On Politics With Lisa Lerer: Election Night

Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.

Happy Election Day! As we send this email, polls have closed in most of Indiana and eastern Kentucky. While we all wait for returns, we thought we’d share how to follow along with everything we’re doing tonight.

First, here’s a handy election night cheat sheet, so you know which races to pay close attention to.

What’s the mood of the country today? From what we’ve heard, “anxious,” “anxious” and “just really anxious.”

I’m spending my night working on our live story, which we’ll be updating all evening with reporting from across the country.

I’m also part of the team offering live analysis of where the night is headed, along with a few of my colleagues. You can see that on all of our results pages, and on the Times’s home page.

Speaking of results … that’s what you’re probably all here to see, right? Here’s where you can follow the House results, and Senate results, as they come in.

But if you want to live on the edge, check out … The Needle. The pages for our House and Senate forecasts show the odds of who will win control of each chamber. (Remember: The needle is not the enemy. It’s just the messenger.)

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Our readers get involved

We assume you read this newsletter because you’re interested in politics. But a lot of you also participated in our political system this year, many for the first time.

Here’s some of what you told us:

John C. Miller wrote us from “central, rural and conservative North Carolina” to tell us that he’d be out volunteering for a retired executive running for the local county commission:

“Ill be out with an umbrella at 6:30 EST passing out Bob Morrison papers hoping to break the lock the GOP has on the commission. I’m well past 80 years but motivated against Republicans who support the nation’s greatest liar.”

Frances Kidd decided to knock doors in Georgia after seeing Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor, speak, saying, “I decided I would take my bad knees to the street and go canvassing for her.”

"I guess you might say we ended on a low note — except we laughed so much that it felt like a high. First, my friend stepped in an anthill and then brought what seemed to be most of the ants back into the car. A few houses later, I was greeted by a beautiful ‘guard’ dog whose only threat was trying to love you to death. It took me at least five minutes to get past him and to the door of the house. Along the way, I stepped on dog poop (which I brought back into the car) and ended up with muddy paw prints on my pants. It was worth it because the dog’s owner was a lovely man who is determined to vote on Tuesday.”

This election has been so exciting that even some visiting foreigners are getting involved.

Pierce Wilcox, an Australian on vacation with his partner, said he canvassed in Easton, Pa., Staten Island and phonebanked for Beto O’Rourke in Texas.

“We’ve baffled friends and strangers on two continents and I’m constantly waiting for someone to accuse us of being the Dems’ version of conniving overseas election interference. If the Reps have Russian hackers, the Dems get Aussies complaining about the cold — seems fair.”

“It’s been the best, scariest and most inspiring way to get to know your country, in all its glory and foolishness, and weirdly, it made me believe in the promise that America used to hold for the rest of the world. Now if only you had sausage sizzles on Election Day!”

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From Opinion

• We’re waiting with bated breath to see whose wave will crash tonight. Opinion columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens break down why this election is a particularly exciting one.

• Many people are talking about the political climate, but are enough doing anything about it? Young voters explain what issues are motivating them to vote in the midterms.

• Meanwhile, James Comey, the former F.B.I director, offers some advice: vote to uphold the nation’s values.

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… Seriously

Alaska has the best “I Voted” stickers. (And we didn’t even know it was a contest!)

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