Your hour-by-hour guide to 2026 midterm elections

Election Day is here, and observers waiting with bated breath for results can expect a late night. 

Results will begin to trickle in at 6 p.m. EST, with control of Congress on the line. Although the final tabulation of votes could take days or even weeks, race projections Tuesday night will begin to paint a picture of which party will clinch power on Capitol Hill. 

Democrats need to win four GOP-held Senate seats and net three Republican House seats to flip either chamber. A later night would bode well for Republicans, particularly if key races are too close to call.

“If the polls are right, the generic ballot is relatively right, we’re going to be able to project pretty early in the night,” Decision Desk HQ’s (DDHQ) chief election analyst Geoffrey Skelley told The Hill.

Here’s what to expect every hour as the polls close Tuesday:

Kentucky and Indiana will be the first states to have some of their polls close at 6 p.m., with their remaining polls closing at 7 p.m.

Skelley wrote in an October blog post that within the first two or so hours, results reported from the eastern part of the U.S. “will drive our initial understanding of what’s happening in the midterms.”

A flip in Kentucky’s 6th District could be indicative of a “big blue wave,” Skelley said. DDHQ rates the race between Republican Ralph Alvarado and Democrat Zach Dembo for outgoing Rep. Andy Barr’s (R) seat as a toss-up.

Polls close at 7 p.m. in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and most of Florida and New Hampshire, though remaining polls in those last two states close at 8 p.m. West Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina’s polls close at 7:30 p.m.

Skelley noted that the elections in eight of these states — Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — will be “especially revealing” once polls close. Nearly 50 House races in these states are “at least mildly competitive — that is, not ‘safe’ for one party.”

The state with the quickest reporting in the country is Florida, with early data points expected to be available after closing. The Panhandle closes at 8 p.m.

Poll closings by 7:30 p.m. could show signs that a “blue wave” is coming, particularly if Democrats claim victories in Florida, Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

“An actual Democratic win in any of these seats would be an electoral earthquake that all but guarantees a Democratic majority,” Skelley estimated. “Republican holds, meanwhile,........

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