Here’s my guide to watching tonight’s results and my list of the early races to watch to get a sense of what to expect over the course of the evening. Here’s some exit polls – which will be updated over the course of the evening. You can look at exits for different states, nationwide, etc.
So here we are, not much left but the counting. We’ll be hosting election results on the front page of the site. But you can bookmark this page too, where you can find all the results for Congress, governors and major state propositions and referenda. If you want a list of people who are highly knowledgeable and try to make sense of the numbers in real time, here’s my Twitter list of smart election data people.
Below is a list of races to watch in the early evening to get a sense of where things are going.
John Light has put together a handy guide for tracking the Senate results tonight (Prime subscribers). Really pleased with this. Check it out!
How are things going in Dodge City? Well …
I’m back at the Expo Center where press aren’t being allowed to shoot inside. Brad Schlozman, who’s representing Ford County in a lawsuit over voting, says it’s state law. Our attorney says, “That’s insane.” pic.twitter.com/SJvGkgcpww
— Katie Moore (@katie_reports) November 6, 2018
So here we are.
Because of the nature of our biennial federal elections, unified Republican control of the federal government and a thoroughly pliant Congress, Donald Trump has had free rein, more or less untrammeled, for almost two years. Democrats and all Trump’s opponents have had no recourse or ability to constrain him beyond organizing, protesting and trying to make a public case against the Trumpian slide into quasi-democracy and authoritarian rule.
In Missouri last night Trump claimed that if Democrats are elected they’ll destroy Obamacare.
The initial polls closing on the East Coast can feel a little anticlimactic, with a dribble of returns signifying very little and many hours of tabulating still to come. However, we may start to get a feel for where the night is going as some of those early East Coast returns in key races signal whether the day’s paradigm is a maximal Dem gain or a maximal GOP hold, or merely somewhere in between. Cameron Joseph highlights a few of those canary in the coal mine races that may tell us early which way things are headed.
Today is a better day than most to remember that the GOP’s forever war to tilt the election playing field in its favor by denying the franchise to minority urban voters while maximizing the franchise for white rural voters remains a defining feature of American politics.
The next big GOP power grab on this front is already in the works. Tierney Sneed has more in this Prime piece.
Your emails and photos from Election Day are one of the best parts of working at TPM. Keep ’em coming!
Happy Election Day! Voters of all stripes are anxiously awaiting election results. For those who can’t stand the suspense and are struggling in the calm before the storm, here are some early raindrops to keep an eye on.
While the legal battle over adding the citizenship question, now underway in a federal courtroom in NYC, is burrowing into statistical methodologies and sound survey practices, the practical political impact could be enormous.
It was the least surprising October surprise in recent memory. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an interview with Bloomberg News, was asked about the federal deficit, which ballooned to $779 billion last year after the implementation of the Trump tax cuts.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel admitted Tuesday that “the House is gonna be tough” for her party, a challenge she attributes to the large numbers of Republican retirements and redistricting in Pennsylvania, which the state Supreme Court ordered to remedy egregious gerrymandering.
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 6, 2018
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) affirmed Tuesday that “yes,” she was 100 percent sure Democrats would win back control of the House of Representatives.
“I feel confident that we will win, it’s just a question of the size the victory is,” she told told reporters, according to NBC News.
Former Vice President Joe Biden stopped on his way out of the polls Tuesday to speak to reporters, joking about President Donald Trump’s never-ending obsession with his inaugural crowd size.
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 6, 2018
Mark Salter, the former chief of staff and longtime aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) encouraged voters to “resist” and vote Democrat on Tuesday in order to “rebuke” President Trump.
“That feels weird to write,” he tweeted.
Vote For the Democrat (in most cases). That feels weird to write. But the bigger the rebuke of Trump the better for the country. Resist.
— Mark Salter (@MarkSalter55) November 6, 2018
Another Fox News journalist attended a President Trump rally on Monday and got chummy with the President.
And, similar to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, correspondent Geraldo Rivera offered a flimsy defense of the decision, claiming he met up with Trump “strictly privately, off camera and backstage.”
Met up (strictly privately, off camera & backstage) in my #Cleveland hometown w friend @realDonaldTrump as he barnstormed Midwest to reduce #BlueWave in crucial midterms. This is not an endorsement-strictly a private moment w @POTUS who single-handedly May have stemmed blue tide. pic.twitter.com/gReTV3dmjY
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 6, 2018
After “further review,” NBC decided the immigration ad — sponsored by Donald J. Trump For President and deemed too “racist” to run by CNN — was “insensitive” and will pull the ad from its network as soon as possible, NBC News reported.
NEW NBC statement regarding the Trump immigration ad:
“After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible.” – NBCUniversal Spokesperson.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) November 5, 2018
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will monitor “compliance with the federal voting rights laws by deploying personnel to 35 jurisdictions in 19 states” as well as watch for “fraud in the voting process.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is leading Republican challenger Josh Hawley by three points in the newest NBC poll, an edge still within the poll’s margin of error.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Monday that Republicans will be in a “really great position” if people vote based on policy and the economy.
WH press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Republicans' chances on Tuesday pic.twitter.com/GGMIbwf77o
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 5, 2018