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Contributed by Wayne A. Selcher*, from the results of his research queries to Perplexity AI about the US midterm elections
[Midterms] [Resumo] [Clipping da semana] 

Here is the weekly report for November 2 of events concerning the 2026 US midterm elections, selected with the support of Perplexity AI. All the sources have been verified. 

All the major forecasters now show a large Democratic House gain and give Democrats the edge for the Senate. 

Forecasts 

Silver Bulletin’s FLIPR model: Democrats have a 95.1% chance of winning the House, with a projected 240 seats, and a 77.7% chance of winning the Senate. [Silver Bulletin’s – House, Silver Bulletin’s – Senate, Intelligencer]  

Inside Elections: it made 64 rating changes in the final week, 63 of them toward Democrats, and projects Democrats gaining 20–30 House seats and 4–6 Senate seats. [Roll Call e Inside Elections] 

Sabato’s Crystal Ball: it has 225 House seats leaning Democratic or better and sees Democrats with the “inside track” to a 51- or 52-seat Senate. [Sabato’s Crystal Ball]  

Polls and turnout 

NBC News national poll: Democrats lead 52–45, and Trump’s disapproval is 60%, the highest in NBC polling across both his terms. [NBC News] 

Final NYT/Siena Senate polls: Democrats lead in all seven key states, from El-Sayed +11 in Michigan to Peltola and Turek +1 in Alaska and Iowa. [The Philadelphia Inquirer] 

Early votes: 51.3 million were cast before Election Day, compared with 45.9 million in 2022. [KSHB] 

Courts and money 

California: a federal appeals court panel ruled 2–1 against the Justice Department’s bid to set aside about 20,000 mail ballots. [Standard Speaker] 

Alaska: Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the Justice Department’s suit to block certification of the Senate result; the Justice Department plans to appeal. [Anchorage Daily News]  

Late-forming super PACs: 22 groups created in the final 10 weeks spent about $637 million. [CNBC] 

Ad spending: the AdImpact total reached $11.21 billion, and the Texas Senate race passed $560 million, a record for a non-presidential race. These figures come from a secondary explainer. [Firstpost] 

Also on Nov 1, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) switched her endorsement to Republican Mike Rogers. Post-election wrap-ups start Monday, Nov 9.

* Wayne A. Selcher, PhD, is Professor of International Studies Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA, USA, and a regular contributor to OPEU. His major academic interests are Comparative Politics, American society and politics in comparative context, American Foreign Policy, Latin American Politics and Foreign Policy (especially Brazil), and Internet use in international studies teaching and research. He is the creator and editor of the WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources, a web guide for online international studies research in many topics. E-mail: wayneselcher@comcast.net.  

** Edited and reviewed by Tatiana Teixeira. This content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of OPEU, or INCT-INEU.   

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