reclaiming the chamber will require them to flip four Republican-held seats and defend all of their own.Money has also cascaded into the campaign. This is the most expensive midterm election, as measured in spending on political advertising, since at least 2018, according to data from AdImpact. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, alone contributed $474 million to Republican groups, candidates and their allies, more than any donor has ever spent in a single election cycle.Here’s what else we’re covering:A complicated landscape: More than 400 Times reporters, editors, data analysts, video journalists and photographers are covering the midterms, seeking to understand a large country with voters who are complicated — and sometimes contradictory. Read more ›The counting process: Control of the Senate will hinge on the outcomes in the battleground states of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas. Here’s when to expect results ›Minor disruptions: A technical problem with voting machines in Westchester County, outside New York City, led officials there to collect ballots by hand in a competitive House race. In Florida, flooding forced more than 20 polling stations across eight counties to be relocated. In North Carolina, technical problems at several precincts caused minor delays; state election officials said they would delay the release of election results to at least 8:15 p.m. from 7:30 p.m. Read more ›Know your rights: Many election officials and Democrats have said they fear that Mr. Trump’s attacks on the integrity of U.S. elections could lead to tensions during voting and baseless challenges to the outcome. The administration has sought to prove that many noncitizens have cast ballots, but few people have been charged with offenses related to voting fraud. Local and state officials say they are well prepared to run a secure election.Court rulings: A federal judge has turned down a request by Democratic lawmakers and party organizations to prohibit the Trump administration from coercing states into screening incoming ballots. And the Supreme Court issued what appeared to be an extraordinary rebuke to Mr. Trump, signaling that it was not interested in assisting his efforts to interfere with how states administer elections.Anna GriffinReporting from AlaskaIn Juneau, Alaska, Elizabeth Thomas said Republican suggestions that the state’s top-four, ranked-choice ballots or the placement of two candidates named Dan Sullivan might confuse people were overblown. It took her just a few minutes at the Alaska State Museum to vote for Mary Peltola. “People here know how to do it,” she said. “It’s not complicated.” Thomas, 43, works in natural resource management and said she voted for Peltola because she is part Alaska Native and agrees with her on many issues, especially environmental ones. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leader, just arrived at the hotel in Washington where volunteers are phone banking, to thank them for their work. “What you all have represented throughout the last two years, which have been incredibly difficult, gives us all hope and inspiration that we are going to be able to bring about a brighter future,” he told a few dozen young volunteers who were making calls. “We’re on the brink of a dramatic change of direction in this country,” he said. “We’re on the brink of Democrats taking back control of the House of Representatives.”VideoHow We Model Election Results With the NeedleOur live election night forecast is known as “the Needle.” Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The New York Times, explains how it works.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTEvan Reynolds, Laura Bult, Brian Oh, Stephanie Swart and Edward VegaVideoWhat to Watch in Georgia and North CarolinaOur election data reporter Evan Reynolds looks at counties that could decide the Senate race in the diverse and rapidly growing southern states of Georgia and North Carolina.Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington State, the chair of the House Democrats campaign arm, told me earlier today that she is confident Democrats will win the House majority but does not expect to have enough races called tonight to know for sure. “I’m a West Coaster so I know our numbers won’t come in until closer to 11,” DelBene said. “We might have to wait a while later tonight before all the results come in.”Polls in Florida show Ashley Moody, the incumbent Republican senator, with the lead over Angie Nixon in the Florida Senate race. A Times/Siena poll from mid-October showed Moody ahead by six percentage points. Other polls show a similar lead for the senator.The race for governor looks quite a bit tighter than the Senate race. Still, polls show Byron Donalds, the Republican, with an edge over David Jolly, the Democratic nominee. The Times/Siena poll found Donalds with a four-percentage-point edge.Democratic polling leads in Michigan and Maine have come with questions.Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominees for Senate in Michigan and Maine, have faced some doubts inside their own parties regardless of their polling leads.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times; Scott Eisen/Getty ImagesDr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Michigan, has consistently led Mike Rogers, his Republican opponent, in public polling. In Maine’s Senate race, Troy Jackson, a Democrat, has led most recent polls, albeit by smaller margins.Both states have been closely watched as they are swing states known for surprising those who watch elections closely. Michigan has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1994, but voted for President Trump in 2024. In Maine, the opposite is true: The five-term incumbent is Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, but the state has voted for the Democrat in every presidential election since 1992.Both Democratic candidates have also faced some doubts along the way, regardless of their leads in the polls. Some have questioned whether Dr. El-Sayed’s strong views about U.S. policies toward Israel could alienate voters, while Mr. Jackson has been questioned as a relative unknown — he entered the race after Graham Platner dropped out — who is going up against a popular incumbent.Dr. El-Sayed appears to be gaining ground. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted in late October found him leading Mr. Rogers by seven percentage points, up from a three-point lead in early September. The poll also found that his support among college graduates — a traditionally Democratic stronghold — had risen to 62 percent, an 11-point increase from when CNN polled the race in September.This week, the final Times/Siena poll of Michigan had his lead at 11 percentage points, his highest margin since the matchup was set following the August primary. A majority of voters said they viewed him favorably, while just 37 percent said the same of Mr. Rogers.Polls in Maine have been far more mixed. Mr. Jackson has led in most recent surveys, but his margins have generally been tight and a handful of polls have showed the race tied or Ms. Collins narrowly ahead.A Fox News poll conducted by Beacon Research/Shaw & Company in mid-October found the candidates tied at 49 percent, while a late-October poll from CNN/SSRS found Mr. Jackson ahead by four percentage points. And an Emerson College survey, sponsored by Poll Vault, found Ms. Collins ahead by one point — making it just the second survey fielded in the past month (out of 16) to find her in the lead.In the final Times/Siena poll of the race, which was released on Sunday, Mr. Jackson led by six percentage points — a nine-point leftward shift from our last poll of the race in mid-September.Mr. Jackson is also contending with Ms. Collins’s history of outperforming polls. In 2020, she trailed in nearly every public poll of the race down the stretch, but went on to beat her Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon, by about eight percentage points. Polls had underestimated her support by roughly 12 percentage points, though that came in a presidential election year in which polls systematically overstated Democratic support.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTI’m in Bethlehem, Pa., where a hotly contested House race in Pennsylvania’s Seventh District has kept poll workers busy with a steady stream of voters all day.VideoCreditCredit...Talya Minsberg/The New York TimesHeather Knight and Jonah ReendersHeather Knight was disappointed when her San Francisco polling place moved from a garden conservatory dating back over a century to the hallway of an elementary school.In San Francisco, voters cast ballots in hair salons and strangers’ garages.ImageAna’s Barber Shop in the city’s Mission District.Credit...Jonah Reenders for The New York TimesMost Americans who vote on Election Day cast their ballots in everyday, drab places like school cafeterias and recreation centers.Not so in San Francisco, which has always reveled in its weirdness. Its 501 polling places — more than 10 per square mile — include hair salons, flower shops, art galleries, a training center for improv actors and strangers’ garages.It was in one of those garages on Tuesday morning that Jay Streets, wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt festooned in the word “Vote,” set up a bar serving free Vote-a-Lattes and Ballot Buster Dirty Sodas.ImageJay Streets set up a beverage bar for voters who cast ballots in his garage.ImageCredit...Jonah Reenders for The New York TimesVoters could also enjoy coffee, doughnuts, fruit, popcorn and chocolate, all surrounded by American flags hanging from just about every corner.“They say I’m the mayor of the block,” said Mr. Streets, 66, a retired carpenters union representative. He said it was the 16th time that he had offered up his garage near the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park as a polling place, each time moving most of his vintage car collection onto the street.Across the park, even more unusual is the polling place at the San Francisco Columbarium, a building to remember the dead. There, under a copper dome, voters can cast their ballots among thousands of niches containing ashes of the dead, including those of Chet Helms, the music promoter who made Janis Joplin a star and is called the father of the Summer of Love. Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights icon, is also memorialized there, though his ashes were scattered in various places, including the Pacific Ocean.Nate Gellman, 35, a poll worker there, said things were slow enough that he had a lot of time to look around and think.ImageThe San Francisco Columbarium, a building to remember the dead. Credit...Jonah Reenders for The New York TimesImageThe National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi.About what, exactly?“Cycles of life,” he said. “Lives lived, you know? That stained glass used to be better.”He pointed out the favorite niches he had discovered, included those of the founders of Anchor Steam craft beer, the San Francisco classic. (The beer itself also died in 2023 after 127 years, though there are efforts to revive it.)San Franciscans do not actually have to go to the polls at all since all active, registered voters in California now receive mail-in ballots under state law.But Andy Pastalaniec, who manages the city’s polling places, said San Francisco’s unusual offerings stem from its commitment to providing one for every precinct, a quaint concept these days, especially in a high-density city with more than 536,000 registered voters.ImageClub Fugazi, a North Beach theater that is home to Dear San Francisco, a variety show including singers, dancers and acrobats. ImageEl Mansour, a Moroccan restaurant.Credit...Jonah Reenders for The New York TimesOf course, there are never enough fire stations or libraries available to keep that ratio, so seasonal workers called “poll locaters” fan out months before Election Day in search of willing hosts. In exchange, each host gets $250, which does not go very far, particularly in San Francisco.“It is mostly something folks do just out of the goodness of their hearts,” Mr. Pastalaniec said.At Ana’s Barber Shop, the sign offering taper fades and mullet fades was moved aside to make way for voting equipment. It was the same at El Mansour, a Moroccan restaurant, where the sandwich board offering rabbit tagine and nighttime belly dancers leaned against the facade.ImageHoogasian Flowers in the South of Market District.Credit...Jonah Reenders for The New York TimesAt Hoogasian Flowers, voters cast their ballots while surrounded by piles of teddy bears, balloons and bouquets. Jessica Larson, a 34-year-old software engineer, said she signed up to serve as a poll worker for the first time after seeing social media influencers suggestively promote the gig by making a joke about working stripper poles.“Democracy is super sexy, absolutely!” she said with a laugh.In the back, Jorge Hernandez crafted a huge bouquet of pink and purple flowers. Mr. Hernandez, 57, said he immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago from Mexico because he is gay and felt more comfortable living in the Bay Area.He said that if he were making a bouquet for Election Day, he would choose all white gladiolas, lilies and roses to symbolize peace. There is too much fighting among Americans, he said, and he feels the country should focus on unity and opportunity.“Politicians can get voted out,” he said. “The people decide.”He grabbed another long-stemmed pink rose and kept working.Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon that he did not send federal immigration agents to polling sites today, which had been a widespread concern among civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups leading up to the election.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe F.B.I. debunks claims of fraudulent Texas votes.ImagePeople arrive to vote on Election Day in Houston. Credit...Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressThe F.B.I. on Tuesday debunked a claim that it had seized 20,000 fake ballots casting votes for Democrats in Houston during a raid at a warehouse Monday night.“F.B.I. Houston is aware of social media posts claiming our office conducted an election-related ‘raid’ that ‘uncovered fraudulent ballots,’” the bureau said in a statement. “That information is false and no election-related operation occurred.”Independent disinformation researchers and online fact-checkers, including NewsGuard, said the claim had been circulating among right-wing social media accounts on X, Truth Social, Bluesky, Telegram and other platforms.The first post about the purported raid appeared to originate with a user with fewer than 3,000 followers who runs multiple pro-Trump social media accounts and whose claims about a variety of political topics have previously been debunked by fact-checkers, according to disinformation researchers. The post was quickly viewed more than 400,000 times on X.The post did not receive significant engagement from other prominent users on the site, and a “Community Note,” a fact-check written by users that appears below the post, had been attached. Still, according to PeakMetrics, an analytics company, the claim generated more than 15,000 posts on X.The post joined a surge of misleading claims on social media of voter fraud earlier in the day, including issues with voting machines in Florida.The statement from the F.B.I. was a notable pushback from the Trump administration, which has stayed largely silent on Election Day. The administration in the last year has pulled back on some efforts to more aggressively combat Election Day disinformation or support states on election-security threats.Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson contributed reporting.Mitch SmithReporting in Missouri from Kansas City and IndependenceWith redistricting on the ballot, a longtime Missouri Democrat persists. ImageMr. Cleaver poses for a portrait in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building last year.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesMissouri Republicans tried to redistrict Representative Emanuel Cleaver into oblivion.They redrew the congressman’s solidly Democratic district, based in Kansas City, to stretch deep into the conservative countryside. They fought an effort to pause that new map until a statewide vote could be held. They even held the primary election in August using the new boundaries.But the courts stepped in and put the old lines back in place for at least one more Election Day. And so Mr. Cleaver, a Democrat who was also Kansas City’s first Black mayor, was out at the polls on Tuesday meeting voters, heavily favored to win a 12th term after it had seemed that his congressional career was likely over.Mr. Cleaver spent Tuesday morning bouncing from place to place. He posed for photos with voters outside a high school. He talked to a City Council member outside a museum. And as he cast his ballot inside a church, he said he found himself reflecting on democracy.“It needs to be protected with everything we have,” Mr. Cleaver said afterward.Even with the old lines in place, Mr. Cleaver’s long-term political future remained unclear. Missouri voters were deciding on Tuesday whether to implement the redrawn, Republican-friendly map for future elections. And because the primary was held under the redrawn map, lawsuits challenging the congressional results seemed possible, even likely.Attempts on Tuesday to reach Mr. Cleaver’s Republican opponent, State Senator Rick Brattin, were not immediately successful. After the Missouri Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to revert to the old lines in September, Mr. Brattin released a statement saying that changing maps between a primary and general election “defies common sense and undermines the entire electoral process.”Mr. Cleaver, a United Methodist minister, was defiant last year when Republican legislators, acting at President Trump’s behest, redrew the congressional map in an attempt to squeeze one more Republican seat out of Missouri. The state’s U.S. House delegation now includes six Republicans and two Democrats.Mr. Cleaver said he would run for re-election no matter what. And so he did, campaigning in farm country and the rural Ozarks while holding out hope that the courts would put the old lines back in place.“I was really angry about it,” Mr. Cleaver said on Tuesday. But he said he was committed to trying to win, and he “didn’t want to convey to the people out in the rural areas that I didn’t want to represent them.”While other states joined the redistricting push, few had Missouri’s longstanding uncertainty over which lines would ultimately be used.After lawmakers passed the new map last year, opponents gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures seeking a statewide referendum and a reversion to the old lines until that vote could take place.Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, waited until Primary Day to deem redistricting ineligible for a referendum. The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed and ordered the old map to go back into effect. But by that point, candidates had already campaigned and voters had already voted in the primary under the new lines, setting off a confusing blitz of litigation that reached the U.S. Supreme Court three times.Sarah Nelson, who spoke with Mr. Cleaver outside a polling place in Independence, Mo., just outside Kansas City, said she had voted for him and against the redrawn map.Ms. Nelson, a Democrat and a teacher, said watching the redistricting fight had been “pretty frustrating and disheartening.” And she was not convinced the matter was fully settled.“I just don’t know what to expect anymore,” she said. “Anything’s possible.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTI’m at Ohio State University in Columbus, where volunteers are stationed around campus trying to make sure students have cast their ballots in one of this year’s most closely watched Senate races. Polls have shown Sherrod Brown, a Democrat and former senator, has some of the best odds in the country of flipping a Republican Senate seat — but in order to do so, he needs progressives like many of the students on campus to vote. At the student union, one of the polling locations on campus, one student just told me she had waited an hour to vote for Democrats. “This year I was really big on affordability,” said Abigail Clayton, 19. She expected the line to grow even longer this evening.“I just know that people on campus don’t wake up until 2 p.m.,“ she said.VideoCreditCredit...Emily Davies/The New York TimesHow will tonight go? These races could provide early clues.ImageAnalysts said the House race in Virginia this year was a tossup.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The New York TimesOn Election Day, states where polls close and ballot counting begins early could offer the first concrete clues for how the rest of the night will go, with control of Congress on the line.Here are some poll closures to watch in the first hours of election night. All times are Eastern.6 p.m.: Much of Kentucky and IndianaPresident Trump won Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District by 15 points in 2024, but its House race this year has been rated a tossup by nonpartisan election forecasters. If the Democratic candidate, Zach Dembo, a former federal prosecutor and Navy veteran, beats the Republican, Dr. Ralph Alvarado, a physician and former state senator endorsed by Mr. Trump, it would signal Democrats’ strength overall.In Indiana’s traditionally conservative Fifth District, Representative Victoria Spartz, a Republican, won by about 19 points in 2024 and is favored to retain the seat on Tuesday, according to forecasters. But her lead has narrowed the area, where Democrats are usually not competitive. If the winner is her Democratic challenger, State Senator J.D. Ford, it could signal broader Democratic victories.Democrats do not usually win votes from rural white voters in either district, and if one or both Democratic candidates prevail, that “would indicate that we are winning in a way that is going to translate across the country in many similar districts,” said CJ Warnke, a spokesman for the House Majority PAC, the biggest super PAC for House Democrats.If a Republican wins either race, it could mean that their party might mitigate its losses elsewhere.7 p.m.: FloridaRepublican state lawmakers redrew several congressional districts to favor their party. Despite that, analysts say many of these districts have close races. If Democrats win in the Seventh, Ninth, 14th, 22nd or 25th Districts, it could bode well for them elsewhere.Republican victories in these districts could mean that the party’s redistricting efforts successfully blocked a Democratic surge during a difficult year for Republicans.Republicans are favored to win the Senate and governor’s races in Florida, according to analysts. But Democrats have lately been hopeful about the governor’s race, where David Jolly, the Democratic nominee, is challenging Representative Byron Donalds, a Republican. If Democrats win the Senate and governor’s races, they are having a very good night.ImageVoters cast midterm election ballots at Trinity Lutheran Church in Jacksonville, Florida Tuesday, November 3, 2026.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesEven if there is a victory for Mr. Donalds or the Republican incumbent in the Senate, Ashley Moody, Democrats may find that some demographic groups bear watching.Each Hispanic and Black community in the United States is unique, but significant shifts in how the groups vote in South Florida could indicate how Democrats elsewhere, like James Talarico in the Texas Senate race, will fare. Hispanic voters, who make up about a third of the Texas electorate, are a key swing voting bloc in the state.7 p.m.: South CarolinaSouth Carolina’s First District has not only been traditionally conservative-leaning, but it has also been gerrymandered by Republicans to further benefit their party. Still, the race has been rated a tossup by analysts.If Nancy Lacore, a Democratic former Navy admiral who was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wins the open seat over Jenny Costa Honeycutt, a Republican local councilwoman and lawyer, it would signal that a strong Democratic candidate could win in red territory elsewhere in the country. But if Ms. Honeycutt wins, it could reflect the strength of the region’s conservative base and the redrawn district lines.The chances of a Democratic victory in the state’s Senate race are slimmer, but the lead held by Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill the seat after the death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, has narrowed throughout her campaign. If she loses to Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician running as a Democrat, that could mean that Republicans may lose their majority in the upper chamber.7 p.m.: VirginiaVirginia’s Second District traditionally swings, and analysts said that the Democratic candidate, former Representative Elaine Luria, was favored to flip it. The result could indicate whether a strong Republican candidate like Jen Kiggans, a two-term incumbent, can survive Democratic momentum.Mr. Trump won the neighboring First District by five points in 2024, but analysts said the House race there this year was a tossup. If Shannon Taylor, a Democratic prosecutor, defeats Representative Rob Wittman, a Republican first elected in 2007, Democrats could be in for a great night.“With the way the economy is now, I feel myself having to make decisions I wouldn’t normally have to make.”Conchetta Johnson, 39, of Atlanta. She said she had never voted in a midterm election before but felt a sense of urgency usually reserved for presidential contests, and that she voted for all Democrats. ImageCredit...Sean Keenan for The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAll eyes are on Texas tonight, where it looks as if the state’s record-breaking number of early voters are being followed by robust turnout on Election Day. In Harris County, one of the state’s most populous, around 180,000 Election Day votes had been cast as of 3 p.m. Eastern. That number may be below what some had imagined in a year in which hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on the Senate race, but it is not far removed from the 200,000 or so who had voted at the same point in the 2024 presidential election. If current trends continue, overall turnout in the state could exceed 10 million votes, which would be more than what was seen in the last two midterm elections.ImageCredit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesFor being a purple state, North Carolina has had a relatively quiet midterm year largely because of its sleepy Senate race between former Gov. Roy Cooper, a moderate Democrat, and Michael Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chairman. Consultants of all political stripes and virtually all polls agree that Cooper, who has never lost a race, is heavily favored.But several Republicans and party activists in the state fear that Whatley’s weak candidacy could drag down the rest of the ticket. Among their concerns is possibly losing both chambers of the legislature, which would give Democrats full control of the state for the first time since 2010.Democrats rise in polls of New Hampshire and Minnesota.Chris Pappas and Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominees for Senate in New Hampshire and Minnesota, saw their polling leads grow late in the cycle after some unexpected competition this summer.John Tully for The New York Times; Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesDemocrats have polled well in the late stages of the Senate races in Minnesota and New Hampshire, with fairly wide leads in states that appeared surprisingly competitive at various points in this cycle.Representative Chris Pappas, the Democratic nominee in New Hampshire, has led former Senator John Sununu, the Republican nominee, in every publicly released poll since the state’s early-September primary except one, which found the race tied. A late October poll from the University of New Hampshire showed Mr. Pappas with his largest lead yet, at 12 percentage points. And in Minnesota, a late-October New York Times/Siena University poll found Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee, leading Michele Tafoya, a Republican, by 14 percentage points.In 2024, former Vice President Kamala Harris won both states, carrying Minnesota by four percentage points and New Hampshire by three. As recently as August, polling suggested that Republicans could not be counted out in both Senate races despite the Democrats’ growing advantage in national polling for the generic congressional ballot.The limited number of polls in New Hampshire has made it difficult to draw firm conclusions: Just 13 surveys have been conducted since the nominees were settled, in part because New Hampshire held one of the country’s latest primaries. In contrast, 16 surveys of the Texas Senate race were released in the last week.A mid-October poll from the UMass Lowell and YouGov put Mr. Pappas seven percentage points ahead of Mr. Sununu. That same poll suggested that Mr. Sununu’s support might be less firm than his opponent’s, with 14 percent of his supporters saying they might change their minds, compared with 9 percent of Mr. Pappas’s supporters. And he saw an even stronger result in the final University of New Hampshire survey, which positioned him ahead of Mr. Sununu by a wide 12-percentage-point margin.In Minnesota, most polls before the Times/Siena one had suggested a closer race, with a majority of them showing Ms. Flanagan ahead by less than five percentage points. But shortly after the Times/Siena poll was released, SurveyUSA released a poll sponsored by KSTP in Minneapolis that had Ms. Flanagan leading by seven percentage points.As in New Hampshire, the limited number of surveys (just 17 over the past two months, including three conducted by partisan groups) has made it difficult to get a full picture of the race.Differences in the top-line results are at least somewhat a product of assumptions pollsters make about who will turn out. For example, the Times-Siena poll differed from a Mason-Dixon poll from early October in its estimates of what the electorate’s racial composition will be, its partisan makeup and its 2024 recalled vote. If the electorate on Tuesday looks more like 2024 than like 2020, the final result may more closely resemble the Mason-Dixon result than the Times one, or vice versa.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTElection Day turnout is high across battleground states.ImageVoters casting midterm election ballots at Trinity Lutheran Church in Jacksonville, Fla.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThe midterm election has drawn a strong overall turnout, as millions of Americans have already cast their ballots on Tuesday as the midterm cycle approached its conclusion.Whether turnout can approach the record-setting levels of the 2018 and 2022 midterms, however, won’t be known until polls across the country have closed. But things were off to a strong start when more than 50 million people cast ballots during early voting, which exceeded levels of four years ago in virtually every Senate battleground state.The turnout thus far on Tuesday has been particularly high in states where Election Day vote tends to make up a larger share of the overall total. In Ohio, for instance, large counties like Franklin and Hamilton were trending significantly higher than what was seen in 2022, with totals not far removed from the presidential election two years ago. (Turnout in presidential elections is consistently far higher than it is in midterms.)The record for votes in a midterm election came in 2018, when more than 120 million Americans cast a ballot, according to the Election Administration and Voting Survey. In 2022, that declined slightly to 112 million, even as the number of early votes increased — a sign of how the popularity of early voting has shifted voter behavior.As in previous years, Republicans seem to be enjoying strong Election Day advantages in states that report live turnout by party registration. As of Tuesday afternoon, Republicans in Florida were enjoying a wider advantage than two years ago, voting on Election Day by a nearly two-to-one margin.Republicans were also leading registered Democrats by 12 percentage points in Nevada, a wider margin than their Election Day advantage in 2024.In both of those states, registered Republicans made up a smaller share of the advance votes this year than they did in 2024 — and a wide majority of votes are cast ahead of Election Day.Trying to interpret what turnout on Election Day could mean in various races, however, has similar pitfalls to those seen when trying to analyze the early vote, particularly in states where Election Day totals are unrepresentative. In most states, the raw totals of ballots cast are a useful barometer of overall engagement, but they can’t indicate for whom those votes are being cast. In many cases, advantages for one party in the Election Day vote might result from disadvantages in the early vote.Direct comparisons to the Election Day turnout in 2022 could be considered an unfair comparison in many states, particularly those that experienced large increases in early voting turnout in 2024, like Georgia, Florida and Texas. (In all three, the raw number of votes cast on Election Day decreased between 2022 and 2024.)But Election Day numbers in Georgia and Texas have been strong.Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, said in a news conference on Tuesday afternoon that Election Day turnout in the state was tracking toward around 1.4 million votes, which would be a slight increase from two years ago and about on par with 2022.In Texas, turnout expectations were particularly high as a result of a Senate race that has set records for spending. In Harris County, one of the state’s most populous, around 180,000 Election Day votes had been cast as of 3 p.m. Eastern. That number may be below what some had imagined, but it is not far removed from the 200,000 or so who had voted at the same point in the 2024 presidential election. If current trends continue, overall turnout in the state could exceed 10 million votes, which would be more than what was seen in the last two midterm elections.Additional contributions by Evan Peng, Sophia June, Lisa Waananen, Beena Raghav, Rebecca Halleck and Cooper Tretter.Ang Li and Brent McDonald“I don’t think the government should have any say in whether or not they should be involved in a doctor’s office.”Andrew Worster, 24, a nurse and registered Democrat in Bangor, Maine, said one of his top issues was women’s reproductive rights. He cast his vote for Troy Jackson as a vote against Senator Susan Collins. VideoCreditCredit...Brent McDonald/The New York TimesDemocrats have small polling leads in the Ohio and Kansas Senate races.Sherrod Brown and Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominees for Senate in Ohio and Kansas, have had slimmer polling leads than some of the Democrats in other battleground states.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times; Christopher Smith for The New York TimesA great deal of attention has been paid to the widening leads of Democratic candidates in multiple battleground Senate states, but in Ohio and Kansas, things have remained considerably closer. In those states, both of which President Trump won by double digits in 2024, most polls have the Democrat ahead, but many of those leads have been within the margin of error.Considering the varied nature of polling error in midterm elections, the races appear to be tossups heading into Election Day.In his bid to return to the Senate, where he served from 2007 to 2025, Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, led Senator Jon Husted, a Republican, by six percentage points in the final poll of Ohio by The New York Times and Siena University, while a late-October poll from AtlasIntel found Mr. Brown ahead by eight percentage points. Most other surveys have Mr. Brown with low single-digit leads, with one from Emerson College and Poll Vault, fielded around the same period as the AtlasIntel poll, having Mr. Husted up by three percentage points.And his leads come with some caution: Mr. Brown was overestimated in the polls in his previous two Senate elections — by about two percentage points in 2024 and five points in 2018.In Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a Democrat and megachurch pastor, has gained ground against Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican, in the polls that have been publicly released in recent weeks. Mr. Marshall led in the sparse early polling of the race, but since September, Mr. Hamilton has led or tied in all but one survey. The lone outlier was an InsiderAdvantage poll that found Mr. Marshall with a one-percentage-point edge.After a long stretch without high-quality polling in the state, five late-October surveys found Mr. Hamilton ahead, but with varying leads: A CNN/SSRS poll put him up by four percentage points, an Emerson survey found him up by two percentage points, and the final New York Times/Siena poll of Kansas gave him a five-point lead.A recent Washington Post poll drew some attention because it gave Mr. Hamilton a wide nine-percentage-point advantage. But The Post cautioned that Democrats were substantially more likely than Republicans to respond to its survey compared with their polls in other states. That could reflect a genuine enthusiasm gap, with Republicans less motivated to vote and Democrats more eager to participate. It could also mean that Republican voters are becoming harder to reach, potentially leading polls to overestimate Democratic support even after pollsters adjust for the differences in response rates.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTShane Goldmacher, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, James Surdam and Edward VegaVideoHow Money Is Shaping the MidtermsThe 2026 midterm election is the most expensive national midterm election in U.S. history, with more than $11 billion in ad spending. Our national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher breaks down where all that money is going.Third-party spoilers could swing several close races this year.Dan J. Sullivan, left, a retired teacher in Alaska, was recruited by Democratic operatives to join the race against Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican, whose allies have been left worrying that voters will be confused.Becky Bohrer/Associated Press; Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesDemocrats and Republicans alike have long stealthily tried to help little-known names on the ballot who might siphon votes from the opposing party’s nominees.The issue has suddenly become a top midterm story line because of remarkable drama in Alaska, where Democrats carried out a plan to place a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot alongside a Republican senator with the same name.But several other midterm battlegrounds this year also have outsider candidates who could swing a close race.In Ohio, Republicans have spent more than $2.2 million to promote a socialist candidate in the state’s vital Senate race, aiming to pull votes from the Democratic nominee, former Senator Sherrod Brown. Ohio Democrats have sent mail to promote their own spoiler candidate, Bill Redpath, a Libertarian, as “a proud supporter of gun rights” in an apparent attempt to appeal to Republican voters.In Virginia, a Republican group has sent mailers highlighting the Democratic-leaning positions of a self-described “radical centrist” running as an independent in a competitive House race.And in Nebraska, both major parties are jockeying to help minor candidates peel votes away from Senator Pete Ricketts, a Republican, and his Democratic-backed challenger, the independent Dan Osborn.With modern elections often decided by extremely thin margins and billions of dollars sloshing through campaigns, both parties have ample incentives and opportunities to gain an edge through mischief involving third parties.The page for our election night live model, the Needle, is up and running. The Needle will begin reporting estimates after the polls close. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT“The economy is a big thing, I think, but I am more concerned about the Democrats getting control.”Carol Clemenz, 83, of Columbia, S.C. She said she voted for the Republican Darline Graham for Senate, and that she was especially motivated to vote because she did not want Democrats to flip the House or Senate. ImageCredit...Callie Holtermann/The New York TimesKeep an eye tonight on the Ohio Senate race for what it says, among other things, about the power of the crypto industry. The main crypto super PAC, called Fairshake, spent about $46 million to try and defeat the Democrat in the race, Sherrod Brown. That worked in 2024, when the industry spent tens of millions of dollars against Brown. But there’s skepticism even among some of Fairshake’s supporters about whether that will work a second time in a much better environment for Democrats. Fairshake and the crypto industry are livid about Senate Democarts’ torpedoing a favored crypto policy bill, and the anti-Brown campaign was announced shortly thereafter.Alicia Parlapiano and Arfa MominFor each of the seats up for election today, the time it takes to project a winner will depend on two factors: how fast the state counts its votes, and how close the race is. Here’s how quickly the results came in 2024 for the six competitive Senate races rated as tossups by the Cook Political Report:Speaking with reporters in frigid temperatures after voting at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican in a tight race, kept his closing message focused on the recent revelations that aides of his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, were involved in recruiting a second Dan Sullivan onto the ballot. “We are witnessing the biggest election cheating scandal in the history of the state of Alaska,” Sullivan said.VideoCreditCredit...Kellen Browning/The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAng Li and Brent McDonald“I don’t think Susan Collins has stood up enough to Trump.”Rosalind Le, 57, has voted for Senator Susan Collins in the past, but is voting for Troy Jackson this year in Bangor, Maine. She's hoping Democrats in Congress can counter President Trump.VideoCreditCredit...Brent McDonald/The New York TimesSeveral voters I’ve spoken to at polling places around Columbia, S.C., today have brought up a name that is not on the ballot: Senator Lindsey Graham, who died in July. Some of them are extending the good will they felt toward Graham to his sister, Darline, who was appointed to fill out his term and is now the Republican nominee in a close race for the same Senate seat. Others argued that the situation reeked of nepotism.“I would rather see someone totally incompetent, who doesn’t know what they’re doing, get in there and learn her job rather than deal with someone who is from a political background,” said Mia Lynch, 59, who lives in Columbia, S.C. and does not consider herself a supporter of either political party. She said she saw Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee in the race, as “the lesser of two evils.”Here’s what you need to know about The Times’s 2026 election results and the Needle.VideoCreditCredit...Illustration by Rose WongAs polls close in the 2026 midterm elections and votes start to be counted, it’s important to stick to trusted sources and to understand the process and the facts. In the early hours of election night, the results posted to The New York Times’s website and elsewhere represent an unofficial running tally and are therefore incomplete. The Times also includes an estimate of outstanding votes to give readers a sense of how many remain to be counted.The most definitive moment on election night is when a race is called. The Times relies on The Associated Press for most of its race calls, and may make some calls of its own. A race call happens when there is no viable path to victory for the trailing candidate.While waiting for those calls, The Times produces a series of election forecasts, sometimes represented by the Needle, which account for the outstanding vote and the likelihood of either candidate’s victory.In almost every instance, the vote totals reported early in the night are accurate. But on very rare occasions, mistakes happen. If small changes in results appear on election night, they are likely to stem from administrative errors. Times reporters and editors work to understand any anomalies. Partisan actors on social media, on the other hand, may try to exploit errors to back up their claims about election integrity.It’s also important to remember that counting votes is a lengthy process and sometimes leads to delayed results. A late update from a city or county is not evidence of foul play; it is nearly always the consequence of the time it takes to verify, tally and report results.ImageCredit...The New York TimesWhy have the Needle?The purpose of the Needle is to put election results in proper context as they arrive. Early returns are often very misleading; the first votes counted often differ substantially from those that remain.The unrepresentative nature of the early vote reports is because of the way unofficial election results are reported in the United States. Counties often report out tranches of votes based on the way they were cast — such as reporting absentee ballots first and then reporting ballots cast on Election Day. Absentee ballots are generally more Democratic and Election Day ballots are more Republican. In some states, less populous, rural areas will be counted more quickly than densely populated, urban areas, which can create a Republican mirage.The Needle takes all of these factors into account in order to estimate the final outcome of the race.