Welcome to Election Night, Contrarians! Jen Rubin, Tim Dickinson, and the rest of the Contrarian Crew bring you live updates for the most critical races to watch as America’s votes are tallied. Will there be a blue wave? Or will MAGA keep power in Congress? Follow along with us for the 2026 midterms.
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Tim Dickinson 4:35 p.m.
The topline numbers matter most tonight, but I am also looking at several subplots that extend beyond control of Congress.
The Character Contest:
There are some truly dreadful people running as Republicans in 2026. Does America punish Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) for getting people sent to jail over unpaid medical debt? Is Vivek Ramaswamy going to get away with his execrable exploitation of Amy Acton’s mother in that ad he ran? Is the villanous Ken Paxton really going to serve Texas in the Senate? Or will something kinder prevail?
An Adam Hamilton Senate win in Kansas, an Acton victory in the Ohio governor race, and a James Talarico triumph in Texas would send a signal that character still matters in American politics.
The Progressive Hypothesis:
The conventional Democratic wisdom is that winning in swing states requires running bland, centrist candidates with little appetite for political change. (See: Peters, Gary) Left-leaning Senate candidates in Michigan (Abdul El-Sayed), Maine (Troy Jackson), and Florida (Angie Nixon) are seeking to upend that paradigm, running as unvarnished progressives, while championing Medicare for All and other democratic socialist adjacent ideas. Can they deliver?
History Makers:
Democrats could send not one, but two Native women to the Senate: Alaska’s Mary Peltola and Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms could become the nations’s first Black woman governor. And El-Sayed could become the nation’s first Muslim senator. Their wins would stand as a rebuke to the naked bigotry Trump, JD Vance, and their MAGA minions have reinjected into our politics.
Jen Rubin, 3:36 p.m.
What am I keeping an eye on early in the evening? In the very first batch of House returns, Democratic wins in Kentucky 6 and Indiana 5 would signal a blue wave. After that, Virginia’s 1st, 2nd and 5th House races will help us assess just how big a night it will be for Democrats. If Tom Periello, whom Tim interviewed recently, wins in the 5th, it is going to be a VERY strong night for Dems. I’m also looking at House seats in Florida (the 7th, 9th, 13th, 14th, 22nd, 25th, and even the 27th), which may foretell a major shift in Hispanic voting back in Democrats’ direction. If the 27th goes to Dems, it’s a tsunami. (The 7th, 13th and 27th would be flips.) Wins in North Carolina’s 1st and 11th will be strong indicators of Democratic strength, with victories in the 5th and 9th suggesting something historic.
Early in the evening, Democratic Senate margins in expected wins in North Carolina and Georgia will be telling. If Mississippi, South Carolina, and Florida Senate races turn out to be tight, look out!
Tim Dickinson, 3:05 p.m.
Like Jen, I am curious to see the contours of the voter backlash today.
To what degree has the GOP assault on the Voting Rights Act lit a fire under Black voters in places like South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida, where Senate upsets are possible, though not likely.
Similarly: How are Latino voters responding to the racist cruelty of Trump’s ICE enforcement? If a surge in Latino votes were to propel Gina Hinojosa to victory over Greg Abbott in the Texas governor’s race, for example, it would be a political earthquake — and signal that Lone Star Republicans have more than an isolated Ken Paxton problem.
There are massive implications for 2028 as well as 2026.
Like: What do you mean Texas (40 electoral college votes) could be a swing state? Or what happens if South Carolina starts to behave more like purple Georgia and North Carolina, with nine electoral college votes in play? A big enough Blue Wave today could significantly alter the political landscape going forward.
Jennifer Rubin, 3:06 p.m.
For the backlash phenomenon, Senate and also gubernatorial races will be fascinating tonight. You cannot gerrymander statewide races! Democrats have a shot to pick up red-state wins in Georgia, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, and Texas, and to flip purple Nevada. Even Florida and Nebraska are in play. In the South, Democratic wins would be solid evidence of a backlash phenomenon to Callais and attacks on Latino and Black voting rights. Democratic governors in those red states (plus holds in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona) critical in presidential races would tamp down on Republican election denial stunts in 2028.
Tim Dickinson, 3 p.m.
I’m working to stay sanguine about what the data has told us going into Election Day.
A blue wave is almost certainly upon us. For the Democrats not to win the House would require a polling miss of profession-shaking proportions. As VoteHub’s chief of data science Zachary Donnini told The Contrarian in a recent interview: “If Democrats lose the House, I’ll be at a bit of a loss. It would be a rough pill to swallow for the polling industry and would make Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 look like look like nothing.”
The Senate also looks favorable for Democrats, but it’s far from a lock. The odds look more like a lopsided NBA contest: Say the new-look, Lebron-led Philadelphia 76ers playing the hapless Brooklyn Nets. You might pencil in the W on the calendar, but the actual game can still surprise you. (DecisionDeskHQ — a little more bearish than most forecasts — puts the odds of Democrats taking the Senate at 65 percent. And we’ve all seen a 2:1 favorite lose.)
In truth — for meaningful control of the Senate — Democrats need to root for a Blue tsunami. A bare 51 seat majority puts the chamber at risk of monkey wrenching by Sen. John Fetterman, the fickle Pennsylvania Democrat who has already been playing footsie with MAGA. And here’s the reality check: Going into election night the odds of Democrats winning 52 or 53 seats look a lot more like a tossup.
Jen Rubin, 3 p.m.
Welcome to our Election Night coverage! Tim Dickinson and I will be following the returns along with you, trying to gauge the size of the blue wave and highlighting some of the candidates we have interviewed during the campaign.
Democrats have every reason to be optimistic (even if skeptical of the polls) based on not only the huge early-vote count but also the composition of the early-vote electorate. Hispanic, Black and young voters – key demographic groups for Democrats – have voted in disproportionately high numbers.
Tim and I will be going LIVE on Substack tonight around 9:45 p.m. eastern. Stay tuned for timing specifics. So buckle up, it’s going to be an exciting night!