AS OF 7:15 PM CENTRAL — TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2026
The midterm map is finally moving — but this is also the hour when discipline matters most.
Since our 6:16 PM Central update, Georgia has joined Virginia in the projected Democratic hold column, live vote totals are now coming in from Ohio and Texas, and the House call board has expanded from 15 Democratic seats and 26 Republican seats to 87 Democratic seats and 94 Republican seats.
That is a major increase in called races. It is not the same thing as control of the House being decided.
Below, we are keeping four very different kinds of election-night information in four clearly separated lanes: final pre-election polling, the AP voter survey, media race calls, and actual reported vote totals. They are related, but they are not interchangeable.
PRE-ELECTION POLLING — NOT VOTE RESULTS
These numbers are final campaign polling benchmarks. They can help us understand expectations, but they are not ballots and they should never be read as election results.
Alaska Senate — POLLING ONLY: Alaska Survey Research’s final October 26–29 survey of 1,326 likely voters showed Democrat Mary Peltola at 48% and Republican Dan Sullivan at 46%, a Peltola advantage of 2 points.
Iowa Senate — POLLING ONLY: AtlasIntel’s final October 28–November 1 survey of 1,219 likely voters put Democrat Josh Turek at 50.5% and Republican Ashley Hinson at 46.4%, a 4.1-point Turek lead.
Maine Senate — VOTES REPORTING: The final Rasmussen survey, a Republican-sponsored partisan poll conducted October 27–November 2 among 896 likely voters, showed Democrat Troy Jackson at 49% and Republican Susan Collins at 46%. A small number of raw votes had begun appearing by our cutoff even while the statewide feed still rounded reporting to 0%, so the poll remains only a benchmark.
Michigan Senate — VOTES REPORTING: John Zogby Strategies’ final October 31–November 2 survey of 1,001 likely voters showed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed at 51% and Republican Mike Rogers at 49%. Here again, the final poll is context — not a substitute for the live count.
The polling details above come from the final-state poll listings maintained by Call the Map, including the pollster, field dates, samples and stated margins.
The four surveys also show why a national election-night narrative can conceal very different state-level contests. Alaska and Michigan were two-point polling races, while Iowa’s final survey showed a somewhat wider Democratic edge and Maine’s result came from a partisan-sponsored poll that deserves an explicit caveat.
Undecided voters were not allocated to either candidate in our graphic, and no polling margin was converted into an expected vote margin. Once votes began appearing in Maine and Michigan, those live returns took precedence over the final polls for the race-status label.
VOTER SURVEY — NOT A TRADITIONAL EXIT POLL
We do not yet have a separate, credible traditional exit poll that we are comfortable presenting as an exit poll.
What is available is the AP Voter Poll, a probability-based voter survey conducted for The Associated Press by SSRS using registered-voter panels, telephone interviews and other validated methods. That is why we are labeling it a VOTER SURVEY, not silently calling it an exit poll.
The early national findings indicate that roughly six in ten voters disapprove of President Trump’s job performance, roughly four in ten identify the economy as the country’s top issue, and roughly three in ten name the future of democracy.
The Associated Press explains that its voter poll is designed to capture the electorate through a probability-based approach, including people who voted before Election Day, rather than relying only on interviews outside polling places. SSRS conducts the survey using registered-voter panels, telephone interviews and validated voter records, then weights the responses to represent the voting population.
That methodology is materially different from a traditional Election Day exit poll, so the label matters. The early findings on Trump, the economy and democracy describe what surveyed voters said about national conditions; they are not vote totals, they do not project a winner, and they cannot be used to move a race into the called column.
RACE PROJECTIONS/CALLS — NOT CERTIFIED FINAL RESULTS
At our 7:15 PM Central cutoff, the Associated Press had called the Georgia Senate race for Democrat Jon Ossoff and the Virginia Senate race for Democrat Mark Warner. Both are projected Democratic holds.
The AP’s election-night report also stressed that large parts of the national map were still unresolved and that the decisive House and Senate contests would unfold at different speeds because states count and report ballots differently. That context is important: an early call in one state does not imply that a race with partial returns in another state is ready to be called.
For this update, a projection changes only the status label for that specific race. It does not turn incomplete returns into a certified final result, and it does not allow us to add every currently leading candidate to a party’s called-seat total.
Georgia Senate — PROJECTED/CALLED: Ossoff is the projected winner. The reported vote totals remain unofficial and incomplete.
Virginia Senate — PROJECTED/CALLED: Warner is the projected winner. Warner posted this declaration after the call:
A candidate declaration is useful confirmation of the election-night moment, but the projection still belongs in the call column — not the certified-final column.
Here is Ossoff’s Election Day message directing Georgia voters to stay in line if they reached the polls before closing:
That message is not a result or projection. It is included as an official candidate-side election-day receipt from one of the night’s first called Senate races.
CONFIRMED REPORTED RESULTS — UNOFFICIAL AND NOT FINAL
The numbers in this section are actual reported votes in the election-night feed — not polls. They remain unofficial, incomplete and subject to change as counties report more ballots.
BIG SENATE RACES
Georgia — PROJECTED/CALLED: Ossoff had 1,564,852 votes, or 64%, to Republican Mike Collins’ 890,968 votes, or 36%, with 55% reporting.
Virginia — PROJECTED/CALLED: Warner had 799,110 votes, or 59%, to Republican Bert Mizusawa’s 557,401 votes, or 41%, with 37% reporting.
Ohio — VOTES REPORTING: Democrat Sherrod Brown led with 891,660 votes, or 59%, while Republican Jon Husted had 569,486 votes, or 38%, with 31% reporting. No call was included in our frozen snapshot.
Texas — VOTES REPORTING: Democrat James Talarico led with 865,194 votes, or 63%, while Republican Ken Paxton had 491,969 votes, or 36%, with 13% reporting. No call was included in our frozen snapshot.
Those reported totals were captured from the ABC News Senate results feed, which identifies The Associated Press as its election-results data source.
The feed showed a meaningful difference between the called races and the unresolved ones: Georgia and Virginia had both a projection and a substantial reported count, while Ohio and Texas had only partial returns and no call in our snapshot. Reporting levels ranged from 13% in Texas to 55% in Georgia.
That variation is why we show the vote total, percentage and reporting level together. A large early percentage lead can narrow as different counties report, and it should not be converted into a projection merely because the current margin looks decisive.
Michigan also began posting votes after the final-poll benchmark above. Decision Desk HQ’s early update, published after our frozen 7:15 PM snapshot, illustrates how quickly that count was changing:
Because that update came after the frozen snapshot, we are not mixing its numbers into the 7:15 PM chart or control arithmetic. Michigan’s cautious status remains VOTES REPORTING.
CONSEQUENTIAL HOUSE RACES
Florida 7 — VOTES REPORTING: Republican Ryan Elijah had 153,656 votes, or 49%, while Democrat Bale Dalton had 153,134 votes, or 49%, with 96% reporting. The margin was just 522 votes.
Florida 13 — VOTES REPORTING: Republican Anna Luna had 153,106 votes, or 49%, while Democrat Leela Gray had 150,783 votes, or 48%, with 99% reporting.
Virginia 1 — VOTES REPORTING: Democrat Shannon Taylor had 72,813 votes, or 50%, while Republican Robert Wittman had 72,155 votes, or 49%, with 36% reporting.
Virginia 5 — VOTES REPORTING: Democrat Tom Perriello had 55,252 votes, or 50%, while Republican John McGuire had 53,817 votes, or 48%, with 30% reporting.
These four races are among the closest consequential House contests in the current feed. The totals were captured from the ABC News House results page, which uses Associated Press election data.
Florida 7 and Virginia 1 were separated by fewer than 700 votes in this frozen snapshot, while Florida 13 and Virginia 5 remained within a few thousand votes. The percentage of precincts or expected vote reporting also varied sharply, from 30% in Virginia 5 to 99% in Florida 13, which is why the raw margin cannot be interpreted without the reporting level.
None of these four entries was treated as a certified final result. They remain in the VOTES REPORTING lane until a trusted results desk issues a call or the appropriate election authority completes the official canvass.
HOUSE AND SENATE CONTROL DASHBOARDS
HOUSE CONTROL
Majority threshold: 218 seats.
- Called or otherwise secured: Democrats 87, Republicans 94, other 0.
- Currently leading but not called: Democrats 57, Republicans 44.
- Uncalled with no current leader assigned: 153.
- Confirmed pickups in this snapshot: 0.
If you combine called seats with mere current leads, the arithmetic would be Democrats 144 and Republicans 138. But those are not called-seat totals, and neither party is at the 218-seat majority threshold.
SENATE CONTROL
Majority threshold: 51 seats.
- Called or otherwise secured: Democrats 39, Republicans 31, other 2.
- Currently leading but not called: Democrats 7, Republicans 5.
- Uncalled with no current leader assigned: 16.
- Confirmed pickups in this snapshot: 0.
Adding current leads to secured seats would produce a provisional picture of Democrats 46, Republicans 36 and other 2. Again, those leads are not calls.
The Associated Press explains that a chamber-control call comes only when enough individual outcomes establish that one party has reached the governing threshold. A results desk can make that determination before every race is called, but it cannot substitute a broad national trend or a collection of tentative leads for the necessary seat-by-seat math.
That is why our dashboards preserve three separate buckets: called or otherwise secured seats, uncalled races with a current leader, and uncalled races without an assigned leader. The arithmetic is visible for readers who want the broad picture, while the labels prevent a moving election-night lead from masquerading as a won seat.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Democrats have scored two early Senate holds in Georgia and Virginia, while Ohio and Texas are posting substantial but still incomplete vote totals. Several decisive House contests remain razor-thin, including Florida 7, Florida 13, Virginia 1 and Virginia 5.
The control boards are filling in fast, but the honest answer at 7:15 PM Central is that neither chamber has been decided. Called seats are called seats, while leads remain leads.
Polls are polls. Reported votes are still being counted.
We will keep updating the numbers as more actual ballots arrive and more races meet the standard for a projection.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
The post UPDATE: Here’s The Latest On Midterm Elections — Polling and Election Results appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.
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[H/T 100PercentFedUp]
