Democrats have small polling leads in the Ohio and Kansas Senate races.

LatestHere’s the latest.The high voter engagement that has defined a contentious midterm campaign showed no signs of slowing 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.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, turning even reliably red states into hard-fought battlegrounds. Republicans have tried to change the subject from the economy by portraying their Democratic opponents as radical, far-left activists, playing on voters’ fears about immigration and issues like transgender children playing in school sports.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. 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.The first polls close at 6 p.m. Eastern, in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, and the final ones seven hours later, at 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, in Alaska.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 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.I’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.How 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.VideoAre the Polls Right About Democrats?Nate Cohn, our chief political analyst, explains how polling has fared in the Trump era and whether we should trust this year’s midterm polls that are favorable to Democrats.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT“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 TimesAll 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.For 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.)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 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.Evan Peng, Sophia June, Lisa Waananen, Beena Raghav and Cooper Tretter contributed reporting.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.Democrats 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.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTBethlehem Feleke and Jeremy RaffReporting from Texas“I have no problem with immigration. I have a problem with how many at one time.”Thristian Michel, 56, of Fort Worth, works in the construction industry and said he wanted to see an acceleration of mass deportations. He said he is voting for Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate because he believes he will support President Trump’s immigration agenda.A small group held signs encouraging voting outside of the Beaches Regional Library polling site in Neptune Beach, Fla. “Trump is still going to be president, but we can vote for a check on his power, his corruption, by voting for Democrats right now,” said Melissa Strandhagen, who was holding a sign that read “Constitution over party.”Ilana AroughetiReporting from Kansas“We’ve got a geriatric government. And I’m old, so I know what I’m talking about. They’re past their prime.”Kathleen Pappard, 81, of Bonner Springs, Kan. She said “Republicans frighten me with their agenda” and that she was voting for the Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton.ImageCredit...Ilana Arougheti for The New York TimesSpeaking to CNN just now, Representative Mike Lawler, the Hudson Valley Republican defending his seat, said the problems with vote counting in Westchester County were “very frustrating,” but he said anyone who votes today will have their ballots counted. He said that A.D.A. compliant ballot-counting machines were being set up right now at election sites, so ballots can be processed. Ballots that were cast but not accepted this morning, he said, will be transported by police escort to the county board of the elections heaquarters and counted under the observation of lawyers from both parties.He noted that there would be 10 machines at the board of elections headquarters, and each will be able to process about 2,000 ballots per hour. This process, he hoped, will rebut any complaints or assertions of conspiracy to tip the election in either his or his opponent’s favor. “It’s going to take a few hours,” he said. “We expect to have results certainly into the wee hours of tomorrow morning.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTLeanne Abraham and Arfa MominResults will begin coming in at 6 p.m. Eastern time from Indiana and Kentucky, but the pace will pick up with a slew of polls closing at 7 and 8 p.m. Eastern. By 9 p.m. Eastern, polls will be closed in most states. Alaska will be the last state; its polls close at 1 a.m. Eastern.The board of elections in North Carolina has extended voting hours at several precincts that experienced minor delays this morning because of computer or printer issues that have since been resolved. The release of election results has been pushed back from 7:30 p.m. to at least 8:15 p.m. as a result.Shane Goldmacher, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, James Surdam and Edward VegaVideoCan Democrats Flip Texas?The last time a Democrat won a statewide election in Texas, it was the 1990s. Our national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher explains why Democrats think this year could be different.The final tally of spending by Trump super PACs in the 2026 midterms is about $374 million, according to a tally of filings with the Federal Election Commission. That includes about $38 million on the Senate race in Texas; $36 million in Michigan; and $29 million in Ohio. A Trump nonprofit called Securing American Greatness also made $10.5 million in donations to other super PACs through Oct. 14, pushing the total bill for the Trump operation’s midterm spending to at least $384 million. President Trump wrote on Truth Social last month that “I would have spent, or will be spending, over 400 Million Dollars by Election Day.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT“I don’t think anybody talks about fiscal responsibility anymore.”Robert Corley, 71, a retired project manager in construction from New Orleans who said he was a Republican but voted for Jamie Davis, a Democrat, for U.S. Senate. “He seems to want to move the discussion more towards the center.”Voting issues cause a surge in misleading fraud claims online.Issues with ballot tabulators in New York and voting machines in Florida have caused a surge of misleading claims of voter fraud in the early hours of Election Day.The number of posts mentioning “cheat,” “steal,” “rig” and similar terms soared to more than 100 per minute during early voting hours, according to an analysis of data from TweetBinder by Audiense, a social media data company.“In some places, these real issues — and the proposed remedies — are getting picked up with conspiratorial framing that falsely suggests that the malfunctions are intentional,” Kate Starbird, a disinformation researcher and co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, wrote on social media.In New York’s Westchester County, ballot tabulator machines that are meant to scan and record votes were not accepting ballots this morning, according to Ken Jenkins, the Westchester County executive. Polling sites are already set up to handle such issues by storing completed ballots in designated bags or ballot boxes and counting them later.“No surprise,” Claudia Tenney, the Republican representative for New York’s 24th Congressional District, wrote on X. “The Democrats in NY will do anything and everything to cheat.”Westchester County leans heavily Democratic, meaning any difficulty with voting is likely to affect Democratic voters more than Republican voters.In Broward County, Fla., which is also heavily Democratic, issues with electronic voting machines were reported only minutes after polls opened this morning. Some voters were turned away, according to reports from local news media.“How is it that so many states are all of a sudden having ballot counting issues?” Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer and conspiracy theorist, wrote to nearly two million followers on X. “Broward County. Of course. Democrats love cheating.”In the 2024 election, Broward County supported Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, by 17 percentage points over Donald Trump.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe Trump administration has faced skepticism from judges in election-related lawsuits.ImageElection workers verify and take delivery of mail-in ballots collected by police officers from ballot drop boxes in Oakland, Calif., in August.Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesJudges throughout the country have dealt the Trump administration a string of losses as it tried to intervene in state-administered elections, including an extraordinary defeat from the Supreme Court on the eve of Election Day.For weeks now, the courts have largely rejected a sweeping effort by the administration to force states to alter the way they handle their voting processes, efforts fueled by President Trump’s claims that the midterm could be marred by voter fraud, despite little evidence of any such widespread problems.The administration’s efforts intensified as the Election Day approached, with an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday asking the justices to force California to set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots that Trump officials claim had been provided to noncitizens. That request quickly failed. In a highly unusual move, the justices denied the request hours after it was filed, without even seeking briefs from the opposing parties.That rebuff came just weeks after the Supreme Court also rejected the Trump administration’s plan to have the U.S. Postal Service screen mail-in ballots, which would have upended how Americans vote by mail and one critics called an existential threat to democratic elections.Still, the Trump administration may have succeeded in fueling doubts and confusion among voters over the validity of the election. And it is still appealing several cases.But the defeats piled up, including in the final 24 hours before Election Day, as lower-level federal judges blocked various administration moves, including a gambit to centralize data on eligible voters and to send California federal data that administration officials claimed revealed noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.A district court judge last month also blocked the Homeland Security Department from carrying out field operations focused on uncovering voter fraud in nine states. The administration has appealed.Throughout the year, judges also dismissed 26 different lawsuits attempting to force individual states to turn their voter rolls over to the federal government.Though the exact issues differed across the administration’s pre-election courtroom losses, in many cases, judges ruled that the administration was attempting to unlawfully intervene in how states administer elections. The Constitution gives the responsibility of managing elections to the states.In some cases in recent weeks, judges were also concerned that the administration’s efforts would require courts to violate a principle repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court, which cautions that federal courts should not disrupt balloting procedures on the eve of an election to avoid confusing voters and elections officials.If the election results are close, there could be a pile of new challenges. For now, there were two major lawsuits brought by the Justice Department in the final days before the election. The administration sustained several courtroom losses in both.The Supreme Court ruling on Monday involved California, where after months of drama, harried election officials went into Election Day largely free of any mandates the Trump administration had tried to impose.The decision left in place lower court rejections of Trump administration demands that California officials screen out thousands of mail-in ballots.In Alaska, President Trump ordered the Justice Department late last month to sue to try to pre-emptively block certification of the results in a close Senate race.Administration lawyers argued that voters could be confused because a man with the same first and last name as incumbent, Senator Daniel S. Sullivan, appears on the ballot, along with Democratic challenger, Mary Peltola. After the suit was filed, The New York Times revealed that an operative connected to campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were involved in recruiting a candidate the second Dan Sullivan in an effort to siphon votes from the incumbent.Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of U.S. District Court in Alaska on Sunday reject the effort to block certification, writing that she did not see how the government’s proposed solution to any potential confusion would work given the right to a secret ballot is a core principle of American democracy.The administration has appealed.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPatrick HealyPatrick Healy is the assistant managing editor for standards and trust at The Times. He voted for the first time in the 1990 Massachusetts governor election.times insiderYou asked us anything about the midterms. We had answers.ImageCampaign signs outside a polling place in Coral Gables, Fla., on Saturday.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesWhen I was a New York Times politics reporter, I was usually the one asking questions of voters and candidates. But what I loved about talking to people close to Election Day — especially young voters — was that interviews often turned into conversations. People wanted to know how we covered political campaigns, why we focused on some candidates more than others and how we decided to write about some things but not about other things.Now I’m an editor at The Times, working to help build reader trust in our journalism. A big part of that is addressing reader questions and concerns. I welcome the chance for that conversation to continue.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT