US midterms enter final stretch as early voting opens in Alaska
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Early voting opened across most of Alaska on Oct 19 for the 15-day run to Election Day on Nov 3.
Republicans are pulling money from tough races while Democrats see momentum.
Background
The US midterm elections are held in the middle of each four-year presidential term and do not involve the president on the ballot, but they often serve as a referendum on the sitting president and shape the next presidential race in 2028. Republicans currently hold a 218-214 House majority with two vacancies and one independent caucusing with them, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats for control; Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, where Democrats also need four seats and ten races, including Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa and Georgia, could decide the outcome. With 15 days to go, Republicans began pulling spending out of tough territory, while a September Reuters/Ipsos poll put approval of President Donald Trump's performance at an all-time low of 32 percent.
How it unfolded
- Sep 21, 2026 -27, 2026Anthropic analyzed a random sample of about 250,000 US Claude.ai consumer conversations; about 0.51% were specifically about elections or voting and about 0.002% violated election integrity policies.
- Oct 12, 2026A record $3.8 billion had been spent on political advertisements aired so far, with top spending in battleground Senate races in Texas, Ohio and Michigan, according to AdImpact.
- Oct 13, 2026A Dane County judge issued a narrow ruling allowing officials to count ballots that arrive late solely because of election official errors; separately, election skeptics urged Trump to ban voting machines or declare martial law.
- Oct 14, 2026Texas election officials cleared a backlog of voter registrations caught in a state error, while voting rights groups sued Texas over failure to process more than 500,000 registrations; Wisconsin officials told voters to mail ballots ASAP after a court shut down a backup plan.
- Oct 15, 2026An AP-NORC poll of over 1,100 US adults found 80 percent said the country needs substantial change or complete and total upheaval in how it is run; Votebeat published a survey of 31 election experts who said the midterms could face challenges but were less concerned than in the spring.
- Oct 19, 2026Early voting opened across most of Alaska for the 15-day period before Nov 3; Reuters reported early voting had been underway for weeks, with more than 100 million people likely to cast ballots if turnout resembles 2022. Republicans began pulling spending out of tough territory, and their main super PAC had spent or reserved more than $11.6 million shoring up Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall.
- Nov 3, 2026Election Day for the 2026 midterms, with polls open and close on local time and national results coverage ramping as the first Eastern states report after 7 p.m. ET.
Who’s saying what
- Analysts
- The 31 election law and administration experts surveyed by Votebeat said the midterms could face challenges but were less concerned than in the spring.
- Public
- In the AP-NORC poll, 80 percent of Americans said the country needs substantial change or complete and total upheaval in how it is run, including 45 percent of Republicans seeking substantial change and 13 percent seeking upheaval.
- Party
- The New York Times reported Republicans are reeling in a sour national environment and cutting losses in some races, while seeing some signs of hope.
- Party
- Democrats believe momentum and time are on their side, according to The New York Times.
Still unverified
Election skeptics have urged Trump to ban voting machines or declare martial law, and what the president will do remains unclear; Reuters also presents the possibility that early voting trends point to a Democratic win as conditional, with a Democratic landslide described as far from assured.