# A Guide to Election Night 2026 - **Show:** The Daily - **Published:** 3 Nov 2026 - **Source:** https://www.nytimes.com/the-daily - **Transcript:** https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/the-daily/a-guide-to-election-night-2026-1d0793/ - **Provider:** OpenNash Podcasts (machine-generated) ## In brief Nate Cohn, The New York Times's chief political analyst, argues that a Democratic House takeover is close to certain in the 2026 midterms. The real question is how big the 'blue wave' is, and above all whether it is big enough to flip the Senate. He lays out four scenarios to help listeners read election night as the results arrive. The tension is between what the polls show and what polarized voting has usually delivered. The Times's final polls show Democrats ahead in all seven key Senate states, which points to a 'tsunami'. Cohn warns that if Republicans simply come home and vote Republican, the night looks very different. Slow counts in Maine and Alaska could also delay the answer for days. ## Key insights 1. **Democrats need two Trump-won double-digit Senate seats** Only a third of Senate seats are up, and few Republican ones are vulnerable. Democrats must therefore win at least two states Trump carried by ten points or more, which is a hard task. 2. **The early vote may create a 'blue mirage'** Early ballots are counted first and lean heavily Democratic, so Democrats could lead in Florida and South Carolina for a while. Republicans who vote on election day, as in 2016 and 2020, could erase those leads. 3. **Four wave sizes produce very different nights** They run from Republicans staying 'dry' to a Democratic 'tsunami'. The difference between holding and losing the Senate could be tens of thousands of votes in states like Alaska and Ohio. 4. **Maine and Alaska could delay the Senate answer** Maine counts much of its vote by hand, and Alaska counts mail ballots over about a week. Both use ranked-choice voting, which can add a second round of counting, with Alaska's expected around November 18. 5. **Pollsters now correct harder for missing Trump voters** Pollsters give extra weight to the Trump supporters who do answer, and the Times also tries to match the 'kind' of Republican it reaches. Cohn says this is no guarantee, and the Times's final polls would have been three points bluer under its 2022 and 2024 method. ## Questions this episode answers ### What is a 'blue wave' and is one expected this year? A blue wave is a loose term for a strong Democratic showing, and it has no formal definition. Nate Cohn says some kind of blue wave is close to inevitable this year, and that is why he sees a Democratic House as essentially certain. ### Why is the Senate harder for Democrats to win than the House? Only one third of Senate seats are up in any year, and this year few of them are vulnerable Republican seats. Democrats would have to win at least two states Trump won by double digits. ### What does 'blue mirage' mean on election night? Early votes are counted first and lean Democratic, so Democrats can look strong early on. Republicans who vote on election day can then erase those leads, as Cohn says has happened in 2016 and 2020. ### Why might we not know who controls the Senate on election night? Most key Senate states close their polls late, and Maine and Alaska count slowly. Both also use ranked-choice voting, which can need a second round of counting if nobody reaches 50%. ### Can the polls be trusted this time? Cohn says pollsters now adjust far more to reach and weight Trump supporters than in 2016 or 2020, but nobody can promise the polls are right. He notes that the biggest risk is Republican-leaning voters who tell pollsters they are unhappy and then vote Republican anyway. ## Facts - **Speaker 4** [0:04:32]: "whether they can win the Senate, where they need to win at least two seats that Donald Trump won by double digits." - **Speaker 4** [0:04:32]: "Our final polls of the seven states likeliest to decide the Senate show the Democrats ahead, even if sometimes only narrowly," - **Nate Cohn** [0:05:00]: "Kansas, Iowa, and Alaska. Five of those states, by the way, voted for Trump by double digits." - **Michael Barbaro** [0:05:14]: "a Times investigation into the Alaska Senate race that showed that the Democratic nominee, Mary Peltola's campaign, played a role in recruiting a spoiler candidate, a second Dan Sullivan." - **Michael Barbaro** [0:05:14]: "the losing Democratic primary candidate in the Michigan Senate race, Haley Stevens, snub the Democratic nominee, Abdul Ossayed, and cross party lines and endorse his Republican rival, Mike Rogers." - **Nate Cohn** [0:06:07]: "the poll in Michigan found Dr. El-Sayed up by eleven points, which is his largest lead of the cycle, a six-point gain from our last poll in September." - **Nate Cohn** [0:06:38]: "That was a decline from a seven-point lead in our penultimate poll. She has had other issues in this campaign." - **Nate Cohn** [0:08:48]: "one factor is that the Republicans have redrawn the nation's congressional maps to their advantage over the last year." - **Nate Cohn** [0:09:11]: "Only one third of the seats are at stake, and it so happens that this year there aren't very many vulnerable Republican seats up for grabs." - **Nate Cohn** [0:10:34]: "Kentucky's sixth district. It's around Lexington. It voted for Trump by 15 points. That race is considered a toss-up" - **Nate Cohn** [0:11:45]: "It is very clear that the Democrats have done exceptionally well in the early vote. It is also possible, however, and we've seen this happen before, like in 2020 or 2016, that Republicans just show up to vote on election day." - **Nate Cohn** [0:15:32]: "Maine counts their vote in much of the state by hand, and in recent elections, 20% of the vote is still uncounted at noon on Wednesday." - **Nate Cohn** [0:16:08]: "Alaska, I think, has a better excuse, which is that it has this huge, far-flung population that's voting by mail, but that takes them a week to count." - **Nate Cohn** [0:16:30]: "Yeah, and so, like in Alaska, I think that's November 18th." - **Nate Cohn** [0:18:16]: "I think that the best case for Democrats in this scenario might be something like 53 seats in the Senate, maybe even 54, though I think that would be pretty lucky." - **Nate Cohn** [0:21:00]: "In the House, the Democrats could win the popular vote by double digits and claim 250 seats, maybe." - **Nate Cohn** [0:21:30]: "Maybe the Democrats win Kansas, a Senate state that hasn't voted Democratic since 1932, again, not just by a little bit, but by five points or more." - **Nate Cohn** [0:22:05]: "I think you'd have to go back maybe to 1974, the election right after Watergate, to come up with something that felt this big." - **Nate Cohn** [0:15:02]: "That's the race where Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, is running in what seems to be a surprisingly close race in a state that is never really competitive in federal elections." - **Nate Cohn** [0:25:40]: "If I take a poll of Pennsylvania and Trump voters are 40% of the sample, and we know they were 50% of the vote, the typical pollster will make them 50% of the vote right now." - **Nate Cohn** [0:27:04]: "First is that we do everything we can to make sure we reach as many Trump voters as possible, including by ensuring that in any given state, we reach the correct number of registered Republicans." - **Nate Cohn** [0:28:13]: "And I'll note that our final polls, as blue as they were, would have been three points bluer." - **Nate Cohn** [0:29:56]: "Or take Texas. Two thirds of the vote has already been cast in Texas. It's a big proportion, and in our data, it looks really Democratic." - **Nate Cohn** [0:23:45]: "The Republicans have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas this cycle." - **Nate Cohn** [0:30:58]: "It's been 16 years since a party won even one seat that voted for the other side by double digits in the prior presidential election." - **Michael Barbaro** [0:02:03]: "After two years of campaigning, more than $11 billion of advertising and last-minute dramas in Alaska and Michigan, the 2026 midterm election is now in the hands of the American voters." - **Michael Barbaro** [0:34:31]: "On the final full day of campaigning across the U.S., President Trump tried to rally Republicans with a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, where he denounced this year's Democratic candidates as extreme." - **Michael Barbaro** [0:35:34]: "the Times reports that about 50 million Americans have already cast ballots, a surge of early voting that is outpacing the last midterm cycle in every major Senate battleground." ## Transcript **[0:00:00] Ad read:** I'm Peter Baker, I'm chief White House correspondent for the New York Times. I've covered the presidency of the United States, and I've covered every president since 1996. The pressure on an independent press today feels greater than at any time I've seen it in four decades as a journalist. All that pressure, though, is just a reminder of why journalism matters. Our job is to bring home facts, help our readers understand what's happening, regardless of what the consequences may be to us. **[0:00:25] Ad read:** And if they punish us, so be it. We will still go out there and report as honestly and aggressively and fairly and truthfully as we can. I mean, look, if the New York Times were not at the White House asking the hard questions, looking for stories behind the stories, trying to understand what's going on, it's possible these questions don't get asked. Independent reporting requires resources. You can support it by subscribing to the New York Times at nytimes. **[0:00:50] Ad read:** com **[0:00:56] Speaker 6:** If you could describe how you are feeling about this election in a single word, is there a word that comes to mind? Hopeful, anxious, Scary? important. Consequential? **[0:01:08] Speaker 4:** Needed. This whole administration is shit show. I'm relieved that it's over and I don't have to listen to the Yeah, advertisements anymore. **[0:01:16] Michael Barbaro:** Optimistic-ish. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. **[0:01:24] Speaker 4:** Can I ask who you voted for today in the Senate race? Oh, Abdul said, Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm not the biggest Paxton fan, but to me, it was kind of a lesser of two evils. And nothing against Tulareco, but I think voting for him is a vote for Chuck Schumer. I did pretty much go Democratic. I don't always do that, but I did do that. I am voting for Susan Collins. **[0:01:45] Michael Barbaro:** I have definitely voted for Troy Jackson, of course. **[0:01:52] Speaker 4:** Yeah, I'm gonna hold my nose and vote for the dope. Gonna vote for, uh, Troy Jackson. The Senate's full of idiots. At least he's our idiot. **[0:02:03] Michael Barbaro:** After two years of campaigning, more than $11 billion of advertising and last-minute dramas in Alaska and Michigan, the 2026 midterm election is now in the hands of the American voters. What's the number one issue you're voting on today? **[0:02:22] Speaker 4:** Oh, to stop the current regime. The stakes are very high because of Trump. Everything else pales in comparison. We want to keep our country American. We don't want Sharia law. If you're not, the biggest issue on my mind is the economy. Everything just don't double, triple, I mean, dang, $4 for a bag of chips. That's ridiculous, yeah. There's so many issues. How can you think of just one? I'm worried about everything. Today, as the ballot counting begins, my colleague, chief political analyst Nate Cohn, offers a guide for how to understand tonight's results. **[0:03:03] Speaker 4:** After the election, when you wake up, what are the headlines that you are hoping to see? **[0:03:09] Speaker 6:** That there is no big blue wave. **[0:03:15] Speaker 4:** The blue wave that everyone's predicting? I would love to see that headline. **[0:03:20] Michael Barbaro:** It's Tuesday, November 3rd, election day. Nate, Michael, happy election day. Happy election day. To you and to all who celebrate. To every American voter, happy election day. So, Nate, we are here today to do something we started doing with you a few elections ago, which is to offer our listeners a roadmap to election night. Because starting around 7:00 PM. Eastern tonight, everyone's screens are going to be bombarded with projections and breaking news alerts. This person won this House seat, this person lost that Senate seat, and it's always cacophonous, a little confusing. **[0:04:09] Michael Barbaro:** And so we want to give people a user's guide to the entire night with you as our guide, our captain, whichever. Do You have you have a **[0:04:17] Speaker 4:** a preferred metaphor. **[0:04:18] Michael Barbaro:** preferred metaphor? **[0:04:18] Speaker 4:** Captain will work. **[0:04:19] Michael Barbaro:** And you come armed, Captain, with a new round of polling that the Times completed over the weekend, so it's as up-to-date as imaginable. So start with that new data. **[0:04:32] Speaker 4:** Stepping back briefly, as we've said on the show before, the Democrats are overwhelming favorites to take the House. The big question this election is whether they can win the Senate, where they need to win at least two seats that Donald Trump won by double digits. That's a tough feat. Our final polls of the seven states likeliest to decide the Senate show the Democrats ahead, even if sometimes only narrowly, in all seven All of those races. **[0:04:55] Michael Barbaro:** seven. Wow. **[0:04:55] Speaker 4:** Those are, that's Michigan, Maine, Texas, Ohio, **[0:05:00] Nate Cohn:** Kansas, Iowa, and Alaska. Five of those states, by the way, voted for Trump by double digits. If the polls are exactly right, and they never are, of course, but if they are, that would be enough for Democrats to take the chamber and have an election that they wouldn't have even imagined a year ago. **[0:05:14] Michael Barbaro:** Right. And this was, we should just say, polling, largely conducted before two pretty dramatic political surprises over the past week. We had a Times investigation into the Alaska Senate race that showed that the Democratic nominee, Mary Peltola's campaign, played a role in recruiting a spoiler candidate, a second Dan Sullivan. And then after that, as if that wasn't dramatic enough, we had the losing Democratic primary candidate in the Michigan Senate race, Haley Stevens, snub the Democratic nominee, Abdul Ossayed, and cross party lines and endorse his Republican rival, Mike Rogers. **[0:05:59] Michael Barbaro:** Did the polling tell us anything about whether either of those two soap operas might matter in those two races? **[0:06:07] Nate Cohn:** In a certain sense, the poll in Michigan found Dr. El-Sayed up by eleven points, which is his largest lead of the cycle, a six-point gain from our last poll in September. Wow. Seemingly undentable, And that would perhaps by seem undentable. Haley Stevens endorsing Um, **[0:06:21] Michael Barbaro:** his rival. **[0:06:22] Nate Cohn:** that's right, in this political environment, with Donald Trump as unpopular as he is, it seems like Michigan Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are going to get behind Dr. El-Sayed if our poll is right. Hm. Alaska A lot Alaska's a pretty different story. That's a race where Mary Peltola only led by one point, and that was a D **[0:06:38] Michael Barbaro:** in our final tally. **[0:06:38] Nate Cohn:** in our final poll. That was a decline from a seven-point lead in our penultimate poll. She has had other issues in this campaign. About a month ago, the Times reported that she had potentially mistreated staff members, so the trend line there is sort of working in the wrong direction. And now here's what may be a final push that could potentially help her Republican rival get over the top. **[0:06:58] Michael Barbaro:** Got it. But still, Peltola is leading in that poll, just not by much at all. **[0:07:02] Nate Cohn:** Not by much. I think that race is a true toss-up if you take our date on its face. **[0:07:05] Michael Barbaro:** Okay, but all in all, a very positive poll for Democrats across these seven key Senate races that could determine which party controls that chamber. Let's now incorporate that into our roadmap for election night. **[0:07:24] Nate Cohn:** Okay. Well, you know, as I mentioned, it's sort of inevitable that the Democrats are going to take the House this year. And one way to think about that is in terms of a metaphor that people love to use in midterm elections, and that's the idea of a blue wave. There's no formal definition of a blue wave. **[0:07:39] Michael Barbaro:** You know it when you see it. **[0:07:40] Nate Cohn:** You do know it when you see it, but some kind of blue wave is inevitable in this election. That's the reason why a Democratic House seems essentially inevitable in this election. But the big question is whether that wave will be big enough to yield major Democratic breakthroughs, even in districts and states that voted for Trump by double digits to give them that feeling of a sweeping victory. **[0:07:59] Michael Barbaro:** Hm. In potentially both chambers. **[0:08:03] Nate Cohn:** Absolutely. So in that sense, Michael, I see four basic scenarios for what might unfold on election night. All four involve blue waves, but they're of different heights, and they will leave Democrats or Republicans feeling very differently when all the votes are counted. **[0:08:17] Michael Barbaro:** Okay, let's talk through these four wave-ish scenarios. Let's start with the first one. **[0:08:25] Nate Cohn:** I think the first scenario is that the Republicans in heavily Republican districts stay dry. **[0:08:32] Michael Barbaro:** So you're really gonna commit to the bit I'm gonna commit here? **[0:08:34] Nate Cohn:** to the metaphor. You're a Republican on a cliff. The big blue wave crashes ashore. It's as big as any wave you've ever seen, but it doesn't reach you way up at your height, way in these Trump plus ten districts. **[0:08:46] Michael Barbaro:** How? How does that not reach them? **[0:08:48] Nate Cohn:** Well, one factor is that the Republicans have redrawn the nation's congressional maps to their advantage over the last year. You can think of that as Republican mapmakers evacuating their members away from the shoreline into high ground. So they would have been knocked out if it weren't for redistricting. Now they're way up above the wave. Maybe they can survive this year. The Senate's a little bit of a different story. There just aren't that many seats up for grabs in any particular year. **[0:09:11] Nate Cohn:** Only one third of the seats are at stake, and it so happens that this year there aren't very many vulnerable Republican seats up for grabs. So, as I mentioned earlier, the Democrats will have to flip at least two states that voted for Trump by at least double digits. They'll have to win at least two states that are on high ground. **[0:09:29] Michael Barbaro:** Right. The map was inherently challenging for Democrats to begin with. Gerrymandering helped make it even more challenging. I just want to make sure I understand what the results of Scenario one look like in the House and in the Senate. **[0:09:43] Nate Cohn:** In the House, the Democrats win, but maybe only by a modest margin, a handful of seats. In the Senate, they don't really come all that close to flipping the chamber. Some of the states that we've been talking about as potentially competitive, like Kansas or Iowa, South Carolina, they don't end up that close on election night. **[0:10:00] Michael Barbaro:** They just go to the Republic **[0:10:01] Nate Cohn:** They just go to the Republicans, and that could be clear pretty quickly, Michael. **[0:10:05] Michael Barbaro:** Yeah, what would be the signs of that as the clock starts to tick into the evening hours on Tuesday? **[0:10:10] Nate Cohn:** With one big caveat that I'll get to in a second. When the polls close in Kentucky and Indiana at six p.m. and then later across the Southeast at seven p.m. There will be over a dozen of these districts that are either highly competitive or that voted for Trump by double digits that we'll be watching, where we'll quickly get a sense of whether the Republicans really are vulnerable in these heavily Republican seats, like the polls have suggested all cycle. **[0:10:33] Michael Barbaro:** Give us some examples of these places. **[0:10:34] Nate Cohn:** The first one would be Kentucky's sixth district. It's around Lexington. It voted for Trump by 15 points. That race is considered a toss-up, and it's a Trump plus 15 district. So all the Republicans need to do to win this is just get Republicans to come back on board, and we'll know pretty quickly whether Kentucky sixth is a real race or whether actually Republicans are going to show up, vote and vote Republican. Later on, there's a whole slew of those gerrymandered districts in North Carolina and Florida that the Republicans have redrawn to be around Trump plus ten. **[0:11:05] Nate Cohn:** Democrats are hoping to hold some of them. We'll see it soon after 7 p.m. whether the Republicans succeeded in flipping those districts or not, and whether they did so with room to spare. And then we'll also have the Senate races in South Carolina and Florida. Republicans are expected to win those races, but if they win them comfortably by, say, nearly 10 points, like they usually would, that would be a sign that Republicans have come home and that the worst-case scenario for Republicans in this election might not materialize. **[0:11:33] Nate Cohn:** I do need to have one big warning, though, here, Which is which is that although we'll know relatively quickly whether the Republicans have held these seats, **[0:11:44] Michael Barbaro:** whether they're dry. **[0:11:45] Nate Cohn:** whether they're dry. We are going to have a moment just before then, when it looks like this election could be really, really blue, and the reason for that is the early vote. It is very clear that the Democrats have done exceptionally well in the early vote. It is also possible, however, and we've seen this happen before, like in 2020 or 2016, that Republicans just show up to vote on election day. In most of the states we've been talking about, the early vote gets counted first. **[0:12:16] Nate Cohn:** The Democrats could be looking really, really good, and then the election day vote could come in and leave them disappointed. So this is a blue mirage. Don't be surprised for 45 minutes for Democrats to be leading in Florida and South Carolina, even if they're actually going to lose. So we have to wait at least a little bit to see that election day vote before we can determine the direction that the night is heading. **[0:12:38] Michael Barbaro:** Fascinating. Nate, if scenario one comes to pass, it will have inevitably meant that there was systemic polling error of some kind. And you're our chief in-house pollster. So just help us understand a world where the polls are so off that you get scenario one. **[0:13:00] Nate Cohn:** Yeah, it's important to be clear about this. At this point, scenario one would absolutely require a polling error on the scale of 2016 or 2020, and maybe even beyond that, Michael. I do think that it is conceivable. We know, in general, that Trump supporters are less likely to respond to polls. Pollsters try and do things to adjust for this, and in some cycles it seems to work, and in some cycles it does not. The other factor here that I think raises the potential for a polling error even more is that we're really focused on heavily Republican states and districts, and this creates a risk to pollsters. **[0:13:32] Nate Cohn:** Where even if they're right about what voters are thinking now, there's this possibility that, in the end, Republicans just do what they usually do. Come out They could **[0:13:40] Michael Barbaro:** and vote. **[0:13:40] Nate Cohn:** come out and vote and vote Republican. And look, I don't doubt that there are millions of Republican voters today who are deeply dissatisfied with President Trump and don't even like the Republican nominee in their state. And they are expressing that dissatisfaction to pollsters. But it remains to be seen when they show up in a voting booth, whether they're really going to vote for a Democrat like they say. If they do not, which I think in today's polarized era just can't be too surprising, you would quickly see these Republican-leaning districts snap back to the right. **[0:14:12] Nate Cohn:** And I think that's the biggest risk to pollsters in this election. **[0:14:14] Michael Barbaro:** Right. It's not that they will have misled pollsters. In a certain sense, they may have misled themselves momentarily. And once election day rolls around, they come home to the familiar home of the Republican **[0:14:25] Nate Cohn:** I think that's a real possibility. **[0:14:28] Michael Barbaro:** Huh? Okay, that's scenario one. It's extremely good for Republicans in They'll be this environment, extremely thrilled. bad for pollsters. Let's talk about scenario two. **[0:14:37] Nate Cohn:** Scenario two is where the Republicans don't stay dry. They get really wet. The wave reaches them high up on the cliff. The wave is every bit as big as the pollsters said it would. The Democrats win the House and they win it big. But in the critical states where Donald Trump won by ten points or more, the Republicans hold on. So in the first scenario, a race like South Carolina's Senate may not even be close at all. **[0:15:02] Nate Cohn:** That's the race where Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, is running in what seems to be a surprisingly close race in a state that is never really competitive in federal elections. In this one, it really is close. But in this scenario, Darlene Graham wins. And the same story would play out in Iowa and in Kansas and maybe in Ohio, and enough states that the Republicans ultimately retain control of the Senate. In this scenario, we will have to wait much longer on election night before we understand that the Republicans have retained control of the chamber. **[0:15:32] Nate Cohn:** Because, unfortunately, most of the key Senate states do not close their polls early on election night. So it might only become clear that the Republicans are favored by maybe midnight. And worse still, if it's really close, there are two states, Maine and Alaska, where I'm not sure we're gonna know the answer for days. In this scenario, both states take a really long time to count their vote. Maine counts their vote in much of the state by hand, and in recent elections, 20% of the vote is still uncounted at noon on Wednesday. **[0:16:08] Nate Cohn:** Alaska, I think, has a better excuse, which is that it has this huge, far-flung population that's voting by mail, but that takes them a week to count. And as if all this isn't enough, there's then a second wrinkle in both of these states. They both have ranked choice voting. So once they've counted all the votes, then they have to do the ranked choice vote if no one reaches 50%, which in Which is this scenario is quite essentially a second round possible. **[0:16:29] Michael Barbaro:** of counting. **[0:16:30] Nate Cohn:** Yeah, and so, like in Alaska, I think that's November 18th. So in this scenario, **[0:16:33] Michael Barbaro:** I just want people to see the pained look on your face right I you now. **[0:16:37] Nate Cohn:** said happy election day. You should really be saying happy race call day. Because in this scenario where the Republicans narrowly hang on, it would be a really long time before they had run the table in each of these critical states that they're in danger in. **[0:16:49] Michael Barbaro:** So basically, in scenario number two, Democrats get very close to winning the Senate, but the cards just don't break their way in enough of these red states. Too many Republican candidates win these seemingly competitive Senate contests, and at the end of the day, they keep control of the Senate. **[0:17:11] Nate Cohn:** That's right, and I want to note scenario two, by historical measures, could still be an extraordinary night for Democrats. It could be the best performance that the party has had in red states in decades. Like, I think it's conceivable Democrats could win Texas in this scenario, or maybe it's Kansas, and any of them, by historic standards, would really be impressive. But the critical thing about this scenario is it just doesn't add up to 51 seats for them, which is what's ultimately going to determine whether they're thrilled by the ultimate outcome or not. **[0:17:38] Michael Barbaro:** And ultimately, given the expectations, I suspect Democrats would be deeply disappointed, and regardless, it would be an incredibly late night. So let's Nate move on to the third scenario. **[0:17:50] Nate Cohn:** In a lot of ways, scenario three is a lot like scenario two. The wave is basically as big. The Republicans are all wet, but in scenario three, the Republican sandbags fail. The wave swamps them, and in these critical Senate races, the Democrats do flip the seats they need to take control of the Senate. **[0:18:08] Michael Barbaro:** Okay, so key difference between three and two is that the Democrats do take the Senate, but by how much? **[0:18:16] Nate Cohn:** To me, what's unique about scenario three is that these states are all really close. And the difference between scenario three and scenario two could be tens of thousands of votes in Alaska and in Ohio and so on. And in one they break one way, in the other they break toward the Democrats. I think that the best case for Democrats in this scenario might be something like 53 seats in the Senate, maybe even 54, though I think that would be pretty lucky. **[0:18:39] Nate Cohn:** But it could be as little as 51. They could just barely scratch by with the bare minimum necessary to take the chamber. As long as they do that, I think the Democrats will ultimately feel elated by the night, even if it is a disappointment compared to, you know, polls that have raised even higher expectations than that. **[0:18:55] Michael Barbaro:** What will be the indication that a scenario three is unfolding versus a scenario two? Because, as you say, the waves may not feel all that different in **[0:19:06] Nate Cohn:** They may not. scale. So when They **[0:19:08] Michael Barbaro:** would we know the difference? **[0:19:10] Nate Cohn:** I think that there are really two paths for how we could feel the difference. One of them is where Democrats win on election night in enough of these states that do count their votes quickly enough. Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas. If the Democrats are winning those states, we could have a decision on election night. It may be late on election night, but **[0:19:34] Michael Barbaro:** We'll know that the Democrats have **[0:19:35] Nate Cohn:** we'll know that the Democrats taken the House and have taken the Senate, the House and the Senate. If the Democrats depend on Maine or Alaska to do it, we're still stuck waiting. So, from a purely selfish point of view, if let's If it's gonna hope that we have resolution happen, if it's gonna quickly. **[0:19:48] Michael Barbaro:** happen, let it happen fast. **[0:19:49] Nate Cohn:** Yeah, let's exactly. **[0:19:50] Michael Barbaro:** Okay, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, come to the fourth, final, and I believe the most dramatic political scenario **[0:20:00] Nate Cohn:** That's right. **[0:20:00] Michael Barbaro:** Of Tuesday night. **[0:20:01] Nate Cohn:** It would be something that we haven't seen in American politics in a long time. **[0:20:04] Michael Barbaro:** Okay, we'll be right back. **[0:20:16] Ad read:** This week on the Wirecutter show, you don't need to be afraid of a pressure cooker. We are in the second generation phase of stovetop pressure cookers. So if you walk away and you leave it over too high of a heat, it's gonna vent itself. We're talking about one-pot meals and all the ways to make them. Find the Wirecutter show on the New York Times app or wherever you like to listen. **[0:20:46] Michael Barbaro:** Nate, the fourth scenario for Tuesday night. **[0:20:49] Nate Cohn:** The fourth scenario is the tsunami. It's where the life jackets and the sandbags never really had a chance. You're on the cliff, and the wave is way over your head. If The Republicans you're, if you're are basically a Republican, **[0:21:00] Michael Barbaro:** washed away. **[0:21:00] Nate Cohn:** they are inundated. Let me describe what the extent of the damage Republicans could look like in this sort of scenario. In the House, the Democrats could win the popular vote by double digits and claim 250 seats, maybe. In the Senate, the Republicans wouldn't merely lose in some close battles in a few critical states. The Democrats might win the Senate with room to spare in a place like Michigan, where the Democrats have a candidate in Dr. El-Sayed that maybe could have lost in a different election. **[0:21:30] Nate Cohn:** Like maybe he cruises to a that big double-digit win that our poll showed this weekend. Maybe Democrats win Texas, and they don't just win Texas by a little bit, but they win it big. James Talerico wins by five points or more, with Hispanic voters surging 40-plus points toward the left. Maybe the Democrats win Kansas, a Senate state that hasn't voted Democratic since 1932, again, not just by a little bit, but by five points or more. And maybe a whole extra tier of state that we haven't really considered top-tier battleground, like South Carolina, which I've alluded to a few times, but also add to that Florida or Mississippi, maybe. **[0:22:05] Nate Cohn:** The Democrats are spending money there, and maybe those are the states that wind up being the closest on election night, states that we haven't even really considered to be top-tier contests. Stepping back, this is a generational victory. This is the largest victory for either party in decades. The Democrats would win more Senate seats in heavily Republican territory in this scenario than both 2008 and 2006 combined, and then more. I think you'd have to go back maybe to 1974, the election right after Watergate, to come up with something that felt this big. **[0:22:35] Nate Cohn:** Hm. Another It would **[0:22:36] Michael Barbaro:** major victory for Democrats. **[0:22:37] Nate Cohn:** an enormous victory for Democrats. We just haven't seen an election like this in a very long time. **[0:22:42] Michael Barbaro:** Scenario four. Well, at this point, which of these scenarios seems most likely, most plausible, given the polling we've done, given the political environment we're in? **[0:22:55] Nate Cohn:** I will find it hard to ever say scenario four is likely in this polarized era, and when all Republicans need to do to avert scenario four is show up and vote Republican. But I do have to be honest with you, and that's that the polls, if anything, say that scenario four is the single likeliest outcome here. Maybe scenario 3.7 is the likeliest outcome based in the polls. And then it the polls don't show Republicans losing in South Carolina, for instance, to take a case that I had in scenario four. **[0:23:23] Nate Cohn:** But they do show Democrats winning all of these critical Senate states, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. They also show them winning in these red states with room to spare sometimes, like Texas. The final polls show James Talerico ahead by a comfortable margin, not just our polls, but other polls. Same story in Kansas. And I I want to note that it's not just the polls that say this, it's the behavior of both parties. **[0:23:45] Nate Cohn:** We've already talked about how Democrats are spending in places like Mississippi and South Carolina. The Republicans have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas this cycle. It's not because they think it's the state it's been in the past. Donald Trump has been to South Carolina three times in the last few weeks, **[0:23:59] Michael Barbaro:** And not just because he likes and not just because Charleston. **[0:24:02] Nate Cohn:** he loves Charleston, but because they appear to be in really serious trouble here. Now, maybe those efforts are going to work. Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars and Donald Trump going to the right place during the final stretch gets enough of those Republicans back on board to avert this. But that is just not what the polling says today, even if it is conceivable that the polls will be wrong, as they have been before. **[0:24:22] Michael Barbaro:** Hm. I'm hearing you say that, even though you don't want to say scenario four is the likeliest, you kind of just did say that it's the likeliest. Look, it's my Basically, you're saying job. that this fourth scenario would The seem to be staring us in the face. **[0:24:29] Nate Cohn:** that's a great way to put it, Michael. If we were standing beside these Republicans in these Trump plus ten states, this wave that we are staring at looks big enough to wipe us away right now. Now, if you've been on the beach before, you've seen that the waves crash in unpredictable waves, and the wave that you think is gonna be the biggest breaks early and so on. So we can't make a perfect prediction about what it's going to look like once this wave breaks on this Republican cliff of ours. **[0:24:56] Nate Cohn:** But that's what it looks like. **[0:24:57] Michael Barbaro:** This is the point in the conversation where I feel it's incumbent to return to the question of polling error. We mentioned it earlier, but we didn't really talk about it with much granularity. And as we talk about how big a wave might look to us, we're basing that almost entirely on polling. Let's talk about why we don't think or the steps you have taken to mitigate against the risk that this long-standing trend of Republicans being less likely to answer the phone for pollsters, Democrats more eager to talk to pollsters. **[0:25:35] Michael Barbaro:** Why that isn't influencing this understanding that we've arrived at. **[0:25:40] Nate Cohn:** So, essentially, every pollster is going much farther to try and adjust their samples to properly represent Trump supporters than they did in 2020 or 2016. They, in particular, simply just give more weight to the Trump supporters who take their polls. So let's take an evenly divided state like Pennsylvania. If I take a poll of Pennsylvania and Trump voters are 40% of the sample, and we know they were 50% of the vote, the typical pollster will make them 50% of the vote right now. **[0:26:07] Nate Cohn:** It's a heavy-handed approach. I will also note that if the turnout is very blue for Democrats, you can at least talk yourself into a scenario where that's an overcorrection, potentially. So it's not a panacea, but it is a reason to think that the risks could be lower than before, though I should caution that just because pollsters are doing more than before doesn't mean that the underlying problems facing pollsters didn't get worse. **[0:26:27] Michael Barbaro:** Well, what specific steps have you all taken here at the Times to feel good about reaching enough Republicans, enough Trump supporters, enough of the people who might ultimately show up on Tuesday and essentially wipe out some of these Democratic advantages? **[0:26:45] Nate Cohn:** Did did you use this w word feel comfortable right there? So at first, I just have to reiterate, like, although we've taken steps that I'll work through in a second, there's no one can tell you that they know whether the polls are going to be right heading into an election. But to answer your question, there are a couple of things that we do differently, both from other pollsters and, in some cases, than what we've done in the past. **[0:27:04] Nate Cohn:** First is that we do everything we can to make sure we reach as many Trump voters as possible, including by ensuring that in any given state, we reach the correct number of registered Republicans. This is a guarantee that other pollsters don't make. It doesn't guarantee that our polls are right either, but I think it's helpful to have as many of these voters as possible so you can do the best job you can at trying to make sure that the sample is representative. **[0:27:25] Nate Cohn:** The second thing is we really do try pretty hard, and in ways that I think are pretty unique, to try and make sure we have the right kind of Trump supporter. This is something that's different in this election, but basically, for every respondent, we try and guess how likely they were to vote for Donald Trump. And so with that in mind, we try and distinguish between the kind of Republican who maybe did vote for Nikki Haley. **[0:27:46] Nate Cohn:** Maybe they live in a college-educated neighborhood. Maybe they have a professional degree, maybe they have a doctorate license, or, conversely, maybe they're a Trump donor, which would be a pretty good sign they're a Trump supporter. And we use that data to try and make sure that we don't merely have the right number of Republicans or the right number of Trump voters, but the right kind to the extent that we can. So, again, none of this is a guarantee of anything, but these are the kind of things that we've done that we hope give us a better chance. **[0:28:13] Nate Cohn:** And I'll note that our final polls, as blue as they were, would have been three points bluer. **[0:28:19] Michael Barbaro:** Three points bluer. Yeah. **[0:28:20] Nate Cohn:** On the survey methodology we used in 2024 and 2022. And our polls weren't that bad in 2024 and 2022. **[0:28:28] Michael Barbaro:** They were pretty accurate. **[0:28:29] Nate Cohn:** They were pretty accurate, more than accurate enough for the Democrats to take the Senate with room to spare if they were off in the same way they were that time. **[0:28:36] Michael Barbaro:** Hm. Are you suggesting that you could be, in that sense, overweighting Republicans and underweighting Democrats, even in these results that are extremely good for Democrats? **[0:28:48] Nate Cohn:** I I think that could is the important word here, as I mentioned. We really don't know. I know that's frustrating, but there have been elections, again, where the polls underestimated Democrats, and there have been elections where they overestimate them, even in the Trump era. And in this tsunami scenario, yeah, I think people would look back and say, you know, the steps that the pollsters were doing to try and reach more Trump supporters, at least in this particular election, went too far. **[0:29:11] Nate Cohn:** That in every effort to get as many Trump supporters as you can, you actually missed that a lot of them just weren't voting in this election. **[0:29:17] Michael Barbaro:** I think people hearing us talk about polling, potential polling error, steps we're taking to avoid it, will be curious what the actual early vote already is telling us and how much that may be supporting or not the emphasis we're placing on something like the third or fourth scenario here. **[0:29:36] Nate Cohn:** The early vote looks really blue, Michael. You should be prepared, as I mentioned earlier, for the Democrats to be leading in states like Florida and South Carolina in the 7 p.m. hour, even where they're ultimately expected to lose. But if the Republicans don't vote on election day in enormous numbers to counter that, then those states may not be leading Republican. It it may States. **[0:29:55] Michael Barbaro:** not be a blue mirage. **[0:29:56] Nate Cohn:** It may not be a blue mirage. It may actually be the first sight of that real wave. Or take Texas. Two thirds of the vote has already been cast in Texas. It's a big proportion, and in our data, it looks really Democratic. Not only are young, Latino, and non-voters showing up in significant numbers in Texas, but at least in our data, the people who are choosing to show up are just systematically likelier to be Democratic or James Talerico supporters. **[0:30:23] Nate Cohn:** So none of this proves anything. On election day, Republicans can counter, and they have before, in 2020, they did. But, at least to this point, I don't think the Democrats could have asked for too much more in terms of the turnout they have. **[0:30:34] Michael Barbaro:** Hm. Obviously, scenarios one and two would be a huge disappointment to Democrats, but it would, to some degree, be a reversion to the norm **[0:30:45] Nate Cohn:** It would be a typical **[0:30:45] Michael Barbaro:** in America. **[0:30:46] Nate Cohn:** mid it would be a typical midterm year where the party out of power does well, but it still looks a lot like our usual polarized country. **[0:30:52] Michael Barbaro:** Right. Three and four, four especially, those don't feel familiar, **[0:30:58] Nate Cohn:** They don't. They're something that we haven't seen in a long time. It's been 16 years since a party won even one seat that voted for the other side by double digits in the prior presidential election. In our polls, the Democrats are leading in five. So **[0:31:11] Michael Barbaro:** defies our understanding of our polarized **[0:31:13] Nate Cohn:** that's right, and this it era. and it's worth, again, coming back to the voters who will decide this election, and they're not the voters who usually decide our elections. For the Democrats to have the kind of night the polls say they will, Republican-leaning voters have to decide either to stay home in enormous numbers or decide to vote for Democrats in sufficient numbers. In states like Kansas and Texas, Iowa and so on, where, in many cases, they may never have voted for a Democrat for federal office before. **[0:31:41] Nate Cohn:** In our polarized era, this is a tough thing to really imagine. The consequences of a Democratic landslide or tsunami, to keep our wave metaphor going, would be really significant. It would be a repudiation of the Trump presidency right at the beginning of a presidential primary campaign. It could give Democrats control of state governments that they haven't thought of controlling in a long time. We may look back and say that it was sort of a turning point in the Trump era. **[0:32:09] Michael Barbaro:** The beginning of the end. **[0:32:10] Nate Cohn:** This could potentially be clearly the moment when Trump's influence on American politics began to wane. And it was clear that he had gone too far and had broken too many promises for him to be able to preserve the coalition that had brought him and his populist politics to power. **[0:32:25] Michael Barbaro:** All right, I think we're gonna leave it there. I do want to give listeners, Nate, a little bit of a sense of what comes next for you. You're gonna walk out of here, you're gonna head into these screen-filled rooms that are loaded with soda and candy to sustain you and your colleagues. As you count the votes and you feed them into these models and these prediction needles that we produce throughout election night, and that will consume you for the next 20 something hours until you return to us at, I hope, two, two thirty, three a.m. **[0:32:58] Nate Cohn:** That's what it's been in the past. **[0:32:59] Michael Barbaro:** Wednesday morning to record our next episode, cause this is the first of a series, and I don't know how you do it, and I'm extremely grateful to you for doing it. **[0:33:10] Nate Cohn:** Thanks for having me, Michael. **[0:33:15] Michael Barbaro:** For a limited time, the New York Times is making all of our election coverage free in the New York Times app. There, you'll find in-depth analysis, poll trackers, and live updates throughout the midterms, including on election day. Plus, if it's your first time downloading the NYT app, you can access all of our journalism free for 30 days. So give it a try. We'll be right back. **[0:33:49] Ad read:** I'm Deborah Kamen. I'm an investigative reporter for the New York Times. One morning a few months ago, I got an email, and this person said to me, Hey, I have some documents that I think you want to see. So I got on a plane that afternoon, and I met them in person, and I photographed the documents, and we were able to tell a story that moved our reporting forward in a really significant way. When you subscribe to the New York Times, you're getting a whole team of reporters who are willing to jump and go verify information and bring back documents and shine light on things that other people would like to keep hidden. **[0:34:17] Ad read:** If you're a subscriber, thank you for being a part of that. **[0:34:22] Michael Barbaro:** Here's what else you need to know today. **[0:34:24] Ad read:** As you know, this is the last day before the midterm elections, the most important midterm I believe in our lifetime. **[0:34:31] Michael Barbaro:** On the final full day of campaigning across the U.S., President Trump tried to rally Republicans with a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, where he denounced this year's Democratic candidates as extreme. **[0:34:46] Ad read:** Democratic Party has nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history. These are the most dangerous candidates ever put up. **[0:34:57] Michael Barbaro:** But many of those Democratic candidates reminded voters that Tuesday's election was, in their telling, a referendum on Trump. In Michigan, the Democratic candidate for Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, mocked Trump for his repeated efforts to portray him as a radical. **[0:35:16] Abdul El-Sayed:** For his part, Donald Trump can't seem to figure out what my actual name is, to be fair. Abdul. He always says it with a rasp. Muhammad. At some point, I'm gonna teach him how to say my name properly, but after tomorrow, he can just call me Stoner. **[0:35:34] Michael Barbaro:** Meanwhile, the Times reports that about 50 million Americans have already cast ballots, a surge of early voting that is outpacing the last midterm cycle in every major Senate battleground. Polls will open this morning for in-person election day voting starting at 6:00 a.m. Today's episode was produced by Oscar Chaterabedi, Ricky Nevetsky, and Caitlin O'Keefe, with help from Diana Nguyen, Lexi Diao, Carlos Prieto, Anna Foley, Olivia Nat, and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Liz O'Bylen. **[0:36:17] Michael Barbaro:** Contains music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Wunderly. Special thanks to Michael Cruz, Maya King, Bayless Wagner, Ryan Patrick Hooper, Patrick Cooley, Kevin Williams, Ilana Arogeti, Kristen Bayrak Darian, Ishani Desai, and finally, to Eleanor McKinnell Cohn, Nate's daughter, for lending us her father. That's it for today. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow for the results of the midterm election. **[0:37:14] Ad read:** I'm MJ Franklin, and this week on the Book Review Podcast, Switzie by Emma Hands down, the novel with the most impressive control I've read this year. **[0:37:24] Michael Barbaro:** Someone is losing their mind, and they're approaching their death. **[0:37:28] Ad read:** Completely moving, elegantly written. **[0:37:31] Michael Barbaro:** I just got lost in the prose of it, which sometimes feels like poetry to me. **[0:37:35] Ad read:** What does a life add up to? What does it all mean? **[0:37:37] Michael Barbaro:** Listen to the book review wherever you get your podcasts.