Across the country, voters are making their way to the polls in the climax of a vitriolic midterm election cycle set against the backdrop of an electorate souring on Donald Trump and Republicans. Inflation is up, consumer confidence is down, gas and diesel prices are through the roof, largely due to the president’s war of choice in Iran. The cruelty of his MAGA agenda has roiled the country and left a bad taste even in the mouths of some of his erstwhile supporters. 

Each election is billed as being consequential; this one lives up to the hype. As we await the results, it’s worth taking note of several questions:

How big will the blue wave be?

A tsunami, a trickle — or something in the middle? All are possible, but signs are pointing to significant Democratic gains, likely up to 25 seats in the House, as well as a Senate majority. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed looks increasingly likely to win in Michigan, and James Talarico has Democratic hopes up in Texas. Senate races in Maine, Kansas, Iowa and Alaska are in play, and it’s worth keeping an eye on South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana as well.

One sign will come at 6 p.m. when polls close in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Zach Dembo is facing off against Republican Ralph Alvarado. Once a Democratic stronghold, the seat went Republican in 2012 and, despite a close call in 2018, has remained in GOP hands since. Although the district has been gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the energy on the ground is with Dembo. If he posts and maintains a healthy lead, look for significant Democratic gains to unfold throughout the night.

What effect did redistricting have on the GOP’s chances?

The midterms will be the first test of the GOP’s redistricting strategy, which saw the party redraw congressional districts in Florida, Texas and other states, partly in response to the gains Trump made with Black and Latino voters in 2024. But polls show those margins have been largely erased as the electorate has turned on the president after nearly two tumultuous years in office, while Democratic legislatures in California and Virginia have imposed their own gerrymanders. According to a Politico poll, the GOP increasingly sees the coalition that returned Trump to office as “crumbling,” and may have gained little or nothing from all this adventurous map-drawing.

Will progressives be bolstered or chastened?

The size of the blue wave could well come to be seen as a measure of progressives’ influence and power within the Democratic Party. Losses — or even narrow wins — by progressive candidates could be used as more evidence by the party’s establishment wing of the need to tack toward the middle ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Larger wins — and victories in unexpected places, such as Michigan’s 7th Congressional District where William Lawrence, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, stands a real chance of unseating incumbent Republican Tom Barrett — would provide rocket fuel to the movement. 

Progressive groups are already on the offensive, getting a head start on spinning tonight’s election results, particularly in anticipation of a narrow El-Sayed win in Michigan. “Expect to hear narrow victories cited as evidence of weak electability,” a Progressive Change Campaign Committee memo obtained by Politico reads. “But a candidate’s first winning margin is not their electoral ceiling.”

Will the Haley Stevens drama matter in Michigan?

Haley Stevens, the Democratic congresswoman who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary, has brought the drama in the race’s closing days. As late as Saturday night, she pledged to colleagues and friends that she was backing El-Sayed, only to turn up hours later at a church service with his Republican opponent Mike Rogers, and endorse the former congressman in a video. The cold-dish move has virtually drowned out El-Sayed’s closing message, with Stevens being formally kicked out of the Michigan Democratic Party.

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The question now is if any of it will matter, especially in light of a New York Times/Siena poll taken before Stevens’ move that showed El-Sayed leading Rogers by 11 points. Michigan Republicans seem to think it won’t, telling Politico they wish the congresswoman had crossed the aisle earlier. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report agrees, moving the race in their ratings to “Leans Democratic,” a shift that was already in the works before Stevens detonated her bomb. 

Still, the results in the state’s Democratic primary were far narrower than the polls showed, with El-Sayed besting Stevens by only 1%, or 14,893 votes. 

Will Elon Musk get his money’s worth?

The New York Times reported yesterday that the world’s first trillionaire has dropped a staggering $474 million this election cycle, an historic first. The amount has been spread out across a variety of groups, PACs and funds, but it doesn’t include the “dark-money donations” the Times reports he has also made. Most of the $168 million he contributed to the Senate Leadership Fund has served to shore up Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee for Senate in Texas, who is locked in a tight race with Talarico.

Musk has a lot riding on Tuesday’s results. Beyond the simple math of whether he got enough bang for his buck, there is also the issue of what will surely face him in the event of a Democratic congressional majority: investigations. If the blue wave materializes, Musk can expect congressional inquiries of his activities, including his reported interventions in Russia’s war against Ukraine and his leadership of DOGE during the early months of Trump’s second administration. 

Where will the surprises be?

Each election brings surprises. Think not one but both of Georgia’s Senate seats going to Democrats in 2020, or Republicans making big gains in New York two years later. 

This is the year we could hear the echo of Georgia’s 2020 election results in another Southern state. Despite boasting large Black populations, Senate seats in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana have long been out of reach for Democrats. But there is now a path to victory for the party’s candidates in each of those states.

In South Carolina, the GOP incumbent Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat at Donald Trump’s command following the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, has proven to be a lackluster candidate, alarming even some Republicans with her performance in debates and on the stump. Democrat Annie Andrews has run a more nimble campaign, and between Graham’s performance and the national state of affairs, she appears to have narrowed the gap.

Mississippi’s incumbent GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has also run a lazy campaign, expecting to coast to victory. But the national political environment under Trump, coupled with campaign gaffes, large Black turnout in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act and clever campaigning by Scott Colom, her Democratic opponent, have helped to put the race in play. 

Louisiana is also a wild card. The state, which is one-third African American, has also seen a surge in early voting among Black residents, and according to a recent poll, the race between Republican Julia Letlow and Democrat Jamie Davis, who is Black, is tied.

Polls are not predictive. The political history of these states continues to favor Republicans, but any of them could deliver one of 2026’s electoral surprises. If that happens, it will signal that the blue wave has become a blue tsunami.

The post Will the midterms live up to the hype? 6 key stories we’re watching appeared first on Salon.com.

Republican Efforts to Subvert the Vote Zero in on Alaska

A couple of Republican senators are looking ahead to January and suggesting they will refuse to seat Democrat Mary Peltola should she win her Senate race.

“Under no circumstances should Mary Peltola be seated if she wins an election in a fraudulent manner,” Tim Sheehy (R-MT) tweeted on Saturday.

In a Sunday Meet the Press interview, Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also refused to commit to accepting the results, even if they are certified by Alaska, pointing to the DOJ investigation into the dueling Dan Sullivans on the ballot.

Later that day, a federal district court judge rejected the Department of Justice’s preemptive effort to halt Alaska’s certification of the election. The DOJ wants the state to not certify until an investigation is completed into whether voters who intended to vote for incumbent senator Dan Sullivan actually cast ballots for the other Dan Sullivan, who, a New York Times investigation suggested, may have been encouraged by Democratic operatives to run. Such an investigation would be impossible, because voters’ identities are not linked to their ballots, the judge noted.

“Those cast ballots have been commingled and cannot now be segregated or the identity of the person who cast each ballot ascertained,” Judge Sharon Gleason wrote.

The DOJ appealed Sunday’s decision. That litigation is separate from DOJ efforts to investigate the non-senator Sullivan.

As the Times’ story noted, nothing it reported is “fraud,” or a violation of election law; in a world where the DOJ and congressional Republicans were not beholden to Trump, there would not be much to investigate. As many experts have pointed out, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system is designed to ensure that, in a close election, senator Dan Sullivan will in fact win any voters who intended to vote for him, since it eliminates minor candidates.

Each state is in charge of certifying its own elections and sending the winners to Congress. The Senate, however, plays a role in determining which members to seat; contested races, have, historically, been investigated by the Senate Rules Committee.

These scenarios are rare, however, and the Senate procedures around disputed elections have often been determined by the body itself, not any law. The vagueness opens the door to a huge range of options, including opportunities for Republicans to attempt to block Peltola, and opportunities for Democrats to fight back.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY), who is also conducting an investigation into Alaska’s election, said Sunday that the Senate might refuse to seat Peltola.

One Republican who said he would accept the results is the senator Dan Sullivan.

“Are you only going to accept the election results if you win?” Jake Tapper asked him Sunday on CNN.

“No, I’m going to accept the election results,” Sullivan replied.

Haley Stevens’ Very Weird Sunday

• In the hours following Stevens’ dramatic switch, from supporting Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to supporting Republican Mike Rogers — a man who in August she described as “another rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda” — journalists and Michigan Democrats searched for some clue as to what prompted such a sudden reversal.
• Stevens’ differences with El-Sayed were well known. But, as TPM and other outlets reported, she had the previous night assured Democrats she would not do the very thing she did. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a respected Michigan Democrat, said Stevens told her at “midnight” that the possibility she would endorse Rogers was “all a rumor and it was not true.” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also described Stevens telling him one thing Saturday before doing the opposite Sunday.
• During an Anderson Cooper interview yesterday evening, the host repeatedly pressed her to explain why the switch happened when it did. Cooper noted that while Stevens had strongly critiqued El-Sayed — saying that he had not adequately distanced himself from streamer Hasan Piker or from a super PAC ad that suggested inflation was caused by U.S. arms sales to Israel — nothing had changed on those topics between the time she assured her party members she would not endorse Rogers, on Saturday, and the time, the next day, when she did.
• Stevens did hint that El-Sayed’s decision to uninvite her from a unity event, scheduled for Sunday morning, in the face of her mounting critiques, prompted her to switch allegiance. “Abdul made very clear that I was not welcome in his campaign, that he didn’t need me there, that he didn’t want me there,” she said at a press conference with Rogers.
• Speculation within Democratic circles also narrowed in on Stevens’ fiancé, the political donor Jason Turkish, who endorsed Rogers last week. Journalist Zach Gorchow reported a story told by former Democratic governor James Blanchard, who was in office from 1983 to 1991 and who said he had recently had dinner with the couple. Blanchard described Turkish “working her over,” telling her fiancé that “everyone is disappointed” in her. Blanchard said he intervened to defend Stevens as a “team player.”
• “I’ve known Haley for a long time. I don’t know her fiancé,” Mallory McMorrow, one of Stevens’ and El-Sayed’s primary opponents, said during a local news interview yesterday. “I don’t. But to see him out there so publicly — I can only speak for myself, but my husband and I talked about this, and my husband said if he ever tried to speak for me the way we see happening now, he was like, ‘you would leave me.’ It’s hard to watch.” Dingell, also part of the interview, added, “it’s very hard.”
• Stevens chief of staff of eight years, and other staffers in her office, resigned yesterday.

Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, a stunning reversal just two days before Michigan voters decide one of the country’s closely watched Senate races.

Stevens appeared alongside Rogers at Detroit’s Perfecting Church after plans for her to campaign with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., fell apart amid renewed tensions over Israel.

The congresswoman, who narrowly lost Michigan’s August Democratic primary to El-Sayed, praised Rogers’ support for investment in Black-owned businesses. In a video announcing her decision, Stevens said El-Sayed had made clear she was no longer welcome in his campaign.

I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. https://t.co/pQgfSBuhOJ

— Haley Stevens (@HaleyforMI) November 1, 2026

The endorsement followed days of public disagreements between the former primary rivals. Stevens criticized an advertisement from Rebellion PAC, an independent group supporting El-Sayed, that linked American aid to Israel with rising grocery prices.

El-Sayed said his campaign had no involvement with the advertisement and explicitly rejected its contents Saturday. Stevens initially welcomed his response, but their planned joint appearance had already unraveled.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who helped arrange the church visit, told The Associated Press she asked Stevens not to attend because the dispute had become a distraction.

“I’m the one who pulled it because it had become way too distracting,” Dingell said.

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The rift intensified Wednesday when Stevens’ fiancé, Jason Turkish, announced he would vote for Rogers, citing concerns about El-Sayed’s positions on Israel. Stevens initially maintained that she would support the Democratic nominee.

The public split comes as Democrats seek to retain the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters. Michigan is among the states central to the party’s effort to regain control of the chamber.

Stevens, who is not on Tuesday’s ballot, said she remains a proud Democrat despite endorsing her party’s Republican opponent.

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