Major Election Day Update: Courts Rebuke all Trump Efforts, Trump Spirals as Closing Message Flops, DOJ Sends Moni…
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Good morning, everyone. Today is the day. After months of rallies, lawsuits, polls and late-night Truth Social rants, voters finally get the last word. Below you’ll find everything you need to know heading into the polls, but first, here’s how the next 48 hours are going to work.
My next newsletter will land around 5 p.m. ET, featuring an interview with Gavin Newsom. Then at 6 p.m. ET, we go live for Election Night Live, running all the way until midnight. At 12:30 a.m. ET, I’ll send you a newsletter breaking down where things stand, and I’ll follow that with another update by 9 a.m. ET tomorrow.
One note: I won’t be flooding your inbox with every individual race call. Instead, I’ll send an update the moment we have a call on who controls the House and who controls the Senate. Those are the calls that will shape the next two years, and when they happen, you’ll hear from me.
It’s going to be a long 48 hours. When I was practicing law, I pulled more all-nighters than I can count. One stretch, I went 72 hours without sleeping. Was it healthy? No. But am I built for 48 hours of non-stop election coverage? Hell ya. I’m excited, I’m ready, and I’m not stopping.
If you value independent coverage that tells you what’s actually happening, now is the best time to become a paid subscriber. Your support is what makes nights like tonight possible.
Let’s get to it.
Election Day 2026: What’s at Stake as Republicans Defend Slim Majorities Against Brutal Headwinds
Democrats need only a handful of seats to flip Congress, and the forecasts favor them in the House. Republicans hold the Senate 53-47, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control, while the GOP needs to keep at least 50 with JD Vance breaking ties. In the House, Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to reach the 218 needed for a majority. CBS News’ Battleground Tracker estimated Democrats are on track to win about 229 House seats, with a range running from 215 to 237. Fox News’ own Power Rankings also point to Democrats retaking the House, with a strong night potentially giving them as many as 240 seats, and they rate the Senate a toss-up. Beyond Congress, 36 governorships, nearly every state legislature, and 145 statewide ballot measures are on the line.
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Record early turnout and a sour national mood are working against the party in power. More than 57 million Americans voted before Election Day according to the University of Florida Election Lab, far surpassing the roughly 46 million who voted early in 2022. Polls show Democrats are more energized than Republicans, and even Fox News acknowledges the GOP faces persistent inflation tied partly to an unpopular war with Iran, along with Trump’s increasingly negative approval ratings. RNC Chair Joe Gruters is betting everything on Election Day turnout, arguing Republicans win if their voters show up. On the eve of the vote, the U.S. military launched limited strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz. CBS reports this came as Trump floats restarting hostilities with Iran after the midterms, even as mediators try to broker a deal.
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Trump’s closing message featured a pool renovation, a quiet concession about history, and fresh attacks on Democratic candidates. In his final scheduled remarks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Trump spent much of his time touting the renovation and repeating vandalism claims his own Justice Department later blamed on a contractor’s botched installation. He acknowledged that the sitting president’s party usually loses midterms, saying Republicans had given it a very strong shot. On Hannity, he again asked supporters to pretend he is on the ballot, warning his accomplishments could be wiped out if Republicans lose. In a separate interview, he said he would become “Mr. Veto” if Democrats win Congress, though he expects to eventually make deals. Overnight, he attacked Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed on Truth Social and argued Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola should be removed from the ballot.
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Republicans are playing defense in states that should be safe, including Texas, Kansas, and Iowa. In Texas, Ted Cruz warned at a Paxton event that Democrats could win every statewide office if the election were held that day, as Ken Paxton battles James Talarico in a race both sides call razor close. Kansas Democrat Adam Hamilton is trying to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race in that state in nearly a century, and Fox shifted the race to toss-up. In Iowa, Republican Ashley Hinson has distanced herself from Trump, calling for an immediate end to the Iran war as she faces Democrat Josh Turek in what he calls possibly the closest Senate race in the country. Even in South Texas, GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz says she has warned the White House that ICE operations are hurting her district’s economy. In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens’ surprise endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers drew fury from top Democrats, but El-Sayed’s campaign says it raised a record $2.4 million the day she announced it.
Ballot scanners are down at most polling sites in Westchester County, New York, but officials say every vote will still be counted. The machines began failing when polls opened at 6 a.m., and County Executive Ken Jenkins has not said what caused the problem or when it will be fixed. Voters are being told to stay in line and fill out paper ballots, which are sealed in orange emergency ballot bags under bipartisan control to be counted later. The New York State Board of Elections says there is no disruption to voting and that its long-standing emergency procedures exist for exactly this kind of situation. Both candidates in the hotly contested race for New York’s 17th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democrat Cait Conley, are urging voters not to leave without casting a ballot. Attorney General Letitia James says her office is monitoring the situation, and the bottom line for Westchester voters is simple: stay in line, vote on paper, and your ballot will count.
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The Justice Department is deploying roughly 1,000 election monitors to polling places across all 50 states, the largest such effort in its history. The department announced the move Tuesday morning, as voters headed to the polls in the midterm elections. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said election integrity has been a top priority for the administration and called the deployment the biggest monitoring operation the department has ever undertaken. Sending federal observers to watch the election process is a long-standing practice and not new on its own. But the scale and timing have raised alarms that the Trump administration could use the monitors to intimidate voters and election officials, especially after weeks of DOJ threatening officials with prosecution over its flawed lists of alleged noncitizen voters. Those concerns are why a federal judge’s order, now restored by the full 9th Circuit, bars DOJ from threatening or coercing election workers, and why election clerks will be watching the watchers closely today.
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Trump’s Midterm Collapse: A Rambling Farewell, a Fractured Party, and Mounting Losses on Election Day
Trump closed out the campaign with a rambling pool speech, a quiet concession and a 1 a.m. meltdown. His final scheduled remarks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were mostly about pipes, granite, algae and caulking, and he did not mention the election until roughly 24 minutes in, prompting Fox News and other networks to cut away. When he finally got to the midterms, he admitted the sitting president’s party usually loses and said Republicans had given it a very strong shot. On Hannity, he again told supporters to pretend he is on the ballot, never mentioning the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island that had just been reported. At 1:12 a.m., he fired off an all-caps Truth Social post claiming Alaska spoiler candidate Dan J. Sullivan may have been kidnapped by Democratic lawyers, even as an AtlasIntel poll shows Democrat Mary Peltola leading Sen. Dan Sullivan 50 to 44 with the spoiler at under 1 percent. He also attacked Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with a baseless claim that he hates Jews, Black people and white people. With his economic approval at a record low of 26 percent, Trump’s final pitch looked less like a closing argument and more like a president running out of things to say.
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The electoral map shows Republicans fighting for survival in states they should own. Both Fox News and CBS forecasts point to Democrats retaking the House, needing just three seats, while the Senate is a toss-up with Democrats needing a net gain of four. Republicans are on defense in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas, where Ted Cruz warned Democrats could win every statewide office if the election were held that day. Ken Paxton is neck and neck with James Talarico in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in 38 years, and even Steve Bannon admits Paxton is in trouble. Kansas Democrat Adam Hamilton is trying to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race there in nearly a century. More than 57 million Americans voted early, shattering the roughly 46 million from 2022, with Texas alone up 41 percent. Bannon conceded it would take a miracle for Republicans to keep the House.
The Republican Party is already splintering, with candidates abandoning Trump’s fraud lies and Bannon predicting civil war. Bannon told the Financial Times the GOP will erupt into internal war the day after the election, with brutal lame-duck fights over the debt ceiling, spending, defense, AI and Iran, and no clear frontrunner for 2028. He warned that if Trump resumes major combat in Iran, the base will revolt and he will lead it. Meanwhile, The Atlantic reports Republicans like Pennsylvania’s Stacy Garrity and Wisconsin’s Tom Tiffany are walking back their past election denial, now conceding Biden won in 2020. Lisa Murkowski publicly said DOJ never should have sued over Alaska’s ballot, and Senate Republicans refused to pass Trump’s SAVE America Act. In Iowa, GOP Senate nominee Ashley Hinson has called for an immediate end to the Iran war, and in South Texas, Rep. Monica De La Cruz says she warned the White House that ICE raids are hurting her district. A president who demanded total loyalty is watching his party run from him on the very day it matters most.
On the Eve of the Midterms, Trump’s Election Losses Pile Up in Court
Judge Tanya Chutkan became the latest federal judge to block the Trump administration from sending lists of supposedly ineligible voters to states. On Monday, the day before Election Day, Chutkan granted a preliminary injunction and stayed what the plaintiffs call the “Voter Data Transmission Policy” run by DHS and DOJ. The case was brought by LULAC and EPIC, groups focused on voter registration and privacy, who sued after the administration began handing state and local officials lists of people it claims are noncitizens. According to the filings, the government has collected voter rolls covering tens of millions of people from at least 47 states, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, voting history and party affiliation. It then cross-checks that data against federal and commercial databases and sends the resulting lists to election officials with demands to investigate, withhold ballots, or set votes aside. Chutkan’s order stops any further transmissions while the case moves forward.
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Chutkan found the administration likely broke the law on several fronts at once. She ruled that no statute authorizes the program, rejecting DOJ’s argument that a criminal law banning noncitizen voting somehow gives it power to intervene in how states run elections. She also found the government likely violated the Privacy Act by building a massive new database without publishing the public notice the law requires. On top of that, she said the bulk handoff of voter records fits none of the Act’s narrow exceptions for disclosure. Notably, the administration barely defended the program on the merits, mostly arguing the plaintiffs were not allowed to sue at all. Chutkan rejected that argument too, pointing out that DOJ’s own lawyers conceded other judges in her district had already turned it down.
The ruling comes as the administration’s evidence keeps falling apart and its legal options keep running out. In Nevada, DHS flagged nearly 16,000 people as noncitizen voters, and a manual review by the state found that every one of them was a U.S. citizen. In Los Angeles, DOJ hand-delivered a thumb drive with over 20,000 names, yet only about 7,000 of those people actually had addresses in the county. A federal judge in Los Angeles refused DOJ’s request to force California to set those ballots aside, and the 9th Circuit refused to intervene as well. On Monday, the Supreme Court also turned the administration down, with no justice noting a dissent. Chutkan cited that string of defeats and found that the government had shown no evidence of significant fraud that her order would allow.
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The full 9th Circuit has also revived Judge Trina Thompson’s order protecting election workers from DOJ intimidation. Thompson’s temporary restraining order bars the Justice Department and DHS from demanding that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voter rolls, or halt ballot processing, and it blocks threats of criminal prosecution against those officials. In her ruling, Thompson wrote that while the administration says it is trying to stop noncitizen voting, its actions are likely to interfere with election administration and disenfranchise lawful voters. On Monday, a divided 9th Circuit panel paused her order at the government’s request, but a judge on the court immediately called for a vote on rehearing by a larger panel. The court granted that rehearing, which vacated the 2-1 panel decision and put Thompson’s order back in effect. Thompson set her order to expire November 16, which means it covers Election Day and the counting period that follows. As voters head to the polls today, the administration’s effort to pressure election officials has been rejected by district courts, an appeals court, and the Supreme Court.
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Iran War Escalates on Election Day as Tankers Explode in Hormuz and Qatar Pushes for a Deal
Iran says three tankers exploded after hitting naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The claim comes from the navy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which said the vessels were crossing the strait without Iranian permission. According to the IRGC, the tankers had switched off their geolocation tracking as they sailed through the southern part of the waterway. The Guards said the ships were left burning off the strait’s southern coast. Iran has repeatedly warned that no vessel may pass through without its authorization. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most vital routes for energy shipments, so any disruption there threatens global oil and gas markets.
The IRGC also claims it shot down two American drones, a day after U.S. strikes on Iranian territory. Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that the Guards downed two U.S. Lucas drones over the coastal area of Bandar Khamir. The night before, the IRGC Navy said it had destroyed another drone in the Strait of Hormuz. These claims follow what Washington described as defensive strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, carried out on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections. None of Iran’s claims about the tankers or drones have been independently confirmed in Al Jazeera’s reporting. Taken together, the exchanges suggest the conflict is heating back up rather than winding down.
Qatar says the U.S. and Iran are still negotiating and that there is reason for hope. Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said both countries are studying proposals for a possible resolution, with Qatar passing offers between them in real time. He declined to share specifics but argued that the very existence of talks shows the parties have not given up. Al-Ansari said all Gulf Cooperation Council states agree the conflict must not escalate further, warning that escalation could undermine the negotiations. He stressed that diplomacy is the only path forward and that every side remains committed to it. He also declared freedom of navigation non-negotiable, condemning threats against vessels from Qatar or any other country.
Iran is publicly rejecting Washington’s approach even as talks continue, and analysts say the midterms could shift the war’s direction. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran rejects what he called a condescending, top-down approach from the U.S. and wants a relationship between equals under international law. He accused Washington of violating the equality of states and the right to self-determination, pointing to Palestine, Cuba and Venezuela as further examples. Analyst Zeidon Alkinani of the Arab Perceptions Institute told Al Jazeera that diplomacy and military force are running side by side. He said the diplomatic channel has been open since March but has produced no fundamental breakthrough. Alkinani added that the outcome of today’s U.S. midterm elections could change how Washington approaches the war and Iran itself.
The wider region continues to absorb the fallout of the conflict. Iranian media reported that a soldier was killed and another injured in a clash with what Tasnim described as a hostile group in southeastern Iran, with one attacker also killed. In Gaza, the Interior Ministry said an Israeli air strike killed and wounded police officers near Khan Younis, a day after it urged international pressure to stop attacks on its police. The fighting is even reshaping sports, as the Asian Football Confederation pushed the 2027 Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia from January to late December 2027. That decision follows repeated Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia since September, including strikes on Riyadh. The ripple effects show how a war Trump insists is not really a war is disrupting life across the Middle East.
Beyond the Ballot: Other Headlines You Need to Know This Election Day
Russia’s strike on a Ukrainian aid site has killed 31 people, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the region since the full-scale invasion began. The attack hit a humanitarian aid facility and shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where more than 45 people are still missing under the rubble. Russian bunker-busting bombs packed with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives were used, and the dead include four police officers and two rescue workers. Overnight, Russia launched 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, damaging hospitals in Kharkiv and Dnipro and knocking three power plants offline as winter approaches. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out that the barrage was timed to coincide with the U.S. elections, warning that Russia thinks America won’t notice. He urged allies to help Ukraine defend its skies, arguing Russia will never stop its missile strikes otherwise.
The Supreme Court is hearing a major religious liberty case on Election Day over Colorado’s taxpayer-funded preschool program. The Archdiocese of Denver and other Catholic plaintiffs argue Colorado violated their First Amendment rights by excluding church-run preschools that refuse to admit children based on the sexual orientation or gender identity of the child or parents. The Trump administration is backing the Catholic challengers, and the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has regularly sided with Christian groups in similar cases. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser counters that religious schools can and do participate as long as they follow the program’s antidiscrimination rules, noting preschools run by Catholic Charities already take part. The case could test the court’s 1990 Employment Division v. Smith precedent, which held that religious exemptions are not required from laws that apply equally to everyone. It is the latest in a long line of clashes between religious rights and LGBTQ protections, most of which have come out of Colorado.
North Korea is denying it was behind the record $6 billion hack of Binance, even as Trump downplays the FBI’s own findings. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said hackers stole more than $6 billion, which appears to be the biggest crypto heist ever. The FBI attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, the North Korean hacking group behind last year’s $1.5 billion Bybit theft. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, dismissed the accusation as a trite provocation and accused Washington of hostility toward her country. Experts say North Korea increasingly relies on crypto theft to fund its economy and nuclear program in the face of sanctions. Notably, Trump told reporters at a Mar-a-Lago Halloween party that he was not concerned and that investigators don’t yet know if North Korea was responsible, as Pyongyang ramps up weapons tests amid his push to restart diplomacy with Kim.
Two Cleveland Guardians pitchers are on trial in federal court, accused of rigging pitches for gamblers. Former closer Emmanuel Clase and starter Luis Ortiz face charges including wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery. Prosecutors say the pitchers took thousands of dollars in payoffs to help two gamblers from the Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on prop bets tied to the speed and outcome of specific pitches. Clase allegedly began sharing information in 2023 and recruited Ortiz in 2025, and both have pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers are expected to argue the pitch placements were simply strategy to fool batters. Clase, a three-time All-Star, could see his career and freedom on the line in a monthlong trial expected to feature testimony from players and baseball executives.
A federal judge has ordered Iowa to let the Satanic Temple hold a holiday event in the State Capitol. Chief District Judge Stephanie Rose found the group is likely to win its free speech claim and ordered state officials to approve its application within seven days. Iowa’s Republican leaders had repeatedly blocked the event, citing rules against violence and obscene displays and concerns that Krampus costumes with sticks could frighten children. Rose ruled that fear of a costumed character is not a permissible reason to exclude speech and that props can go through the same security screening as any other event. The Satanic Temple, represented by the ACLU of Iowa, describes itself as a non-theistic religious group that advocates for secularism and says the event will include caroling, coloring and ornament-making. Attorney General Brenna Bird’s office plans to appeal.
A midair collision between two helicopters near Mount Everest base camp killed one person and injured two others. The helicopters collided while trying to land at Pheriche village, about 13,780 feet up, while ferrying trekkers during Nepal’s busy fall trekking season. A 47-year-old tourist from India was killed, while a passenger from New Zealand was flown to Kathmandu for treatment and a Nepali pilot was treated locally. Heavy snow had covered the route before the weather cleared Sunday, allowing thousands of trekkers back on the trail. Because there are no roads on Everest, helicopters are the only way to evacuate sick or exhausted trekkers and guides. It remains unclear how many people were aboard the two aircraft.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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