2026 midterm elections live updates: Latest news, results, and analysis

CONROE, Texas — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned of his own past reelection struggles in a bid Monday to fire up supporters of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on the eve of one of the country’s tightest Senate elections.

In his latest appearance on the campaign trail to stump for the Republican Senate nominee, Cruz characterized the Lone Star State’s battleground contest as not unlike his own narrow 2018 reelection against Democrat Beto O’Rourke. But this time, the Democrat giving Texas Republicans a run for their money is state Rep. James Talarico.

The 2018 races, the midterm cycle under President Donald Trump’s first term that saw the Democrats retake the House, “was the last election we had like this,” Cruz told a couple hundred attendees gathered at an outdoor event space in the Houston suburb of Conroe. “2018 was a rough cycle.”

“When the polls closed, I was down 5 [points],” the third-term senator recalled. “We’re at our victory party. A bunch of y’all were there. I tell you, I was back in the war room looking at the screens. And I looked: there were some sphincters that could have turned a lump of coal into a diamond.”

DEMOCRATS LEAD IN SEVEN SENATE BATTLEGROUNDS AS TRUMP APPROVAL WEIGHS ON GOP: POLL

The toss-up seat is among the contests Tuesday that will determine whether Republicans can maintain control of the upper chamber. And Paxton is under no illusions about just how close the results might be.

“Texas, as Ted mentioned, has never been this close to slipping away. We have never been this close to losing everything that we fear: our jobs, our livelihoods, our way of life,” Paxton said. “Every poll shows this is going to come down to the wire.”

University of Texas Police Department is investigating two falsely pulled fire alarms at a polling location on campus Tuesday morning, leading to a 10-minute delay in voting after the building was evacuated.

“UTPD is actively investigating two incidents from this morning where the fire alarm was activated at the Texas Union,” UTPD wrote on X. “During the activation of the fire alarm, the Texas Union was being used as an election polling location. As a result of the activation, there was a brief delay to operation of the polling location, which resumed approximately 10 minutes later.”

The university police department said the suspect is not believed to be affiliated with the school and asked for assistance in identifying the suspect.

There are two polls open on campus, as the school has over 55,000 students.

President Donald Trump blasted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) after the congressman made a statement saying the president was more focused on changing the name of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool than rising costs.

“Lightweight Congressman Ted Lieu, one of the least respected in Washington, D.C., made a knowingly malicious, false, and defamatory statement that I wanted to change the name of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the Trump Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.

During his Monday event in front of the national monument, Trump said his administration was giving “serious thought to changing the name to the Trump Reflecting Pool” before stating shortly after that was only joking. Lieu posted a clip of the president’s speech drawing attention to rising costs and criticizing Trump.

“What are trump and his Republican enablers focused on? Changing the name of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the trump Reflecting Pool,” Lieu wrote on X. “Punish them at the ballot box. Repudiate them. Vote.”

The president called the congressman a “fraud,” claiming he knowingly misrepresented his statement.

Lieu responded to Trump’s post, calling the president’s comments a “FUBAR” and adding, “Was trump joking about putting his name on the Kennedy Center too?”

Josh Turek, the Democratic Senate nominee in Iowa, said he did not vote straight-ticket when he cast his ballot Tuesday morning.

A local reporter asked him if he voted straight-ticket, and he responded, “Nope.”

Turek then listed some of the downballot Republicans he cast a ballot for.

“Susan Miller, I voted for,” he continued, referencing a Republican candidate for the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors At-large in Iowa. “I think she does an excellent job on the County Board of Supervisors.”

“Foss, I voted for. Maybe one other as well,” Turek said, likely referring to Michelle Foss, a Republican running for election to the Page County Attorney in Iowa.

The Iowa Senate race is one of the closely watched contests that will determine control of the upper chamber. Turek is facing off against Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), who has the backing of President Donald Trump. The Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss-up.”

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The North Carolina Board of Elections said results in the state could be delayed due to technical issues in four counties.

“The state board will be meeting later today to discuss the issues that these four counties had in the delayed voting, and it could be that it necessitates extending voting hours; I will leave that to the board. That is their purview, but it could also delay reporting across the state as well. So stay tuned for that,” an NCBE official said at a press conference.

North Carolina has voting from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. State election law allows voting time to be extended in the event of complications.

Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers told reporters Tuesday he is “disappointed” in the response from Democrats over Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) endorsement of his campaign.

“I’m disappointed in how vicious they’ve been, but I think that speaks to who the modern Democrat Party is,” Rogers told reporters after he cast his ballot. “Here’s somebody who said, ‘I voted Democrat all the way down the list, except for one person who I think is too extreme for our state.’ That’s country over party.”

He continued, “They outta celebrate her courage and encourage her to continue to being a Democrat rather than try to throw her out of the party. I mean, I’ve never seen such viciousness online.”

Stevens’s move to flip her support from Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed to Rogers sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party over the weekend.

Republican Guam gubernatorial candidate Tony Ada defeated Democratic candidate Therese Terlaje, according to the Guam Election Commission’s final unofficial tally, flipping the territory’s governorship.

Incumbent Guam Gov. Leon Guerrero first won in 2018, then won reelection in 2022, and finally hit her term limit this year. Republicans held the governorship of the island from 2003 to 2019, and have been eager to return since. After Guerrero won reelection handily in 2022 with 55.49% of the vote, Republicans appear to have found a winning team with Ada and his running mate, E.J. Calvo, who received 51.45% of the vote compared to the 48.15% supporting Terlaje and her lieutenant governor candidate, Sabina Perez.

Ada and Calvo’s unofficial total is above the 50% required to avoid a runoff. The Guam Election Commission still has to certify the results, but the percentages are unlikely to change, with the Republicans receiving over 1,000 more votes than their rivals on the island, which has 59,146 registered voters.

Voter turnout exceeded 53%. Republicans also held the lead in the attorney general race, and Republicans occupied eight of the top 15 positions in the Guam legislature race, giving them a narrow majority, according to the Guam Daily Post.

Republicans experienced one notable loss, however, with Democrats set to flip the territory’s nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) office in Biddeford, Maine, was vandalized on Tuesday with the message, “blood on her hands,” written in red paint on the day voters head to the polls to decide the fate of the five-term senator.

The message appeared to be cleaned up by Tuesday afternoon, according to reports. The vandalism is not the first time Collins’s Biddeford office has been marred, as vandals wrote “Trump wh***” on the office doors last month.

Additionally, the office is the same location that saw protests in July following the fatal shooting of a Colombian man by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Collins had previously voted to support $70 billion in funding for ICE without reforms to training and operational practices, which was targeted in protesters’ slogans at the time and continues to be an attack line against Collins.

A Democrat super PAC spent more than $30 million on the midterm elections this cycle to elect candidates with medical or scientific backgrounds to state and federal office across the country, contributing to the nearly $12 billion total spent during the campaign season.

314 Action Fund spent $23.6 million on STEM candidates and nearly $7 million on direct campaigns this season, the most it has spent in the 10 years since the group was founded.

A spokesperson for the group told reporters on Tuesday that the organization spent nearly $4 million to elect pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews for Senate in South Carolina in her race against Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) as well as $3 million on Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton.

Other candidates backed by the group include Christina Bohannan, Dr. Richard Pan, and Dr. Amish Shah.

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico made his final pitch to voters, calling for Texans to back the “underdog” who has been up against a “rigged system” in the midterm elections.

“Texans working hard every day to make a life for themselves,” the ad released Tuesday said. “We’ve always been the underdogs. We’ve always been up against a rigged system, but we’ve always had each other, and now we’re here on the brink of making history.”

“Hours from taking our power back. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worth having is,” the ad continued. “Texas, you did this. You built this movement. You gave your blood, sweat, and tears. Your nights, your weekends, your Saturday mornings. We’re here because of people. We’re here because of you. Let’s show the world why you should always bet on the underdogs.”

Polls close in Texas between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and the state typically counts votes fairly quickly. Talarico’s contest against state Attorney General Ken Paxton is rated a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report, which in its final race ratings said it would “put a pinky on the scale” for the Democrat. A Talarico victory would be a major upset for the GOP as the party seeks to maintain control of Congress.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) voiced support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) while heading to cast her ballot for Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Tuesday.

Stevens referred to Jeffries as the “next speaker of the House” while speaking with NewsNation outside a polling location in Birmingham, Michigan, voicing optimism for Democrats Tuesday night while also making clear her support for the minority leader hasn’t changed.

“It’s the People’s Day, and I’ve told this to our next Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries. It’s Majority Maker’s Day,” Stevens said.

Jeffries was highly critical of Stevens’s decision to endorse Rogers over Democratic candidate Abdul el Sayed. The minority leader said the congresswoman “made a terrible decision” and “blindsided everyone and isolated herself from the House Democratic caucus.”

Stevens, who fell to el Sayed in the primary election, said her decision to flip her backing to Rogers stemmed from the progressive Democrats’ criticism of Israel, as well as those orbiting his campaign who she deemed far too controversial.

Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb told voters on Tuesday to report the presence of National Guard troops near voting locations, emphasizing that federal personnel at polling stations is illegal.

Schwalb said in an X post that his office has contacted the Trump administration about the issue in the days leading up to the midterm election and service members stationed in the District have been instructed to avoid voting centers.

“Federal law prohibits the military and federal law enforcement from interfering with elections,” he said. “OAG has contacted the Administration about the presence of National Guard troops and federal agents near voting locations in recent days. National Guard leadership has advised that members of Joint Task Force-DC, which includes both the National Guard and federal law enforcement, have been directed not to patrol at or near any voting locations in the District.”

“Please report potential violations to our office at 202-727-3400 or [email protected] and to the DC Board of Elections at 202-727-2194 or [email protected],” he added. “Every DC resident has the right to vote free of intimidation or interference.”

The 2026 midterm elections mark the first general election in Washington since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and deployed the National Guard as part of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force in an effort to combat crime.

Trump made his final pitch to vote for Republicans in the midterm elections, touting his administration’s accomplishments and defending the war with Iran.

In a phone interview with Fox News, the president touted accomplishments in immigration, reducing crime, taking control of Venezuela, a growth in manufacturing, and other economic matters, including more questionable claims such as declaring inflation “solved.” Much of the interview, however, was devoted to the war with Iran, declaring it effectively won a day after the U.S. launched defensive strikes. At one point, he said the conflict was so lopsided that he even questioned if it could be considered a war.

“War is like what you would see in Russia and Ukraine. That is war. War would be Second World War, you keep fighting and fighting. … We have them totally where we want them, we could finish them off or be nice and let thousands of people live that would get killed in a war. When was the last time we shot anything? We took over the Strait of Hormuz, total control,” he said.

Trump connected the pitch to two of the closest Senate races, in Texas and Michigan.

“We have done unbelievable job, and we can’t let that job be turned around by a … Muslim Brotherhood jihadist from Michigan or people like this character that does not eat meat, does not like gas or guns, Talafreako, and he’s running against the best attorney general in the history of Texas,” he said.

The president argued that his second term was so successful that his trademark slogan had become obsolete.

“The most important thing … because we have indeed made America great again,” Trump said. “MAGA is this thing we’ll never give up on, MAGA. But in a way it is obsolete. … America is great now, respected all over the world.”

Polling locations in Westchester County, New York, are not accepting ballots at the moment due to an issue with the scanners.

The problem arose as polls opened at 6 a.m. Voters have been instructed to fill out paper ballots and stay in line.

“There is a problem with every ballot scanner in Westchester County,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) wrote in a post Tuesday morning. “We do not yet know the exact cause of the issue, whether it is the ballot or the machine. The Board of Elections is working with their vendors to resolve it. However, every ballot will be counted. Stay on line and vote. Do not leave the polling place without voting.”