politics

The fate of a controversial ballot measure to impose a new tax on California billionaires, proposed as a lifeline for the needy and castigated as a threat to the state’s fragile economy, appeared headed for defeat in early election results Tuesday night.

California voters also rejected another hotly contested measure, Proposition 39, which would have required voters to show identification when they cast ballots and elections officials to verify that all registered voters were U.S. citizens.

The billionaire tax, Proposition 40, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires to raise an estimated $100 billion to assist millions of Californians destined to lose healthcare coverage under federal funding cuts. Two separate ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, were crafted to nullify the wealth tax and remained too close to call Tuesday evening.

While supporters of the billionaire tax did not concede Tuesday evening, they acknowledged facing tough odds in the race because of the avalanche of spending against them and warned that people will die if the measure fails.

“In the event that we don’t succeed with Prop. 40 tonight, if Sacramento fails to deliver a real solution to the healthcare crisis instigated by the [federal government], one that actually makes billionaires pay their fair share, then California’s healthcare workers intend to be back on the ballot in 2028 to correct the damage, and to overcome all of the lies and deception, and just completely outrageous campaigning that we’ve seen,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which crafted the proposal.

Voters rejected the Republican-led Proposition 39 at a time of growing distrust in the integrity of the electoral process nationwide, a wariness intensified by President Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and false assertions that droves of undocumented immigrants, notably in California, are swaying elections.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by Trump’s attorneys to set aside 20,000 ballots in the state that the White House argued could be cast by people who are not citizens.

The proposals were among the 14 state ballot measures that California’s 23.3 million registered voters were asked to decide Tuesday in addition to congressional, statewide and local elections.

The billionaire tax was proposed in response to legislation signed by Trump last year that could result in millions of Californians losing Medi-Cal coverage, rural hospitals shuttering and other healthcare services being slashed unless a new funding source is found. The proposal would retroactively apply to billionaires who lived in California as of Jan. 1, prompting some to preemptively move out of the state. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs, and the remaining funds would be spent on education programs and food assistance.

Proposition 40 divided Democratic leaders because of concerns about its impact on the state’s volatile budget that is highly dependent on the wealthy. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed the measure, while the state Democratic party endorsed it.

The effort supporting and opposing the tax and two ballot measures designed to nullify it came close to breaking a state campaign finance record. About $425 million had been donated to the three commingled ballot measures as of Tuesday.

The vast majority of that money was provided by California billionaires, including some of the state’s most powerful tech barons, opposing the wealth tax. The campaign was centered on three interwoven ballot initiatives: Proposition 40 and Propositions 41 and 42, both of which would undercut Proposition 40 through a series of strategic changes to state tax laws and new spending restrictions.

Neither explicitly stated that it would nullify the billionaire tax if Proposition 40 passed and either of the counter measures received more votes.

Proposition 41, which trailed slightly Tuesday evening, is framed as an effort to cut wasteful government spending and require audits of new special taxes. But it also would bar new taxes that are exempt from state spending limits. Proposition 42, which was slightly ahead, is presented as protection from state lawmakers taxing everyday Californians’ retirement funds, personal savings and home equity.

In polling leading up to election day, voters appeared to differentiate between the billionaire tax proposal and Proposition 3, which was approved by voters on Tuesday. . It would make permanent a temporary tax increase on wealthy Californians that largely funds education. The tax adds 1% to 3% to the state income tax of single filers who earn more than $360,000, joint filers who make more than $721,000 and heads of household who earn more than $490,000. Voters passed the tax in 2012 and extended it in 2016, but it is set to expire in 2031.

Voters cast ballots on several other proposals about local taxes, public financing of political campaigns, a landmark environmental law, housing, the state’s recall process, state lawmakers’ ability to redirect taxpayer money to the state’s “rainy day” fund, immunology and immunotherapy funding, and restrictions on how community healthcare clinics spend money:

Several ballot measures were decided Tuesday evening:

• Proposition 1, which proposed a $11.25-billion bond to boost the construction of affordable housing, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 2, which would gave state lawmakers more flexibility over state spending by exempting certain tax revenue from a state spending limit, allowing them to place it into a “rainy day” fund, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 37, which would create a down-payment assistance program to help middle-class Californians buy a home, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 44, which would require certain health centers to spend 90% of their revenue on patient care rather than overhead and executive compensation, failed.

Among those that remained too close to call:

• Proposition 4, which would allow state and local candidates to receive public campaign financing if they demonstrated broad support and agreed to expenditure limits.
• Proposition 5, a constitutional amendment that would alter the state’s recall process by limiting it to the question of whether to remove an elected official from office, and no longer including the cadre of candidates hoping to replace the politician.
• Proposition 38, which would create an $8.4-billion bond to support the immunology and immunotherapy fields.
• Proposition 43, which would bar local governments from imposing special taxes unless two-third of voters support the effort. Current law requires a simple majority vote.
• Proposition 45, which would amend the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up certain housing, water, energy, transportation and other projects deemed essential.

Polls suggest the governing party could fall below 40 percent as voters weigh failing services.

South Africans are voting in local elections widely seen as a verdict on the African National Congress (ANC), the party that led the country out of white minority rule in 1994 but has steadily lost support over the past decade.

Polls opened at 7am (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday and close at 9pm (19:00 GMT). A record 29.2 million people are registered to vote at 23,696 voting stations, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). More than 1.4 million special votes were cast on Monday and Tuesday.

Voters are electing councils for the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities, 44 district councils and 205 local councils. Those councils then choose mayors.

The ANC fell below 50 percent in municipal polls for the first time in 2021. In the 2024 national election, it lost its parliamentary majority and was forced into a coalition government with the Democratic Alliance (DA) and other parties. Polls suggest the ANC’s support could drop below 40 percent this time.

“Municipal failures have contributed to declining public trust and confidence in democratic governance,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his weekly newsletter, “From the Desk of the President”.

Ramaphosa is due to vote at Hyde Park High School in Johannesburg, the presidency said.

Johannesburg is the biggest prize in this election. The country’s financial capital has had five mayors in four years.

The DA has fielded its 75-year-old former leader, Helen Zille, for the city’s top job. Her campaign stunts included snorkelling in a mud-filled trench that was flooded by a burst municipal water pipe.

A News24 poll put Zille at 36 percent, meaning she would need coalition partners, particularly the ANC, to govern. Zille told the Associated Press news agency that the ANC was “in free fall”.

This is the first local vote for former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which is mounting a strong challenge in the coastal city of Durban.

“We are going to start by taking back our country here,” Zuma told supporters in the city on Sunday, the AFP news agency reported. Durban has become a centre of anti-migrant sentiment, a prominent theme in the campaign.

Turnout may be a concern. Only 46 percent of registered voters took part in the 2021 municipal elections.

Coalition government is already widespread: 74 of the country’s 257 municipalities were run by coalitions or minority administrations as of February, according to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.

Security has also been tightened. Police said 21 election-related cases have been recorded since Sunday. KwaZulu-Natal has 165 voting stations classed as high risk, the most of any province.

Final results are expected on Sunday. They are expected to shape the race to succeed Ramaphosa as ANC leader at the party’s conference in December 2027.

Hollywood Park was winning one fight and losing another, both by slim margins, as vote counting continued Tuesday night on two ballot measures in Inglewood.

According to results posted by the Los Angeles County registrar shortly after 10:30 p.m., Measure AT was losing, 51.9% to 48.1%, a margin of 583 votes; and Measure BB was losing 51% to 49%, a margin of 307.

Measure AT would mean more ticket taxes for big events in Inglewood, home to SoFi Stadium, Intuit Dome and the Forum. The City of Inglewood wants that.

Measure BB would bar the city from allowing billboard advertising on sidewalks, medians and the like. Owners of those sports and entertainment venues, who have their own sponsorship deals, are backing that measure.

Meanwhile, City Council member Gloria D. Gray led incumbent Mayor James T. Butts Jr., 34.6% to 29.8%, putting them on an early track for a runoff election in March.

Los Angeles County does not provide a timeline for when the election results will be listed as final.

The ballot measures were spawned by a feud between Inglewood and Hollywood Park, the nearly 300-acre development anchored by SoFi Stadium and owned by Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

The fight started last year over billboards. Inglewood signed a deal with WOW Media for 60 digital signs carrying 108 screens, some of them bus-shelter-sized kiosks. Others are street displays up to 22 feet tall on sidewalks and medians.

SoFi Stadium, Intuit Dome and the Forum sued to block the deal, arguing the signs would undercut their individual sponsors who paid for exclusivity. A judge sided with the city and an appeal is underway.

Measure BB, short for “Billboard Blight,” aimed to restrict billboard advertising on public property. It qualified with nearly 13,000 signatures.

The WOW deal runs 20 years with two 10-year options, so it could be around for 40 years.

“It’s biblical in length,” said John Shallman, the political strategist managing the “Yes on BB” campaign. “You go back 40 years. We didn’t even have the Internet. We didn’t have cell phones.”

Skip Miller, lead attorney for the city, said the kiosks “blend in with the surrounding areas” and connect to a network that provides traffic and safety information.

The billboards are subject to Inglewood Ballot Measure BB, which calls for the halt of advertising on them.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Measure AT, backed by the city, would lift a $15-million cap on the 10% admission tax the stadium pays. Hollywood Park sees it as punishment for challenging the billboard deal.

The billboard fight led to a bigger one. Last month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled void the 2015 development agreement that cleared the way for SoFi Stadium, citing a 2018 Moreno Valley decision.

Under the 2015 agreement, Hollywood Park paid up front for roads, water lines, streetlights and event-day police and emergency services, with the city agreeing to eventually reimburse Kroenke for those expenses. Now that the agreement has been voided, the city argues it isn’t required to pay.

For more than a decade, Donald Trump seemed to defy all the known laws of political physics.

He was impeached, repeatedly indicted and convicted of multiple felony counts. He ranted and raged and acted more like a colicky infant than any president that anyone living today has ever seen.

He enriched himself lavishly, pursued his self-interests relentlessly and indulged his whimsies — from war, to tariffs to tacky decor — without regard to cost, crudeness or any flicker of conscience.

And yet Trump bestrode the country like no figure since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was not just a political titan, but an irresistible social and cultural force.

On Tuesday, however, time, impatience and gravity finally caught up with Trump.

He took an electoral thrashing that will stand alongside the worst political beat-downs of modern times. His party not only lost control of the House and Senate, but drowned in a blue wave that swept away Republicans in election contests big and small, from sea to shining sea.

No lies, no bluster, no flimsily drafted lawsuits challenging the result can change or overturn that fact.

Presidents almost invariably lose congressional seats at the midpoint of their term, especially during their second stretch in office. But Tuesday’s results weren’t predestiny. They were a Republican disaster wholly of Trump’s making.

Keeping control of the House, which the GOP held by a historically small margin, was always going to be exceedingly difficult, even after Trump and his allies ruthlessly gerrymandered congressional lines to improve their chances. Democrats needed a gain of merely three seats. They scooped those up before the polls even closed in California, Nevada and other Western states.

The only question, with many races still to be decided, is how big a majority Democrats will enjoy when the next Congress convenes in January.

The Senate, where Republicans enjoyed a 53-47 advantage, should have been the GOP’s bulwark.

The political map could scarcely have been more favorable. Roughly two-thirds of the contested Senate seats were in states that Trump carried in 2024. Five of the seven toss-up races were in states Trump won, several by double digits.

Democrats were happily biding their time Tuesday night, awaiting results from Michigan and Alaska to see how many seats they would ultimately gain.

At the start of this election cycle, the notion that Democrats would seriously compete in such deep-red bastions as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas would have seemed absurd. On Tuesday, voters elected Democrats James Talarico in Texas and Annie Andrews in South Carolina, the first time the party has won a statewide office in either state in decades.

In Kansas, Adam Hamilton beat Roger Marshall to become Kansas’ first Democratic U.S. senator since before “The Wizard of Oz” was released in movie theaters in 1939.

Trump could not have done more in the last two years to undermine his party and its political standing if he’d purposely set out on a mission of self-sabotage.

His meddling in primaries left Republicans with several flawed candidates, including in Texas and South Carolina. His cruel and roughshod anti-immigrant policies alienated Latinos, who just two years ago voted for Trump in record numbers.

His tariffs and, in particular, go-it-alone war with Iran stoked inflation and sent the cost of gas, diesel, groceries and fertilizer soaring. Those elevated prices taxed consumers everywhere but hit particularly hard in rural, small town and exurban America, which is home to much of the Republican base.

Trump’s focus on building a White House ballroom, raising a triumphal arch and resurfacing Washington’s Reflecting Pool — which he visited on election eve for a closing message, that, inexplicably, drew attention to its botched renovation — showed exactly where his skewed priorities lie during these economically anxious times.

Empathetic it was not.

As inflation worsened and his seeming obtuseness grew — “I don’t give a damn,” Trump said of higher gas prices, “we’re making a freaking fortune” — the president’s approval ratings sank to levels not seen since a Trump-inspired mob laid siege to the Capitol in a failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Even that defeat wasn’t as bad as Tuesday’s political massacre.

Voters were not happy.

Roughly three-quarters of those sampled by the Associated Press said they were angry or dissatisfied with the overall direction of the country as well as the state of the economy. Nearly 7 in 10 said they wanted Congress, supine under Republican control, to provide more checks and balances on the capricious president.

We live in an age of remarkable political volatility.

From 1960 to 1978, there were three elections in which control of the White House, Senate or House switched parties. From 1980 to 1998, there were four. Since 2000, there have been 12 elections in which power shifted, with Tuesday’s midterm referendum being the latest.

Voters have punished presidents for an unpopular war (in Iraq), for policies they didn’t like (Obamacare, threatened cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and for that particular scourge of presidents and their parties, inflation.

But no other midterm election this century delivered the kind of personal repudiation that Trump faced, because no other president placed himself so very front and center in the campaign.

Riding the thermals of his over-inflated ego, marching stridently beneath his banner of self-regard, Trump incessantly urged voters “to pretend I’m on the ballot.” They did and their verdict was thunderous and clear.

Trump lost. Epically.

Let the healing — and the reckoning — begin.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna was leading challenger and former Sheriff Alex Villanueva by a wide margin in his bid for reelection Tuesday, according to early returns, in a rematch of the 2022 race between the two lawmen.

Early returns also showed L.A. County voters favoring Measure A, which would establish binding arbitration for sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and other public safety employees who by law cannot go on strike.

A second county ballot measure, Measure E, was far ahead in early returns. Measure E asks voters to create an independent ethics commission that previously was approved by another measure, and address administrative missteps that invalidated funding approved by voters in 2020 to support jail alternatives.

In the sheriff’s race, Villanueva was seeking to regain the job he lost in 2022 when Luna successfully challenged him for reelection.

This contest was lower profile than the 2022 race, but the stakes are just as high, as the new Los Angeles County sheriff will face a host of challenges, from navigating relationships with federal and local agencies to boosting recruitment and retention.

Luna pitched himself to county voters as a calmly effective operator who has brought down crime while building relationships with local, state and federal leaders that suffered under his predecessor’s tenure. The incumbent highlighted his department’s successful navigation of World Cup security and the Trump administration’s deployment of federal immigration agents and troops to L.A. as examples of the efficacy of his approach.

Villanueva, on the other hand, has sought to depict L.A. County as more dangerous under what he describes as the overly permissive approach of Luna. The former sheriff claimed Luna has presided over a deep decline in department morale and staffing while being too soft on drug users, the homeless and petty criminals.

Representatives of the Luna and Villanueva campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening.

Both men guided the department through tumultuous periods for the county. Villanueva was sheriff for nearly two years at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Luna was in office during the Eaton and Palisades fires.

The next four years promise further challenges. The Olympic Games are less than two years away, and the sheriff’s department will be expected to play a major role keeping millions of visitors and athletes safe.

The new sheriff also will be expected to rein in the department’s budget, which has experienced ballooning overtime costs as sworn vacancies have risen markedly under both sheriffs.

Villanueva claims Luna is out of touch with deputies and that they are leaving the force en masse in response to his poor leadership skills. Villanueva said he would improve staffing by redirecting overtime spending and serving as a beacon to would-be deputies who’ve been turned off by Luna.

But Luna denies that deputies are fleeing the department and says he’s taken major steps to improve the hiring process. He has hired an outside contractor to speed up applicant background checks and provided an avenue for many new deputies to go from the academy to patrol instead of first requiring a stint in one of the county’s jails.

Among the two countywide ballot measures, Measure A was the highest profile, with unions representing county deputy sheriffs, firefighters and others spending millions of dollars in support.

Measure A would mandate binding arbitration between the county government and negotiators who represent deputies, firefighters, lifeguards and other public safety employees in the event contract talks reach an impasse.

Currently, the county supervisors can impose a final offer that employees must accept because by law, public safety personnel are not allowed to strike.

Supporters say the measure adds balance to the negotiations process and removes the unilateral authority of the county Board of Supervisors. The change is backed by unions representing county firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and other public safety employees.

County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath authored the motion, which has the support of four out of the five supervisors. No formal opposition has been filed. Supervisor Holly Mitchell raised financial concerns about the measure but has not officially opposed it.

Measure E on the county ballot would fix issues with Measure J, which was approved by voters in 2020, and Measure G, which passed in 2024.

Measure J earmarked at least 10% of locally generated, unrestricted revenue to incarceration alternatives. However, some of the ballot language in Measure G unintentionally repealed Measure J — an administrative error that was discovered in June 2025. Amendment E would partly ensure the funding to incarceration alternatives remains in effect.

The amendment also would enshrine in the county charter the seven-member ethics commission and ethics compliance office that was created when Measure G passed.

The amendment has the support of Horvath and other supervisors, as well as the League of Women Voters of L.A. County, who said Measure J shouldn’t be undone by an administrative error.

Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

We are tracking all races across Los Angeles County, in dozens of cities, communities and school districts.

Of note in this year’s elections are a neck-and-neck Los Angeles mayoral race, a rematch for the L.A. County sheriff and nearly 100 city council seats (two of which are in L.A.). Less prominent races cover water district boards, school district trustees and the judge’s bench. Angelenos were asked to vote on propositions, measures and charter amendments — many of which involve funding programs with bonds or new taxes — at both the county and city levels.

With a few exceptions, the Associated Press does not call local city and county races. The county has 30 days to submit certified results to the secretary of state.

Countywide

Only three races are on the ballot for all of L.A. County.

Alex Villanueva is seeking to reclaim his position leading the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. He is running against the incumbent, Robert Luna, who unseated him in 2022.

Measure A would require binding arbitration if talks between county officials and unions representing sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, lifeguards and other public safety groups reach an impasse.

A “Yes” on Measure E would do two things: enshrine previously approved Board of Supervisors ethics reforms into the county charter, and fix a problem created by a 2024 measure that invalidated a previously approved jail alternatives funding proposal.

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Cities and communities

Six of L.A. County’s 88 cities have mayoral races, including Los Angeles, Compton, El Monte, Inglewood, Lawndale and Monrovia.

Also on the ballot are city council races and measures that would issue bonds or create taxes to fund a variety of government services.

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School districts

Across L.A. County, dozens of school and community college districts have board seats and bond measures on the ballot.

Superior Court judges

Angelenos have four Superior Court judges on their ballots.

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Water districts

Multiple water district board members will be decided by voters in Los Angeles. In several districts where voters could select multiple candidates, the two with the most votes win.

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Other races

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DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Bottoms, who formerly advised ex-President Joe Biden, beat Republican Rick Jackson.

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has made history as the first Black woman elected governor in the United States.

The former Atlanta mayor emerged victorious over her billionaire opponent, Republican Rick Jackson, who spent more than $200m of his personal fortune in an attempt to succeed popular outgoing Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

Bottoms, an adviser to former US President Joe Biden, was propelled to victory in part by the state’s significant Black voting bloc, which turned out in large numbers during early voting.

During the campaign, she faced Republican attempts to characterise her time as mayor as a crime-ridden decline for the state’s largest city.

“It’s a longstanding playbook to paint Atlanta as this big bad place,” Bottoms told the Associated Press news agency.

Bottoms’s win marks the third consecutive time that Georgia Democrats have nominated a Black woman for governor. Stacey Abrams lost in 2018 and 2022 to Kemp, who is leaving office in January after eight years due to term limits.

Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

The 2026 elections in the city of Los Angeles include mayor, City Council, city attorney and eight ballot measures.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, Nithya Raman, have spent $13 million on their mayoral campaigns. In the latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, the mayor and City Council member were locked in a dead heat, with 40% of likely L.A. voters supporting each of them. And 19% still undecided.

The race for city attorney has gained outsize attention as California Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy, with strong support from the left, has campaigned against L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney. In late-October polls about 45% of likely voters were undecided.

Voters in the city of Los Angeles also weighed in on ballot measures and City Charter amendments covering everything from taxes and fire resources to governance of airports and the port and the quality of parks.

Mayor

City attorney

City Council

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Ballot measures

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Nov. 3, 2026 10:52 AM PT

A total of 23,450,456 ballots were issued to registered voters across California. Voters have the option of returning ballots by mail or in a drop box or voting in person. California also allows for same-day registration. The majority of returned ballots will be counted by the end of election night.

After the polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, of those ballots are delivered to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, where they are verified and tallied. County registrars are deliberate and expeditious with the vote count, even as they handle millions of votes under increasing political scrutiny.

Nearly two thirds of registered voters in California are concerned that the federal government might try to stop the vote count before all ballots are counted, an October UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times found.

Each county is responsible for collecting and counting ballots on election night and in the following weeks. The registrars then communicate those results, in batches, to the secretary of state. The counties with the most voters — Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange and Riverside — are prepared to process hundreds of thousands of ballots.

In Los Angeles County, the operation to deliver ballots to the processing center involves eight helicopters flying in ballots from Lancaster, Palmdale, Catalina and other far reaches of the county.

Where the votes still are being counted

The Associated Press surveys the numbers posted by local election officials and estimates how many votes were cast in each race using vote returns and other data.

One factor considered by analysts in calling a race early is where the remaining uncounted ballots are from. For example, if a Republican stronghold still has a large number of ballots to process, it may indicate a different outcome than if the ballots left to be counted were from a more left-leaning area.

The county has 30 days to submit certified results to the secretary of state. The Associated Press’ Estimated Expected Vote Percentage will remain at 99% until the state certifies the election on Dec. 11.

How many ballots have been processed so far

The speed of California’s vote count is determined by the state’s grace period for mail-in ballots. For a week after the polls close, county registrars will continue to accept and count ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3.

Ballots with certain errors such as signatures on the return envelopes not matching the ones on the voter rolls have the opportunity to be corrected. Voters have until two days before certification to correct, or cure, their ballot.

Counties must provide the secretary of state an estimate of their remaining unprocessed ballots. Once available, The Times will track those reports as counties update the state each day.

We’ve reached the final hours for voting in California, but there’s still time to cast your ballot in the midterm election.

Here’s what you need to know on election day.

What time do polling centers close?

Polling places and vote centers close at 8 p.m.

What happens if I’m still in line at 8 p.m.?

In California, any voter who is in line at 8 p.m. when the polls are scheduled to close is allowed to vote, according to the secretary of state.

If there is a line when the polls close, a poll worker stands at the back of the line to let people who arrive after 8 p.m. know that the polls have closed.

Where can I find the closest polling place to me?

The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s website has a vote center locator online.

By entering your address, the locator will create a list of voting centers that are less than a mile away.

Included with the vote center address is how long the current wait time is at that specific location.

The wait times are color coded as follows:

• Dark green: 15 minutes or less
• Light green: 16 to 30 minutes
• Yellow: 31 to 45 minutes
• Orange: 46 to 60 minutes
• Red: More than 1 hour
• Blue: Wait time unavailable

I’m headed to my polling place now but don’t have my check-in code

Your unique “quick check-in code” — a number that verifies your voter registration — can be found on your mailed sample ballot and vote center postcard.

You can take either of those hard copies to the vote center.

If you forgot the hard copies, you can find the code online.

You retrieve it by verifying your voter registration here. You’ll need to input your last name, birth date, the house number of your residential address and your ZIP Code.

For assistance call, (800) 815-2666, Option 2.

Can I still drop off my ballot?

Similar to vote centers, ballot drop boxes close at 8 p.m.

Nov. 3, 2026 10:53 AM PT

The national fight over who controls the House of Representatives has made its way to California.

The congressional map, redrawn with the passage of Proposition 50, includes new districts that favor Democrats. Many districts shifted only slightly, some Republican districts were split, some Democrat districts were strengthened, and in one district, lines were redrawn with no overlap at all with their 2024 boundaries.

Several seats are competitive — either with a tight race between Republicans or because the seat is expected to flip from red to blue. With redistricting, only four seats are considered solidly Republican, according to the Cook Political Report, down from the nine GOP seats won in 2024.

In the Central Valley, Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat Randy Villegas are competing for the 22nd District. The boundaries of the Republican-held seat were adjusted in the new map to add about 100,000 Fresno residents. The district covers swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, along with a piece of Madera County.

The 48th District, a seat previously held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, is another one that could flip, according to the Cook Political Report ratings. Democrat Marni von Wilpert is running against Republican Jim Desmond in the district stretching across San Diego and Riverside counties.

Also on this page are noncompetitive local districts that still may be of interest to The Times’ readers in Southern California.

Polls to start closing in waves across the country, with the earliest closures at 23:00 GMT in Indiana and Kentucky.

WASHINGTON  — In its latest chapter on religion in schools, the Supreme Court debated Tuesday whether Colorado may fund private preschools for 4-year-olds but exclude Catholic schools that refuse to serve same-sex parents and their children.

The court’s six conservatives, all of whom were raised Catholic, leaned in favor of ruling the state was discriminating based on religion.

The state offered funding to all preschools but said they must abide by an “equal opportunity” rule that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett said state officials “chose to impose a condition” they knew those Catholic schools “will be unable to agree to.”

In contrast, the court’s three liberals said the Catholic schools were not seeking equal treatment but a new right to discriminate.

“You are asking for a special rule for religious schools,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the state opened the funding program to all schools, including church-related schools. “The Catholic schools are not being excluded. They’re choosing not to participate because they won’t get an exemption,” she said.

In the last decade, the court’s conservative majority has strengthened the 1st Amendment’s protection for the “free exercise of religion.”

States and local governments need not offer public funds to private groups and entities, the justices said. But if they do so, they may not single out religious schools or people and deny them public funding that is open to all.

They struck down laws in Minnesota and Maine that denied scholarships or school funds to students who enrolled in a religious school. And they ruled the city of Philadelphia could not bar Catholic social services from providing foster care because they did not work with same-sex couples.

Despite that history, Colorado adopted a strong “equal opportunity” law in 2022 to go with its new state funding for preschools.

The state voters had approved a ballot measure in 2020 to provide public funding for a year of preschool prior to kindergarten. Both public and private schools were encouraged to participate.

The state pays for 15 hours per week and provides parents about $6,000 in tuition.

Lawmakers said eligible schools must provide children “an equal opportunity to enroll regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level or disability.”

The Archdiocese of Denver oversees 34 Catholic preschools. Parents were told they must support and affirm the teachings of the church, including on matters of gender and marriage.

In light of the new funding law, the church asked for an accommodation that would allow “faith based providers to participate in the program without compromising their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The state refused. It said “no provider may discriminate against children or families in violation of the state statute.”

St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton, Colo., and two of its parents sued, alleging a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Their attorneys — the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty — argued that no LGBTQ+ family has been harmed or claimed discrimination under the preschool funding law, while “thousands of Catholic families have zero Catholic preschools available to them.”

They lost before a federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court. Those judges said the state did not target the Catholic schools or treat them differently from others because of their religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court agreed in April to hear the case of St. Mary Catholic Parish vs. Roy.

During Tuesday’s argument, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh voiced dismay over how this case arose.

“This seems like a would-be solution in search of a problem. Why are we here?” he asked a state attorney.

He and Barrett said same-sex couples did not seek to have their children enrolled in Catholic preschools. Meanwhile, other parents were denied state funds because of the marriage and family policies of the Catholic parishes.

The court is likely to hand down a decision in several months.

Today’s the day, and the race is a dead heat: The final poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (cosponsored by The Times) found that 40% of likely L.A. voters said they supported incumbent Karen Bass, while another 40% supported progressive challenger Nithya Raman for L.A. mayor.

That leaves 19% undecided — and it might be those voters that celebrities are trying to reach with their recent endorsements. Jane Fonda, Yvette Nicole Brown, Anthony Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Samuel L. Jackson, Kym Whitley, D.L. Hughley, Dustin Lance Black, George Lopez and Stevie Wonder have all voiced public support for Bass. Meanwhile Bob Odenkirk, Mindy Kaling, Adam Scott, Joel Kim Booster, Caleb Hearon, Poppy Liu, P. J. Byrne, Adam Conover, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Jaboukie Young-White have done the same for Raman.

“Battling the nationwide homeless epidemic is the hardest job in American government,” Jackson said. “Karen Bass walked toward it in one day. Her opponent chaired the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee and canceled meetings on it. It’s easy to run a pilot in one district and call it a model. Try doing it in 15 districts with Washington cutting your funding while the whole country watches. That’s the job, and Karen Bass has done it.”

In the other camp, Kaling said: “There’s one issue that I can speak to from experience: Keeping Hollywood jobs in Los Angeles. Yes, it’s actors and directors, but I’m also talking about the crew, electricians, grips, hair and makeup artists, drivers, set builders, editors — and then there’s the restaurants, the dry cleaners and the small businesses that depend on productions being here. And Nithya’s plan is to fight for that work to stay in town. She wants stronger, dependable state tax incentives, and a film office that actively works to keep production in town.”

There have also been a few gray areas: Bass posted a video of drag queen Trixie Mattel‘s voting PSA to her account, but Mattel didn’t explicitly endorse her as a candidate. “I watch, like, 18 hours of news a day, so it was kind of crazy sitting next to Karen; she’s like my third roommate in my house,” Mattel said. “So shout out to Karen.”

Luxury real estate broker Jason Oppenheim, best known for his role on the reality series “Selling Sunset,” had a discussion with Raman, cross-posted to both of their accounts, and also interviewed her on Graham Stephan’s podcast, “The Iced Coffee Hour.” And Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly held an off-the-record meeting with Raman and figures from Hollywood and other industries at his L.A. office.

Bass’ supporters rolled out a series of coordinated, collaborative videos from her social media accounts somewhat regularly over the past two weeks, several with matching formatting (including Fonda, Anderson, Cedric, Hughley and Lopez). Some of the videos also featured Bass.

In the most-liked celebrity endorsement included here, posted Monday, Lopez said: “Karen Bass is like that tía that shows up with a huge pot of pozole before anybody’s even hungry. She’s gonna keep fighting for us, but también we have to fight for her.”

Raman’s campaign, on the other hand, had a more organic approach, incorporating celebrities into specific events, like National Coming Out Day with Booster (and the drag queen Pickle), “Dungeons & Dragons for the City” fundraiser with gamemaster Brennan Lee Mulligan and an Election Eve Party with Young-White (and comedians Kiran Deol, Jared Goldstein and Brittani Nichols).

Hearon shouted her out while hosting Chappell Roan’s Super Graphic Spectacular fundraiser for the singer’s Midwest Princess Project supporting trans youth and LGBTQ+ communities, and Byrne posted an Instagram story with his son after casting his ballot for Raman.

Raman’s most-liked celebrity endorsement included here was not cross-posted to her account, but rather came from Mulligan’s own get-out-the-vote video. “I am supporting Nithya Raman for mayor in Los Angeles, Marissa Roy for city attorney,” he said with an “I Voted” sticker on his forehead. “And I would say this as well: There’s great candidates all over the country.”

Other celebrities simply encouraged fans to fulfill their civic duty and vote without backing any candidates, while others focused on the California gubernatorial election and key Senate races.

Michigan voters are casting their ballots in a charged, closely watched race that could make Democrat Abdul El-Sayed the first Muslim in the United States Senate and help decide control of the chamber.

Mike Rogers, his Republican opponent, cast his ballot at a polling station in White Lake, Michigan hours after polls opened. El-Sayed had already had his vote submitted and counted through an absentee ballot before Election Day.

The two candidates seek to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters. A final New York Times/Siena poll placed El-Sayed 11 points ahead of Rogers going into the election.

Polls opened at 7am local time (12:00 GMT) and close at 8pm (01:00 GMT on Wednesday). If the race is close, it may not be called until later on Wednesday. The US Department of Justice has announced that election monitors will be present at the polls in Michigan and all 50 other states, a first in US history.

El-Sayed, a Muslim born to Egyptian parents, is the former head of Detroit’s health department and has campaigned on progressive policies such as Medicare for All.

Rogers, a former congressman and close ally of US President Donald Trump, is seeking to come back after a narrow loss to a Democrat in a 2024 Senate race.

Democrats need to gain four seats in Tuesday’s midterm elections to wrest back the Senate from Republicans and rein in Trump. The race is also seen as a test of whether a progressive who openly criticises Israel can win in a swing state.

Both candidates made a final push on social media as voting got under way.

“It’s time. It’s up to us to show the country what’s possible. The world is watching,” El-Sayed wrote, sharing an upbeat campaign video that features former US President Barack Obama.

Rogers posted a video that featured interviews with supporters, one of whom called El-Sayed an “extremist”.

“We have a state to save”, the post read.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a firm endorsement of El-Sayed after casting his own ballot in New York’s race.

“There are millions of Michiganders whose number one issue is getting their costs down,” said Schumer.

“Abdul El-Sayed is … talking to the people about those issues and doing things about them … He is going to win tonight because he’s talking about what Michiganders care about.”

‘One vote’

The El-Sayed campaign’s final days were overshadowed by a rift with Congresswoman Haley Stevens, a fellow Democrat whom El-Sayed narrowly defeated in a primary election in August.

On Sunday, Stevens endorsed Rogers, saying she was “choosing country over hate” and capping off a weeks-long row about El-Sayed’s opposition to US support for Israel.

Stevens is a staunch supporter of Israel, and the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent more than $30m backing her against El-Sayed. A majority of her large donors lined up to support Rogers after her loss, channeling $9m into a Republican group that supports him, according to The New York Times.

El-Sayed, by contrast, has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and argued that US aid to Israel would be better spent at home.

Asked by NewsNation on her way in to vote for Rogers whether her change in support was worth it, Stevens replied: “Absolutely. Voting is always worth it, right?”

Senate leader Schumer, who had initially backed Stevens, was asked whether her defection could hand the election to Republicans. “Haley Stevens is one vote,” he replied.

Islamophobic attacks

El-Sayed, the Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, has faced persistent attacks on his faith. Republican Party ads have sought to link him to “terrorism” and radicalism, with Trump joining in the inflammatory rhetoric.

The US president has repeatedly called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and a “nasty guy”, mocking his name and repeating an unfounded, widely circulated Republican claim that he belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hours before polls opened, Trump once again took aim at El-Sayed, this time in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“Abdul El-Sayed Hates Jews and Hates Blacks. Don’t feel bad, he also Hates Whites. Only fools would vote for him in the Michigan race for the U.S. Senate! He will, 100%, do you in! VOTE FOR MIKE ROGERS,” Trump wrote.

The US president also mentioned El-Sayed in a Fox News interview early on Election Day, when he said annual US financial aid to Israel should stop at the end of 2026.

“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they [Israel] don’t need it?” he said.

WASHINGTON — Control of Congress hangs in the balance as Americans head to the polls Tuesday to vote in a historic set of midterm elections that will determine how power is divided for the rest of President Trump’s time in office.

A robust turnout appeared possible, after months of polls suggesting voters’ frustration with cost-of-living issues may drive them to the polls. More than 59 million Americans had already cast ballots in early voting, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

The campaign has largely been marked by Democrats’ unexpected traction in red states, resulting in Senate races that have been far more competitive than anticipated. Whether that translates into losses for Republicans could become a nail-biter Tuesday night.

Polling shows Democrats poised to make significant gains in the U.S. House and well-positioned for swing Senate races, but analysts say the Senate majority could go either way. Several gubernatorial seats are also open, and some contests have become unexpectedly close, including in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Florida.

Eyes will be on a handful of bellwether House races as the polls begin closing, with a Kentucky district expected to be the first to offer clues as to how good a night it may be for Democrats.

For weeks, the midterms have appeared poised to deliver a referendum on Trump’s second term and the state of the economy. Americans’ approval of the president has sunk to historic lows as they have cited concerns about affordability, corruption and immigration as driving factors for their votes.

On Monday and over the weekend, candidates made their final pushes to persuade voters.

Democrats, hoping to clench voter support for a “blue wave,” hammered home their arguments about affordability, corruption and the perceived toll of Trump’s governance, aiming to sway non-Democratic voters.

“This election is a battle between the powers that be and the powers that ought to be,” Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico of Texas said at a Sunday night rally. “We are standing with the powers that ought to be — the teachers and the nurses, the farmers and the ranchers, the grandmother who is facing eviction.”

Republicans, anticipating losses in the House, focused on delivering dire warnings to voters about Democratic candidates, whom they have portrayed throughout the campaign as extreme, dangerous and in some cases a threat to the American way of life.

“This race is about defending our state and our country, but it’s also about safeguarding our way of life,” Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican nominee for Senate, said Sunday. “Texas has never been this close to slipping away. We’ve never been this close to losing everything that we hold dear — our jobs, our livelihoods, our way of life.”

As voters cast ballots Tuesday, the Justice Department’s election monitors fanned out at polling sites across the country. Thousands of volunteers nationwide were also mobilized to be poll monitors, a backlash to the idea of potential federal election interference.

Trump sent out a flurry of last-minute social media endorsements for Republican congressional candidates and called in to the “Fox and Friends” show to make a final case. Democratic candidates dropped last-minute ads urging voters to head to the polls.

This article will be updated.

Nov. 3, 2026 11:26 AM PT

OKLAHOMA CITY — Federal authorities charged an Oklahoma City man with sending hundreds of letters containing nonhazardous white powder to public officials ahead of the 2024 and 2026 elections.

The powders turned out to be yeast or flour, though not all letters have been fully tested, the FBI said in a court filing made public Tuesday.

Robin Martin is charged with conveying a hoax and mailing threatening communications. Martin was arrested Monday and was expected to make an appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City.

Online records do not list an attorney who could comment on his behalf, and several relatives didn’t immediately respond to social media messages seeking comment.

Federal authorities announced last month that they were investigating letters with “suspicious substances” that had been mailed to congressional and election offices nationwide and urged recipients to treat the mailings as “potentially hazardous.”

The packages led to the evacuation in October of election offices in Louisiana and Oklahoma. Numerous states, from Idaho to Florida, said their election offices either received letters or had them intercepted by the Postal Service.

Investigators believe more than 700 mailings appeared to be associated with the same sender. They were addressed to election officials, members of Congress, pollsters, news media and federal law enforcement, FBI agent David Cole said in an affidavit.

The investigation stretched back to 2024 when multiple election officials in every state reported mail with a white substance and a three-page letter declaring war, the FBI said. Some bore ominous messages that could only be read under ultraviolet light.

The sender wrote a return address as “U.S.T.E.A., United States Traitor Elimination Army, Takoma Park, MD.”

A common message in the 2024 and 2026 mailings was a warning to recipients about upcoming arrests for treason “or worse!!”

The FBI said it has video evidence of Martin’s car stopping in October at mailboxes at Postal Service sites in Oklahoma City, Dallas and San Antonio. Investigators also gleaned his fingerprints from a letter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel, whose first name was written as “Kashyap.”

The Democratic Socialists of America apparently assisted the FBI in the investigation. The FBI said it believes Martin, posing as someone using the name George Livingston, posted a message to a DSA email list in October, warning that members were traitors and eligible for arrest for treason if they vote in the Nov. 3 election.

White and Hollingsworth write for the Associated Press. AP journalist Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed reporting.

The Justice Department sent a last-minute surge of election monitors into Los Angeles Tuesday morning, hours after losing the latest legal tug-of-war over California’s 20,000 contested ballots.

In a pair of decisions late Monday night, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published and then quickly rescinded a decision that would have allowed the Trump administration to prosecute election workers who processed contested ballots, even after their demands to segregate them were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Then, as dawn broke on Election Day, the Justice Department announced it was sending out “1,000 election monitors and observers” across the U.S. in what it called “the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history.”

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Detroit were among the dozens of jurisdictions where monitors were sent under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — legislation the President Trump has worked tirelessly to gut across both his administrations.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the federal monitors “will be at polling locations,” but that the department is not “giving out precinct details.”

The move was widely seen as an intimidation tactic.

“They’re not doing this to make sure that there are free and fair elections,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the Supreme Court. “They’re doing this for nakedly partisan reasons, and the federal government shouldn’t be allowed do that.”

California officials were quick to hit back.

“We’ll have our observers on site keeping an eye on your monitors to ensure the integrity of California’s free, fair, safe, secure, accurate, and reliable elections,” Bonta vowed on social media as the spat escalated early Tuesday morning.

The Justice Department said it would also send monitors to San Diego, Sacramento and Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sudden influx of election monitors and the dramatic about-face in appellate court are the latest wild swings in the Golden State’s protracted midterm brawl with the federal government — a fight that has captured national attention amid growing concerns of election interference by the Trump administration.

“On the eve of Election Day, Defendants insist they must be free to use their prosecutorial powers to do what they could not through their applications for injunctions in this court and the Supreme Court,” 9th Circuit Chief Judge Mary Helen Murguia wrote in her dissent to the initial 2-1 ruling, which appeared just after 8 p.m. Monday night.

“The district court properly attempted to put a stop to Defendants’ efforts to intimidate election workers into abandoning lawful state election procedures through spurious threats of prosecution,” Murguia wrote.

By 11 p.m. the decision had been reversed, with the court setting aside its previous ruling while it reviewed the case with a larger en banc panel.

It was the latest legal blow for the administration in what had been a months long effort to claw back ballots it claims may have been issued to noncitizens, while publicly threatening to prosecute election workers who process them when its efforts were rebuffed in court.

Last week, the Justice Department sent criminal grand jury subpoenas to election workers in Los Angeles seeking reams of data related to efforts to comply with its demands.

Unions and voting rights groups sued in federal court, saying the efforts amounted to “a coordinated campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” civil servants into holding back legitimate ballots.

On Friday, after the 9th Circuit had ruled for California in the ballot claw-back case, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco issued a blistering order blocking the Justice Department from dangling criminal liability over elections workers or demanding voters be stripped from the rolls.

“In the lead-up to the election, high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election,” Thompson wrote.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” the judge wrote.

Then, on Monday afternoon, mere minutes after it was asked to consider the question, the Supreme Court returned an unsigned decision in California’s favor, appearing, at least briefly, to foreclose further efforts to stop those ballots being counted.

“This latest decision should put an end to the Administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in response to the Supreme Court decision Monday.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the late-breaking 9th Circuit decision spurred a flurry of confusion and conjecture just hours before polls were set to open in the country’s most populous state.

In the wake of the court rulings, Segall and others said the Trump administration’s move to deploy election monitors was part of a troubling pattern. The law professor worried the Supreme Court could weaponize what remains of the Voting Rights Act to benefit the president and his party.

“So far they’ve said we’re going to cut the legs off [the Act] so as not to help Democrats, but the next iteration of this will be to use the Voting Rights Act to help the Republican Party,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Americans are heading to the polls Tuesday in a historic set of midterm elections that will determine which party controls the chambers of Congress for the remainder of President Trump’s time in office.

Democrats appear poised to make significant gains, with polling showing the party up between 7 and 11 points on the generic ballot. Republicans are braced for losses but hoping to hang on to Senate control.

The night’s big question is whether a true wave will materialize for Democrats and how sizable it might be — how many U.S. House seats the party can flip, whether it can secure a Senate majority and whether Democrats take control of a majority of governorships.

The first polls close at 3 p.m. PST in parts of Kentucky and Indiana, and more Eastern states follow at 4 p.m. Here’s a rundown of the possible outcomes and what to watch as Tuesday unfolds.

Who could control Congress?

• Blue House, red Senate: Democrats could win a House majority — either substantial or modest — while Republicans retain the Senate.

  Split control of Congress would give House Democrats the ability to launch investigations into the Trump administration and block Republican legislative priorities. Senate Republicans would be able to scuttle legislation coming out of the House and continue approving Cabinet and judicial appointments, including to any openings on the Supreme Court. Legislative gridlock — and possible government shutdowns — would be likely.

• Total Democratic control: A larger “blue wave” could occur, sweeping up House seats for Democrats and tipping key Senate races in their favor to hand Democrats a majority in both chambers. The Senate majority would likely be very narrow and could come down to a single race.

  Democrats would be able to block Senate confirmation of Cabinet and judicial appointments. They would be able to pass legislation, but Trump would hold veto power and the Democrats would be unlikely to secure veto-proof majorities on partisan priorities.

• Wild cards: Most analysts agree there is very little chance that Republicans will keep House control.

  The potential for civic unrest looms over the election. If results in one or more races are contested by a losing party — as Trump and his allies have suggested is possible — the potential exists for prolonged uncertainty or a constitutional crisis.

When will we know the outcome?

The House majority could become clear before the night is over. The Senate majority could require a longer wait, particularly if it comes down to Alaska, which along with Hawaii is the last state to close polls, at 9 p.m. PST.

If the Democrats take the House, their full margin of victory likely won’t be clear Tuesday night. Some key swing races are in states that have slower ballot counts, including California and Pennsylvania.

If a blue wave does not materialize and the race for the House majority narrows, how each party makes out could take longer to ascertain.

Which races will provide early clues?

More than four dozen House races are competitive, including 18 that are considered tossups by election forecaster Cook Political Report. The additional 35 races are considered competitive but leaning towards one party. Whether additional, less competitive seats flip unexpectedly will be one indication of how much of a “wave” election this is.

Seven Senate seats are tossups: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. Three more are potentially competitive: South Carolina, which leans Republican, and Minnesota and New Hampshire, which lean Democratic under Cook’s ratings.

North Carolina and Georgia, originally viewed as competitive seats, are now both seen by forecasters as fairly safe bets for Democrats.

The swing states could largely tip for Republicans or for Democrats, or the majority could come down to just a single race.

Experts say they’re watching a handful of races that could provide early indicators for how the night may go, though predictions are always dicey and outliers are possible. Among the races to keep an eye on:

• Kentucky’s 6th: This Lexington-area U.S. House district has become an unexpected tossup, and with the nation’s earliest poll-closing time, it could be a bellwether. “If Democrats win that district, then it’s a Democratic tsunami,” said Christopher Warshaw, a Georgetown University public policy professor. “Even if it’s close, that would be pretty telling.”
• Iowa’s 2nd: Forecasters have shifted this race to a tossup amid a difficult environment for state Republicans. If Republicans lose this seat — which belonged to Rep. Ashley Hinson, the party’s Senate nominee — it could signal a blue wave on the bigger side.
• New York’s 17th: One of just three districts with a Republican incumbent that went blue in the 2024 presidential election, the outcome of this close race could “tell us a lot,” said Todd Belt, a George Washington University political science professor.
• Texas’ 15th: This district offers a bellwether for Latino voters who moved right in 2024 but, signs indicate, may be shifting back to the left. The 34th and 35th districts in Texas could also be indicative.
• Michigan Senate: If the Democrats lose Michigan, their path to Senate control becomes difficult. A win in Michigan is a best-case scenario for Republicans seeking to retain Senate control. Without Michigan, Democrats would have to flip five out of six swing seats in Alaska, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina.
• Maine Senate: If Democrat Troy Jackson wins in Maine, that will likely be a good sign for his party’s chances at the Senate majority and their races in Michigan, Ohio and Iowa. Without it, Democrats could still take the majority, but Republicans’ path will become easier.
• Other states: If Democrats pull off wins in purple or red districts in Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania, those could also signal a blue-leaning night.

Election day is here, which means it’s the final chance to cast your ballot for the midterm election.

Early voting options have allowed more than 5.5 million Californians to cast their ballot ahead of election day, according to Political Data Intelligence, voter data analysis software.

However, with more than 23 million registered voters in the state, there are still nearly 18 million people who potentially could head to the polls, which could translate to long lines at polling places and voting centers.

You can avoid long wait times. Here’s how to do that, plus a few other helpful tips on election day.

How to avoid long lines at the polls

On election day, voting and polling centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s website has a vote center locator online.

By entering your address, the locator will create a list of voting centers that are less than a mile away or as far as 10 miles.

Included with the vote center address is how long the current wait time is at that specific location.

The wait times are color coded as follows:

• Dark green: 15 minutes or less
• Light green: 16 to 30 minutes
• Yellow: 31 to 45 minutes
• Orange: 46 to 60 minutes
• Red: More than 1 hour
• Blue: Wait time unavailable

I’m at a vote center but left my ballot at home

You can request a provisional ballot at any polling place in the county in which you are registered to vote.

A provisional ballot is a regular ballot that is placed in a special envelope prior to being put in the ballot box.

It’s counted once election officials verify that you are a registered voter in that county and haven’t already voted in the election.

How to participate in ‘curbside voting’ for registered voters with disabilities

All polling places and voting centers are required to be accessible to voters with disabilities and will have accessible voting machines.

Any voter who cannot reach the voting area at the center because of architectural barriers or physical limitations may request to vote curbside — whether the voter is physically on the curb or in their car.

There is a sign posted outside of every vote center with a phone number to call an election worker who will bring a ballot to the voter, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk.

I forgot my check-in code for in-person voting

Los Angeles County election officials say you can check in at a voting center by scanning your “quick check-in code” — a number that verifies your voter registration.

Your unique code can be found on your mailed sample ballot and vote center postcard. Take either of those hard copies to the vote center.

If you forgot the hard copies, you can find the code online. You retrieve it by verifying your voter registration here. You’ll need to input your last name, birth date, the house number of your residential address and your ZIP Code.

For assistance call, (800) 815-2666, Option 2.

How late is too late to vote at the polls on election night?

In California, any voter who is in line at 8 p.m. when the polls are scheduled to close is allowed to vote, according to the secretary of state.

If there is a line when the polls close, a poll worker stands at the back of the line to let people who arrive after 8 p.m. know that the polls have closed.

Any voter who arrives after the polls have closed may not be allowed to vote, even if voters who were in line to vote before the polls closed are in the process of voting.

More election news

As a criminal investigation into Southern California Edison’s actions before last year’s deadly Eaton fire continues, the state’s for-profit utilities are lobbying for legislation that would protect their shareholders from paying for future catastrophic fires they cause.

According to slides recently presented by a Pacific Gas & Electric executive to a group of state senators, the utilities are asking for a permanent cap to limit their corporate liability for a fire where they are found to have acted negligently or imprudently. The slides were reviewed by The Times.

“If ratepayers are forced to pay the lion share for fires utilities cause, there is no imperative for the for-profit utilities to take safety and fire mitigation seriously,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog.

The utilities say their shareholders must be shielded from wildfire costs because the risk of future fires has damaged their credit ratings. Lower credit ratings mean the companies must pay higher interest rates on borrowing, an increased cost that gets passed on to electricity customers.

“It is in our customers’ interest to have action in 2026,” Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Wall Street analysts last week when asked about the utilities’ push in Sacramento for a liability cap.

Caroline Choi, Edison’s executive vice president of public policy and corporate affairs, told The Times that the proposal would not change the utilities’ focus on preventing fires. “Safety is our number one priority,” she said.

Executives at Edison and PG&E also recently told their investors that without the liability protection they may cut what they are spending on capital improvements, including to connect new housing developments and green energy projects.

PG&E recently sent letters to thousands of its customers, saying their projects could be delayed next year as it defers $2 billion in spending.

Those comments and PG&E’s letter have angered consumer advocates, wildfire survivors and some lawmakers.

On Sunday, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes Altadena, sent a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, pointing out that both companies continue to pay millions of dollars in dividends to their shareholders, while complaining that the wildfire risk had financially weakened them.

“Their decisions to delay or reduce investments in critical projects are particularly troubling given the billions of dollars in profits reported by their parent companies in recent years,” Perez wrote. “The Legislature must not be pressured to roll back utilities’ financial accountability for wildfires through threats to withhold the investments needed to serve our communities.”

The state’s three biggest for-profit utilities, which also include San Diego Gas & Electric, have been lobbying for protection from wildfire costs since early 2025. That’s when videos emerged showing two bright flashes coming from Edison’s transmission lines, just before the Eaton fire ignited.

A government investigation released in August concluded that the devastating fire ignited when an out-of-service transmission line that Edison had not used since 1971 was briefly reenergized in the high winds, causing sparks that landed in dried brush below.

The fire killed 19 people and destroyed a wide swath of Altadena, leaving thousands of families homeless.

Last week, Pizarro told investors that executives believed the utility acted prudently before the fire. If the utilities commission agrees that the company acted prudently, Edison’s liabilities for the fire would be fully covered by a $21-billion state wildfire fund.

If the commission instead determines that Edison acted imprudently — a California regulatory standard that is similar to negligence — the company’s shareholders would still pay no more than $4.3 billion for the Eaton fire under a 2019 law known as Assembly Bill 1054.

The law was passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to protect utilities from bankruptcy if their power lines spark a catastrophic fire. Since then, utility equipment has continued to spark major wildfires, even though the companies have charged customers tens of billions of dollars to prevent them.

The slides presented to state senators propose that the cap on damages — when a utility is found to have acted imprudently — be made permanent. Under current law, the cap will end when the state wildfire fund, as well as an additional $18-billion reserve created last year, are depleted, leaving shareholders exposed to greater costs of future fires.

The proposed limit on shareholder liability would be equal to 20% of each utility’s transmission and distribution equity rate base, which differs based on the size of the grid maintained by each company. This number for Edison is now $4.3 billion. For PG&E, it is $5.1 billion, according to the slides, while it is $1.5 billion for SDG&E.

The companies’ customers would have to shoulder the rest of a fire’s costs, which would be added to monthly electricity bills.

Mark Toney, executive director of the Utilities Reform Network, called the idea of permanently capping shareholders’ liabilities for fires “completely unacceptable.”

“There needs to be a cap on ratepayers’ liability,” he said.

Earlier this year, the utilities’ stock prices began to rise as executives told investors that Newsom was working on legislation to reduce the companies’ financial risks from fires.

But wildfire survivors were angered when details emerged that Newsom’s proposal would limit payments to victims for pain and suffering and cap attorney fees. Another proposed measure would have increased property insurance premiums across the state by reducing the amounts that insurers could collect after a utility-caused fire.

The utilities’ stock prices then fell when legislators agreed to a much smaller legislative package that did not have the protections the companies wanted. That bill died after the Assembly declined to vote on it.

The utilities are now asking Newsom to call a special session in which lawmakers would debate how to reduce the utilities’ fire risks, including the possible limit on what shareholders would pay.

“A predictable limitation would enable utilities to maintain investment grade credit ratings to better access capital at lower borrowing costs for customers,” Lynsey Paulo, a PG&E spokesperson, said in an e-mail.

In February, Edison disclosed that the Los Angeles County district attorney was investigating whether Edison should be criminally charged for its actions leading to the Eaton fire. And last month, an investment firm published a report claiming that there was evidence that Edison “acted with conscious and willful disregard for the rights and safety of others,” which would make its shareholders liable for all Eaton fire costs. The costs have been estimated to be tens of billions of dollars.

Pizarro told investors last week that he believed there was no evidence that Edison acted criminally before the fire. And he similarly dismissed the investment firm’s report.

“Just to be very crystal clear on this, not only do we not see any basis for felony liability, we certainly don’t see any basis for allegations of conscious or willful disregard,” Pizarro said on the conference call. “I think I said this to all of you before — that is not something I lose sleep over.”