Americans vote tomorrow in the 2026 midterm elections. The forecasting models, prediction markets, and final polls published over the weekend agree on two things: Democrats are heavily favored to retake the House, and the Senate is close enough that nobody should print a headline tonight.
Decision Desk HQ, which combines its own model with polling averages, gives Democrats an 84 percent chance of winning the House and a 64 percent chance of winning the Senate. Silver Bulletin’s model puts House odds for Democrats at roughly 95 percent. Prediction market Kalshi gives Democrats 73 percent on Senate control and 94 percent on the House. Fox News, which runs its own Power Rankings based on race ratings, calls the Senate a toss-up. The models don’t fully agree on the Senate’s precise odds. They agree it’s genuinely uncertain.
Republicans currently hold 53 Senate seats. The races carrying most of the control question are concentrated in a handful of states. Decision Desk HQ rates Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio as toss-ups. Polling averages also show tight contests in Texas, Maine, Michigan, Alaska, and Nebraska, where independent candidate Dan Osborn is running against Republican Pete Ricketts. A YouGov survey released Sunday had that race at 49 percent to 49 percent.
President Trump held final rallies Sunday in Iowa and Kansas, both states with competitive Senate races his party needs to hold.
Every midterm since 1946 has cost the president’s party seats in the House, with two exceptions: 1998, when Republicans overreached on the Clinton impeachment and voters pushed back, and 2002, fourteen months after September 11, when George W. Bush’s approval ratings were at historic highs. Whether 2026 fits the pattern or joins those exceptions is what Tuesday decides. (Decision Desk HQ, Fox News Power Rankings, Kalshi, and Silver Bulletin published final forecasts and election analysis ahead of Tuesday.)
The most striking development of the final pre-election weekend came out of Michigan on Sunday morning.
Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democrat who lost the Michigan Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in August, endorsed Republican candidate Mike Rogers. She posted the endorsement on X, saying she was voting for Democrats up and down the rest of her ballot but couldn’t support El-Sayed after his campaign associated itself with an outside ad she described as antisemitic. She told Rogers she remained a Democrat and expected her party would still win a Senate majority.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a betrayal. Some House Democrats discussed whether she should be expelled from the caucus. Trump praised the endorsement on Truth Social. El-Sayed said he was focused on voters and not on the discussion.
Rogers, whom Trump has endorsed, narrowly lost the 2024 Michigan Senate race to Elissa Slotkin by about 20,000 votes. He’s trying to flip a seat Democrats last won in 2020. Michigan is one of the races both parties have identified as potentially decisive for Senate control. Whether an eleventh-hour endorsement from a Democrat the party already defeated in the primary changes anything is a question Tuesday’s results will answer. (The Washington Post, NBC News, and Axios reported the Stevens endorsement and the party’s response.)
Nine people were killed Sunday when a Learjet 60 crashed onto a road in Greenacres, Florida, in Palm Beach County. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed no one aboard survived. The jet had taken off from Austin, Texas, and was headed to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s officials confirmed the crash location and said roughly 600 people were evacuated from a nearby mobile home community as a precaution. The NTSB and FAA have both opened investigations. Air traffic control recordings released Monday show the pilot reported icing and turbulence before declaring an emergency.
The cause hasn’t been determined. The pilots reported icing in the descent, and that will be among the first things investigators examine. (NBC 6 Miami, PBS NewsHour, and Forbes reported the crash and the air traffic control recordings.)
More than 100,000 people demonstrated across 34 German cities over the weekend in protests organized by a youth group called Gen Z regelt, which translates roughly as “Gen Z takes charge.” The demonstrations began as largely peaceful gatherings focused on education funding and the cost of living. In Frankfurt, they turned violent.
Hesse state authorities say masked participants damaged 17 shops and looted five of them during the Frankfurt demonstrations. More than 100 police officers were injured in the clashes. Roughly 200 people were arrested across the country. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called for severe punishment. Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck attributed the violence to around 100 left-wing extremist-motivated individuals who had joined the demonstration. Gen Z regelt denied responsibility for what happened in Frankfurt.
Organizers say they’re planning a week of blockades at schools and universities across Germany. Youth-led protest movements in Western Europe have a mixed record on producing policy results. Climate demonstrations in 2019 mobilized millions across the continent and generated government commitments that were subsequently weakened or delayed in most countries. The German government hasn’t committed to Gen Z regelt’s specific education funding demands. The distinction between the organizers and the participants who broke windows in Frankfurt is one the government will draw carefully, because how it responds to the legitimate demands shapes whether the escalation continues. (ABC Australia, the NZ Herald, and Yahoo News reported the scale of the demonstrations and the violence in Frankfurt.)
Eleven health insurers have announced plans to exit Affordable Care Act marketplaces for 2027 in at least some states, according to KFF, which tracks insurer participation annually. Open enrollment for 2027 coverage began Sunday.
The largest exit is Cigna, which is withdrawing from all 11 states where it currently participates in ACA-compliant marketplace plans, affecting an estimated 369,000 enrollees. Baylor Scott & White is leaving Texas, where it covers roughly 100,000 people. PacificSource is withdrawing from Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. CareSource is leaving Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia.
Average insurer participation in ACA marketplaces fell from 9.6 insurers per state in 2025 to 9.0 in 2026, per KFF. Aetna’s departure for 2026 was the largest single exit in recent memory before this cycle. The pressure driving exits involves falling enrollment, a deteriorating risk pool, and the end of enhanced premium subsidies. The ACA marketplaces have faced coverage pressure before: in 2017, five states were left with only one insurer on the exchange. The current situation is more exits spread across more states, which produces fewer complete coverage deserts but more disruption for people who enrolled with a carrier that’s now leaving. Enrollees affected by exits can switch plans without penalty during open enrollment. (KFF’s tracking brief covers insurer participation changes in the ACA marketplaces for 2027.)
Something good.
Colorado’s Interstate 25 crosses some of the most heavily traveled wildlife migration corridors in the American West. For years, the stretch between Castle Rock and Monument produced roughly one deer-vehicle collision per day. A wildlife overpass that completed the I-25 crossing network in December 2025 has changed that number.
Planetizen reported in September, citing Colorado Department of Transportation data, that the overpass has reduced vehicle-animal collisions in the corridor by 91 percent. CDOT said before the opening that the network was expected to cut collisions by 90 percent. The actual result is in line with the projection. Elk, mule deer, and pronghorn are now using the crossing, which spans six lanes of interstate traffic.
The 2021 federal infrastructure law included $350 million specifically designated for wildlife crossings, the first dedicated federal funding for this purpose in U.S. history. Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon have their own crossings in development or recently completed. A Pew Charitable Trusts analysis published this year found that wildlife crossings reduce collisions by more than 80 percent, and up to 97 percent for some species, in areas where they’re built. In Colorado, the number came in at 91. Infrastructure that works as designed is not a small thing. (Planetizen and Colossal reported the collision reduction data; the Pew analysis is at pew.org.)
Howard Fenn writes The Day, Monday through Saturday.
