APPLENEWS - STORY ADD
Election 2026 live results: Dems take back Congress, Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins concedes
Collins is the five-term senator from Maine.
Democrats have won several key races in the high-stakes midterm elections -- with ABC News projecting that Democrats will take control of the Senate and the House.
Watch ABC beginning at 7 p.m. EST for live Election Night 2026 coverage and results. Also streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Key Headlines
Texas Latino voters are turning out in 'historical numbers,’ voting group CEO says
Héctor Sánchez Barba, the president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, told ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips that Latinos have emerged as a critical voting bloc this election.
After speaking to voters in the Rio Grande Valley this week, Barba said that "Latinos are turning out to vote in historical numbers."
"We are rejecting MAGA. We are tired of extremism. We are tired of the hate crimes. We are tired of the situation of the economy. We are tired of exclusion," he said.
Barba, who said he plans to watch election results with Texas U.S. Rep. James Talarico tonight, who is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, he stated that he believes that there is an "alignment" between the demands of Latino voters and Talarico’s campaign.
"He knows what it means to be working class, and he understands the Latino community from that perspective. That's why we're making sure that we support candidates that are welcoming to Latinos, that are respectful to Latinos, but also that Latinos are at the center of making the decisions and are at the center of the table," he said.
-ABC News’ Synai Ferrell
Records for ad spending broken at gubernatorial, Senate and House levels this cycle
According to an analysis of advertising spending from AdImpact, of the ten most expensive gubernatorial races in U.S. history, eight were held this election cycle.
The most expensive is the California gubernatorial race, which saw roughly $350.3 million expended. That race has Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. secretary of health and human services, facing off against Republican Steve Hilton, who has worked as a contributor for Fox News. Tom Steyer, a liberal billionaire, spent over $215 million of his own money trying to make it into the general election.
Of the ten most expensive House races on record, nine are from the current cycle. The most expensive is the race for Michigan's seventh district, which has Democratic candidate Will Lawrence, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement environmental group, up against Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett. AdImpact says over $66 million has been spent on the race for Michigan's seventh district.
Three U.S. Senate races from this cycle broke into the top ten most expensive of all time: Texas, Ohio and Michigan.
According to AdImpact, the Texas race has cost about $594.1 million, Ohio cost about $525.5 million, and Michigan cost about $382.1 million.
-ABC News’ Will Lennon
North Carolina could extend voting hours in 4 counties
North Carolina's State Board of Elections Executive Director Sam Hayes told reporters at an Election Day press conference that the board will meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss whether to extend voting hours in Hertford, Gates, Wilson and Lenoir counties due to "minor delays."
The delays "are due to various technical issues. The State Board will be meeting today at 2 p.m. to consider extensions in these counties," said Hayes.
"It is not unusual for the State Board to extend voting hours beyond 7:30 p.m. if a disruption at a polling place causes a stoppage of voting," Hayes added.
Deputy Director of Elections Administration Parker Holland told reporters that issues included "varying items such as a printer jam" and "an issue with a poll book," adding "those issues have since been resolved."
"We also have our secondary procedures that we go to in the event this happens, such as pulling out our manual poll books to make sure we're serving the voters," Holland said.
-ABC News' Halle Troadec
Voters in key states grapple with severe weather
Election officials in several key states like Florida, Arizona and Utah are exercising contingency plans for extreme weather on Tuesday, in some cases asking voters to visit different polling locations to cast their ballots.
Unpredictable weather features in every election to varying degrees, and planning for those conditions is a core responsibility of state and local election officials.
"Every election official in the country has a continuity of operations plan,” said Lawrence Norden, a voting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We have 50 different states with different rules and different ways to run elections and 10,000 election jurisdictions across those states. So everybody has a different plan, but everybody has a plan.”
In Florida, state election officials are encouraging voters to check the state elections website "for possible polling place changes" amid heavy flash flooding. More than a dozen polling sites in Port St. Lucie and Brevard Counties have been relocated.
In Utah, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson declared a state of emergency that will allow those isolated by floodwaters in that state to request and return ballots electronically, according to a statement.
In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs declared a state of emergency that will "unlock critical funding and state resources for communities impacted by recent severe storms and flash flooding," according to her declaration, including $200,000 in emergency funding to help with debris removal from roads. The state’s top election official said only one polling site in Navajo County was closed Tuesday morning, and that the site is now active.
Extreme weather is hitting states across the south and Midwest on Tuesday, including Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Colorado.
-ABC News’ Isabel Danzis, Laura Romero and Beatrice Peterson