US Networks Lay Out Their Plans for Midterm Election Night
NBC News plans 13 hours of broadcast coverage for the midterm elections, the longest the network has ever scheduled for a midterm, Deadline reports. The block runs from 5 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, 3 November, to 6 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday. Hallie Jackson opens the evening as the first exit poll findings come out.
An exit poll asks voters how they cast their ballot as they leave polling stations. Its early results are often the first public clues about how an election is going. This year, for the first time since 2016, all the major networks will use the same exit poll, called The Voter Poll and run by the research firm SSRS. Every network will be working from one shared set of voter findings.
The vote counts themselves also come from one source. The 2026 midterms are the first in a decade in which all the major networks rely on Associated Press vote-count data, according to Deadline. The AP says it will report results and make race calls for 35 U.S. Senate contests, 435 House contests and 36 governor's races. A race call is the moment a news organisation declares a winner.
Not every network uses the AP for its projections. NewsNation is working with Decision Desk HQ, a separate election data team, for its night of data and projections. CNN will stream the raw data behind its own calls through a tool called Sightline, which the Los Angeles Times describes as a live view of the numbers under each call.
Many of the new features are built for phones and computers rather than the television set. Fox News will offer an AI-powered chatbot on its app that answers questions about the results. Its podcast The Ruthless will run a three-hour Election Night streaming special on Fox Nation and Fox News Digital. NBC will carry a Kornacki Cam, a livestream of Steve Kornacki tracking the results. MS NOW will offer VelshiCast, a YouTube stream with data expert Ali Velshi. CBS News has a streaming show too, Election 2026: The Nerd Show, hosted by Anthony Salvanto and Caitlin Huey-Burns, which will appear on CBS News 24/7, YouTube and other platforms.
On the main channels, CBS Television Network starts its coverage at 7 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Tony Dokoupil and Norah O'Donnell, according to Adweek. Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer will again stand at the network's Bill Board on the night. Spanish-language viewers can watch Noticias Telemundo, which begins at 7 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Central with anchors Julia Vaquiero and Arantxa Loizaga, as TV Insider reports.
Fox News finished October at the top of the cable news ratings, Deadline reports, ahead of CNN and MS NOW.
For viewers, the practical question is where to look. A network's main channel, its app, a YouTube stream and a podcast can all carry the same count at once. Whichever screen people choose, the numbers will arrive from the same few sources.
