🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW 🚨
Polls opened across the country Tuesday in the most consequential midterms in years, with control of both the House and Senate up for grabs. More than 54 million Americans already voted early, nine million more than in 2022, as Trump predicted Republicans would hold both chambers, telling a Sunday rally crowd in Kansas, "We're going to win." Vice President Vance said Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens' eleventh-hour endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers would help him, calling Rogers' opponent Abdul El-Sayed "a crazy person." RNC Chair Joe Gruters put it simply: "If our voters turn out, we win."
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3rd, 2026
Before we get to today's news, here's what happened on this date in history. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson crushed Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona in a landslide on November 3, 1964, winning more than 60 percent of the popular vote one year after taking office following John F. Kennedy's assassination. Goldwater attacked Johnson's liberal domestic agenda and accused Democrats of going soft on communism, repeatedly suggesting he might use nuclear weapons against Cuba or North Vietnam — a stance Johnson's campaign used to paint him as a reckless warmonger. Johnson, who'd promised voters he wouldn't send American boys to fight wars Asian boys should fight themselves, reversed course within months and committed U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.
Seventeen years after it flopped in theaters, MGM's "The Wizard of Oz" found its real audience on November 3, 1956, when CBS aired it on television for the first time and drew an estimated 35 million viewers. The broadcast didn't repeat until 1959, but it soon became an annual holiday-season tradition that, over its first decade on TV, captured an average 53% of all sets in use nationwide — far above the 30% that was then considered a hit. Judy Garland was only 17 when she played Dorothy; "Over the Rainbow," the song she sang as the tornado-tossed farm girl, was later named the 20th century's greatest song by the Recording Industry Association of America.
🤠 Texas Senate Nail-Biter: Fox Poll Shows Talarico Edging Paxton as GOP Faces Headwinds
A new Fox News poll of Texas voters released ahead of Tuesday's election showed Democrat James Talarico edging Republican Ken Paxton 51% to 48% in the race to succeed Sen. John Cornyn, with a majority of voters surveyed expressing concern about Paxton's character.
Among the most motivated and interested voters, Talarico's lead widened to 53%-47%, while 59% of all voters said they were concerned about Paxton's character and 47% said they worried Talarico is too extreme for Texas.
Talarico, a state representative running as a moderate, outraised Paxton $31.6 million to $9.3 million in the race's latest fundraising quarter, according to the Texas Tribune.
Paxton, the state's attorney general, dismissed the poll as "not surprising" given his campaign's late start after a bruising GOP primary runoff, and accused Talarico of hiding a "socialist" record behind a moderate image: "Do we want a socialist Democrat in Texas? The answer is no."
🍑 Graham, Andrews Trade Fire as South Carolina's Once-Safe Senate Race Tightens
Republican Sen. Darline Graham and Democrat Annie Andrews clashed repeatedly in the final days before Tuesday's election, with polling showing a race once considered safe for the GOP has tightened into a toss-up.
Graham, appointed by Gov. Henry McMaster to finish the term of her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, is seeking a full six-year term with President Trump's endorsement.
At their October debate, Graham accused Andrews of being unwilling to break from "socialist Democrats," while Andrews countered that Graham acts like "the White House's ambassador to South Carolina" rather than the state's own representative.
Andrews, a Lowcountry pediatrician, also needled Graham over her surname, prompting Graham to note she kept her father's name after losing both parents as a child.
— Fox News
🏛️ Ohio's Governor Race Slides Into Toss-Up Territory as Ramaswamy's Edge Erodes
The race to succeed term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine has shifted away from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in the campaign's final stretch, with handicappers moving the contest against Democrat Amy Acton out of "lean Republican" territory into a true toss-up.
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate backed by President Trump, is facing scrutiny over a recent ad campaign that fellow Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted said he "would not have" run himself.
Acton, a physician who led Ohio's COVID-19 response as state health director, is facing renewed scrutiny of her pandemic-era record as the race tightens.
The contest is one of several governor's races seen nationally as a bellwether for how far the political mood has shifted since the last midterms.
✈️ Mar-a-Lago-Area Jet Crash Victims Identified as NTSB Points to Possible Icing, In-Flight Breakup
All nine people killed when a Learjet 60 crashed into a Florida neighborhood just miles from Mar-a-Lago on Sunday have now been identified, as investigators zero in on severe weather as a likely factor.
Among the victims: tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45, CEO of Retention.com; his wife Helen Sharp, 40; their two young children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; and the children's caregiver, Anita Maria Cetina — along with two friends traveling together and the plane's pilot and co-pilot.
The co-pilot has been identified by family as Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, an aspiring commercial pilot who had earned her private pilot's license at 17.
The NTSB said the crew reported light icing and turbulence near 35,000 feet before requesting a climb, then declared an emergency as the jet lost altitude rapidly and reported an overspeed condition; investigators have preliminary indications the aircraft may have begun breaking apart before impact.
⚖️ DOJ Makes Election-Eve Emergency Appeal to Supreme Court Over California's Noncitizen Ballots
With lower courts repeatedly rebuffing its efforts, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to set aside more than 20,000 California mail-in ballots tied to voters flagged as suspected noncitizens, just a day before polls opened nationwide.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said 34 people have been charged so far in connection with the suspect-voter list provided to California, including six green card holders charged in the most recent round.
The emergency application follows weeks of failed attempts by the DOJ to get courts to order California to segregate or halt counting of the disputed ballots before Election Day.
Conservative legal commentators had predicted the dispute over the 20,000 "likely noncitizens" on California's voter rolls was always headed for the high court, given how directly it pits federal election-integrity claims against state control of elections.