Record early turnout and court fights set stage for Tuesday's midterm elections

Americans vote Tuesday in the 2026 midterm elections with control of Congress on the line, after early ballots topped 52.7 million and broke the record set in 2022, according to States Newsroom reporting carried by the SC Daily Gazette, Nevada Current and Minnesota Reformer.

Analysts were hesitant to treat the early-vote surge as evidence of a Democratic wave, those outlets reported. To take the Senate, Democrats must gain four seats on net, while Republicans control the House by a slim margin.

Advertising spending is projected to reach $11.6 billion, the reports said, citing the firm AdImpact. The Senate contests in Ohio and Texas attracted the largest sums.

The Justice Department previously lost lawsuits aimed at taking over mail-in voting and obtaining state voter lists, the outlets reported. On Friday, an appeals court turned down a bid to make state officials hold back up to 20,000 ballots. A department lawsuit connected to the Alaska Senate contest remains active. Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson said, "My hope is that this trend will continue and that our worst-case scenarios don't come to fruition."

When reporters asked President Donald Trump whether he would accept Democratic wins, he replied, "I will, if they're honest elections," the reports said.

Surveys cited by the outlets ranked living costs as the top issue for voters. As of Friday, the Cook Political Report listed seven Senate contests as toss-ups: Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Kansas, Iowa and Alaska. Inside Elections forecast that Democrats would gain enough to produce at least an evenly divided Senate. A New York Times/Siena poll found South Carolina's race tied, and Emerson College polling in Kansas showed Democrat Adam Hamilton with 49% and Republican Sen. Roger Marshall with 45%, a gap inside the survey's 3.5-point error margin.

The outlets reported that forecasters see Democrats as stronger favorites in the House, though some experts cautioned that redistricting, including new mid-decade maps from Republican-led legislatures, could blunt their gains.

In the Ohio governor's contest, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign pulled a $4 million ad that featured the estranged mother of Democrat Amy Acton, following criticism that included Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, according to the reports.

In Pennsylvania, CBS Philadelphia reported, voting runs from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m., and people still waiting in line at closing time are entitled to vote. Each voter must go to an assigned location, listed at PAVoterServices.PA.gov, and those voting at a site for the first time need valid ID. Poll workers cannot accept mail-in ballots; those must reach a county election office or an official drop box by 8 p.m. The state has no Election Day registration, and the sign-up deadline passed on Oct. 19.

Compiled by True News from reporting by CBS Philadelphia, SC Daily Gazette, Nevada Current and Minnesota Reformer. Each outlet's original story is linked below.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/688