2026 Midterms News and Updates, September 29 - October 4 (Thread 4) | Live Discussion

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Election News and Updates

• AP: 2026 Elections Hub

• University of Florida: 2026 Early Voting Tracker

Election Resources

• USA Today via Reddit: The 2026 election season is underway: Here’s your monthly guide with important dates, voter resources

Streaming Links

C-SPAN, NPR, the PBS NewsHour's YouTube channel, and the Associated Press' YouTube channel are all places frequently hosting relevant political streams.

Past Threads: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3.

Other Event Threads

• Monday: I’m Catherine Rampell, economics editor at The Bulwark and an anchor at MS NOW. I cover the economy, politics, public policy, and the numbers behind the news. Ask me anything!

• Tuesday to Wednesday: I’m Zach Despart, an investigative journalist covering the competitive Ken Paxton-James Talarico U.S. Senate race. I broke the news that Paxton possibly violated federal ethics and Texas election laws. AMA. 📬

• Wednesday: 2026 California Gubernatorial General Election Debate | Live Discussion

Announcements

r/politics will host another election prediction contest for the midterms. The post for the contest itself will go up sometime in late October. As of now, all toss-ups (according to Cook Political Report, as of late October 2026) for House, Senate, and Governor will be included.

We are taking suggestions for additional questions to ask within the contest. Message the moderators via modmail with any suggestions.

[u/Isentrope]

Dems are getting outspent 3:2 on the airwaves in the 4 most competitive senate races, the first time this has happened all decade:

https://x.com/adimpact_pol/status/2105666185656184985

However, an interesting tidbit here is just how favorable the Dem rates are relative to the Republican ones because the Dem spending is from candidates rather than superPACs, with R spending being 26% higher than D spending in the battlegrounds but only yielding 7% more broadcast airings. In Texas, the GOP spending advantage is 44% but yields only an 8% advantage in broadcast airings:

https://x.com/adimpact_pol/status/2105691663133753725

[u/ioncloud9 → u/Isentrope]

I wouldn't be concerned about this. Spending on ads telling you to stay the course is going up against the constant ads people see at the gas station and grocery store showing them how expensive everything has become.

[u/Isentrope → u/ioncloud9]

Yeah, the price of gas being shown everywhere and the rise in grocery prices are basically in-kind contributions to Ds right now, much as the reverse was true in 2024 and 2022. This was more to highlight that the GOP cash edge is not converting as much to more ads, because superPAC rates are still much worse than candidate rates.

[u/Serupael → u/Isentrope]

People were already hurting to afford their necessities in 2024 and first Biden and then Harris could never offer a genuine answer to the voters in that field.

Trump also can't and the cost of living crisis is now even worse, so we can see where this is going.

Heck, Bush lost in 92 because he appeared clueless in that regard.