Print it before Nov. 3
Election Night Guide
A cheat sheet for the count, in the order the polls close. For each close Senate and governor race: the counties that decide it, and the margin the Democrat needs in each to break even statewide. Write the real margins in as the counties finish.
Sources
- County targets
- 2024 presidential results by county (3,112 counties in the site’s county files, whose state sums match the FEC’s official totals). Every county moves by the same amount until the state is even. Alaska reports by state House district, so it has no county table: 19 of 20 states have one.
- House lean
- The 2024 presidential result on the 2026 district lines (Dave’s Redistricting, The Downballot, Texas Legislative Council).
- Races
- Every race we rate Toss-up, Tilt or Lean for the Senate, governor and the House, plus, as early signals, the races we rate Likely in states whose first polls close by 7:30 PM ET. “Our forecast” is Call the Map’s edition ctm-2.2-20261028-9f3705e813cc, as of October 28, 2026.
- Poll closing
- State election offices and statutes.
- Legislatures, measures
- Ballotpedia, checked against NCSL; Ballotpedia’s 2026 measures. We forecast neither.
- Count order
- AP Decision Notes, MIT Election Data + Science Lab, AP via PBS NewsHour, AP (Askarinam) via NBC4 Washington, Protect Democracy, Newsweek, Anchorage Daily News, Charles Stewart III, Election Updates.
Not results: Call the Map never reports or fills in a result.