Trump privately concedes election could be worst-case scenario for GOP, sources say

Students wait to vote at the University of Texas in Austin on Tuesday.

Democrats and Republicans agree that James Talarico likely won the early vote.

It’s the Election Day vote where Republicans are trying to stop history from being made in Texas tonight with the election of the first Democratic US senator in 38 years.

“It’s a math problem,” one top strategist to Texas Republicans tells CNN, outlining the challenge facing Ken Paxton in the final four hours of voting today.

A rainy day here in central Texas has given way to sunshine – and what Republicans hope is a massive get out the vote effort. Elon Musk, who has contributed more than $168 million to groups that have boosted Paxton, is financing a turnout operation that could determine whether the state attorney general can close the gap.

Democrats on the ground here are focusing on counties with a large Latino population, particularly across the Rio Grande Valley, with younger Latino voters (18 to 34) at the center of the Talarico campaign’s hope. Women voters, particularly in the suburbs, are also critical.

College campuses – here in Austin, but also across the state – are also critical to Election Day turnout for Democrats.

Counties with data centers are also targeted by Democrats. Texas has more counties than any other state in the US – 254 – and the Talarico campaign is hoping to “lose less” in rural areas while performing strong in cities and suburban population centers.

Strategists from both parties expect about 10 to 10.5 million voters to turn out, which would mean about 3 million will come today. Texas has reported at least 7.7 million votes so far, according to CNN’s analysis of early vote data.

The Justice Department sent target letters to more than a dozen people it believes helped recruit a Senate candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent, in Alaska — an indication that the department is working toward bringing federal charges, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

The recipients include the leadership of the Elias Law Group, the law firm that represents both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign, the sources said.

In a statement posted online, its chairman Marc Elias said, “No one should be surprised that President Trump’s Department of Justice is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day.

“We will not be intimidated by a sham investigation,” Elias said. “We are going to keep working around the clock to support our clients and make sure President Trump and his party enjoy a well-deserved beating at the ballot box.”

The target letters, which were largely sent to individuals aligned with the Democratic Party, are a remarkable move so close to Election Day.

Typically, the letters are sent to warn individuals that they may imminently face charges.

These letters also warn that the people must preserve documents, records, and communications while the investigation continues, a law enforcement official told CNN.

A New York Times report alleged that Peltola’s campaign worked with senior aides at the committee — which directs the party’s campaign strategy in Senate races — to find another Dan Sullivan to stave off votes from the Republican incumbent.

The incumbent is Dan S. Sullivan. The man running against him is Daniel J. Sullivan.

The Justice Department has dramatically accelerated the criminal probe since the report, CNN previously reported.

Read more about the target letters.

Tarrant County is seen as pivotal in the Texas Senate race.

Generally reliably Republican but in a midterm election year that favors Democrats with other favorable conditions: strong Democratic candidate, weak Republican candidate, very unpopular president, this could be the gateway to a James Talarico win in the state.

In the lead-up to this election, there has been a lot of controversy around voting access. In a party line vote, Tarrant County commissioners closed 92 polling locations for this midterm election. There were 316 in 2022 for that midterm election. There are 224 open today.

The three Republican county commissioners said this was about using polling places more efficiently and cost effectively. The Democratic county commissioners of which there are two said it was about making it harder to vote in an election or Democrats are animated.

Residents vote at a polling station in St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in West Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said he is anticipating record turnout far surpassing the number of ballots cast in the 2022 midterms.

Republicans have mixed views on what that might mean for the Senate race between Republican US Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek.

They’re bullish about the turnout in rural areas. Jeff Angelo, a conservative radio host close to the state party, said they are seeing signs of a payoff in a late push to rally voters. He credited Sunday’s visit by President Donald Trump to deeply red northwest Iowa for putting more pressure on the base to show up.

But one source close to the Senate Republican campaign operation told CNN that they remain concerned that Republicans are falling behind in the race for governor and the effect that will have on Hinson. The source acknowledged that Hinson may need a fair number of ticket-splitters to get over the top, especially as data shows strong turnout.

At a Palo voting site, CNN didn’t encounter anyone voting red for Senate and blue for governor. In a dozen conversations, many voters expressed reservations about the direction of the country under Trump.

Pate said at a news conference, “If you look at midterms, I think this is going to be a record maker by far, and it should be.”

He urged patience as results come in, saying accuracy matters more than speed and calling Iowa’s process “the gold standard.”

“I think we learn from every election to do a better job and improve on those things, and I put Iowa against any state in the country,” he said.

A voter arrives on Election Day during the midterm election at a polling place in the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday.

In Franklin County, turnout is already on track to outpace the 2022 midterms, a sign of voter enthusiasm this cycle, according to unofficial data from the Board of Elections.

To put it in perspective in 2022, turnout was 49% overall in the county by the end of the night. An election official CNN spoke to said they are expecting to far outpace that. Already voter turnout in the county is more than 45%, the Board of Elections data shows.

One Democratic strategist affiliated with the campaigns in Ohio told CNN turnout in Franklin and Cuyahoga county is encouraging for them at this point but the source cautioned that until the ballots are counted the turnout modeling can only tell them so much.

But even on a smaller scale, election officials are noticing a tick up in turnout. Here at Windermere Elementary school, a voting site in Upper Arlington. There has been a steady stream of voters all day. By 2 p.m., they’d already had 830 voters and turnout here is at nearly 65%, one election official told CNN.

Campaign signs for Republican candidates are seen in Ankeny, Iowa, on Monday.

A key Senate race in reliably red Iowa is going to reveal the extent of the backlash toward President Donald Trump, and here in Ankeny, a steady stream of voters are casting their ballots for candidates on both sides of the aisle.

As of this hour, 1,740 people have voted at this polling place, including 41 new registrations. The precinct captain here tells CNN that this turnout is even higher than this time of day in the 2024 presidential election.

Nearby in Des Moines, Iowa’s secretary of state said he is “very confident” that the state will set new records for midterm turnout, telling reporters that turnout is “way past” 2022 levels.

Michelle Tilton, a 57-year-old banker from Ankeny, told CNN earlier Tuesday she’s a registered Republican but voted for Democrats Rob Sand for governor and Josh Turek for Senate this year.

Asked what message she wanted to send Washington with her vote, Tilton said, “We’re tired of what’s currently going on and we want a change regardless of what political party you’re affiliated with.”

Joshua Collier, who voted with his daughter, Emily, told CNN after casting his ballot this afternoon that he voted for Zach Lane and Ashley Hinson, both Republicans.

“I like the way things are going, and the way both of them ran their campaign impressed me,” he said.

A new appeals court order Tuesday afternoon gives the administration the okay to warn election officials they could be prosecuted for not complying with its demands to change voting procedures.

The 6-5 ruling from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the third time, in less than 24 hours, the court has changed course on limits placed on the Justice Department by a district court judge last week that halted some of the administration’s most aggressive conduct toward election workers.

The latest order reinstates a decision that a three-judge panel issued Monday evening, wiping away the judge’s temporary restraining order. That order had blocked the administration from demanding that election administrators deviate from their usual processes and halted any efforts by the administration to intimidate or threaten those administrators. The DOJ denies that the letters sent to election offices — warning that it would prosecute officials who didn’t go along with its proposals for preventing noncitizen voting — amounted to threats. The full 29-judge court then voted less than three hours later to reinstate the TRO.

Tuesday’s “en banc” court — which was made up of 11 Circuit judges — did not pen a majority opinion to go along with the reversal. But a concurrence signed on by two of the judges said that courts generally do not “have the authority to enter an injunction prohibiting the Department of Justice from expressing its views about criminal statutes, even if the court determines that those views are incorrect.”

The dissenters, however, said the original panel opinion played down the threat and “ignores the reality that these ‘request[s]’ are made on pain of prosecution.”

“As the en banc court majority reinstates the stay on the morning of Election Day, state and local election officials and workers must choose between complying with two conflicting opinions of our court: follow our decision in California and risk prosecution by the United States or accede to the Defendants’ demands and risk violating state law,” the dissent said. “We should not force this impossible decision on election officials and workers on Election Day or the days that follow.”

The ruling is a notable win for the administration, which has seen most of efforts to meddle with election procedures run into a legal brick wall.

While the adminstration can now resume some of its pressure campaign on election officials, a big piece of it remains on hold due to a ruling overnight from a judge in DC. That judge blocked the administration from sending lists to election officials of people it claims to be noncitizens, for the purposes of demanding changes to voting protocols.

A poll worker uses a bag containing ballots, after scanners were experiencing issues across Westchester County, during the US midterm elections on Election Day, in Chappaqua, New York, on Tuesday.

Emergency ballots cast in Westchester County, New York, will be picked up by bipartisan election officials and escorted by police to a counting location tonight, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler told reporters Tuesday.

Lawler, who is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley, said he was frustrated about widespread county issues affecting voters on Election Day, but he emphasized the error appeared to not have been “intentional.”

Westchester County voting machines have been unable to scan ballots due to a “printer error” in 332 polling locations across more than 40 municipalities, county officials said Tuesday.

“All of the ballots that have been cast already that are in the emergency orange bag will be transported from the polling site after 9 p.m. by police escort to a central location at the Board of Elections to be counted at the Board of Elections,” Lawler told reporters. “Those ballots will not be opened at the polling site, they will be opened at the Board of Elections, where attorneys from both campaigns will be, where both parties will have representation, so that there be no question, that there be no conspiracy theory, and that every vote is counted.”

The Board of Elections will have roughly 10 scanners, each able to process about 2,000 ballots an hour, Lawler told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“It’s going to take a few hours,” he said, “but we expect to have results certainly into the wee hours of tomorrow morning.”

Lawler and Conley are submitting paperwork to court this afternoon to get a judge’s approval for tonight’s counting procedure, including the police escort, Lawler said.

“What I want to assure everybody is that every vote will be counted,” he said.

CNN’s Isa Mudannayake contributed to this post.

Rep. Julia Letlow speaks to the press in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on May 16.

National Republicans have been waging an 11th-hour effort to defend a Senate seat in Louisiana, another sign of how they’re on defense in the midterms in even solidly red territory.

The latest evidence: The Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC in Senate races, spent more than $140,000 on Monday to boost the party’s nominee in Louisiana, Julia Letlow, according to a new campaign finance filing. It was the group’s first significant spending in the general election and went toward phone calls supporting Letlow.

In another signal of the race’s competitiveness, President Donald Trump held a telerally for Letlow on Monday evening. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is from Louisiana, also joined the call.

Letlow faces Democratic nominee Jamie Davis in a state that Trump won by more than 20 points in 2024.

Letlow’s success is especially important to the president. He backed her in the primary when she was challenging GOP incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republicans left in Congress who sided against Trump in his 2021 impeachment.

Two voters in South Portland this afternoon said they cast their vote for Democratic candidate Troy Jackson, but they think incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins, who has proven politically resilient in past campaigns, may end up winning the election.

Asked who he thinks will win, Harper said, “I’m not a betting person, but if I was to throw money down, yes I would have to stay with her because she keeps doing it all the time. But let’s hope. It’s got to be a time when we can get someone different in there and switch the party.”

Jackie Frenning, another Democratic voter from South Portland, said she backed Jackson because “Susan Collins served her purpose. She did great things for Maine over time. But her time is up.”

“I think it’s gonna be like a 51/49,” Frenning said about the election. “I want to believe Troy, but I think Susan has a lot of people in her backseat, in her backpocket.”

In 2020, many surveys showed Collins behind Democrat Sara Gideon heading into the election, but the senator won by nine points.

Gregory Corbett is a Democratic voter from South Portland but has voted for Collins in each of her elections.

Asked about Democrats’ arguments that Collins sides too much with Trump, Corbett said, “That, to me, doesn’t make a difference. She makes decisions about what’s best for the Maine people. Yes she’s going to go with Trump but at the same time, I don’t certainly believe that’s a big issue.”