Polls open tomorrow morning. Here is where this actually stands, without spin in either direction.
The early vote is enormous.
More than 55 million mail and early in-person ballots have been cast nationally. The Associated Press counted more than 43 million as of Friday, nearly ten million ahead of the same point in 2022.
Texas finished its early voting period with roughly 6.8 million ballots, up about 50 percent from 4.2 million at the same stage four years ago.
Georgia passed 2.5 million, exceeding its entire 2022 early voting period.
Early voting rose more than 30 percent against 2022 in Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and Kansas. South Carolina is up 83 percent.
Turnout is not the problem in this election. Turnout is historic.
Now the honest accounting of who those voters are.
In the states that report party registration, registered Democrats have cast more than 11 million early ballots. Registered Republicans have cast roughly 8 million.
That is a real gap and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We have reported it every week for a month because our readers deserve the numbers rather than reassurance.
But understand what it does and does not mean.
Party registration is not a vote. Millions of registered Democrats in Appalachia, south Texas and the upper Midwest have not voted for a Democrat in a decade. In several of the states in that count, registration data lags behind how people actually behave.
More importantly, early voting has been the Democratic method of choice for three cycles while Election Day has remained ours. A gap in the early vote is expected. The question has always been the size of it, and nobody will know the answer until the Election Day vote is counted against it.
What the forecasters are saying today.
Fox News now has Democrats favored in 48 Senate seats and Republicans in 45, and still rates control of the chamber a toss-up.
Cook's closing analysis projects a Democratic Senate gain of two to six seats, and between 227 and 240 Democratic House seats.
Republicans currently hold the Senate 53 to 45 with two independents caucusing with Democrats, and the House 218 to 214.
Read Fox's number carefully. Forty-eight to forty-five with control still a toss-up means the chamber comes down to a small number of seats that nobody can call. Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Maine, Alaska and North Carolina are all live.
Those races are measured in thousands of votes. Not percentage points. Votes.
Which brings us to tomorrow.
Everything written, spent and argued over the last year is finished. Eleven point six billion dollars in advertising, the most expensive cycle in American history, and the business press summarized its effect on the Senate battlegrounds in two words: little movement.
What is left is the oldest mechanism in American politics. People going to a building and marking a piece of paper.
If you have not voted, tomorrow is the entire remaining opportunity. Early voting has closed almost everywhere.
Three things before you go.
Confirm your polling place today, not tomorrow morning. Locations change between elections, and in some counties they have changed substantially. A voter who shows up at the wrong building at 6:45 p.m. may not make it to the right one.
Know your state's rules on identification and bring what it requires. If you are unsure, bring more than you think you need.
And if you are in line when polls close, stay in line. In every state, a voter in line at closing time is entitled to vote. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise and do not leave.
And three people.
This is the last time we are going to ask.
Between now and 7 p.m. tomorrow, call three conservatives who do not reliably vote. Not to persuade them. To handle the logistics. Do they know where to go. Do they know what to bring. Do they need a ride. Can they get there before work or will it have to be after.
Fifty-five million people have already voted. Somewhere between two and five million more will decide the Senate.
A handful of them are in your phone right now.
One day.
We have been honest with you all year, including when the numbers were bad, because a movement that only hears good news cannot be trusted with the real ones.
Here is the honest version tonight. This is close, the environment is difficult, and it is entirely winnable.
Go vote. Then go get three more.
