As Midterm Election Results Roll In, These Are the Races to Watch

As the world awaits the midterm results, we'll discuss the races to watch that offer an early hint about where things are headed. This year, I think Iowa can tell you pretty much everything about this election cycle. Plus, President Trump says the U.S. will cut off military aid to Israel by the end of the year, earlier than many expected. And is it artificial intelligence or superintelligence? For taxi eos, choosing which phrase means navigating a political minefield. It's Tuesday, November 3rd. I'm Alex Osalov for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. It's just about 8 a.m. I am on my way from my house to my local polling place. Today, millions of Americans, including me, headed to the polls to vote in the midterm elections. It is a beautiful fall morning here in New York City. Good day to cast a vote. And Wall Street Journal reporters are talking to people around the country. Owen Tucker-Smith is in Detroit today. He said many voters there were excited to talk to him about the Senate race, which got a surprise endorsement twist this weekend from Democratic Representative Hayley Stevens. Hayley Stevens' decision this weekend to endorse Mac Rogers has, if anything, just made people care more about this race and it seems like a big day at the polls here in Michigan. And in Georgia, election officials are expecting record turnout for a midterm election. National Affairs reporter Cameron Recorder reports from Atlanta on the election monitors that the Justice Department has sent to all 50 states. The Trump administration has sent federal monitors to Democratic leaning counties in the state that they appear not to be doing much and they aren't interacting with voters. Secretary of State Brad Raffinsberger, who oversees elections, said aside from some minor problems, everything is running very smoothly. In Texas, which has turned into a battleground this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson spent the morning rallying voters in a predominantly Hispanic area in South Texas. The Senate contest there is one of the most competitive in the country. As James Talleriko is trying to defeat Republican Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in more than 30 years. National reporter Elizabeth Fendell is there. Paxton held a last rally last night at a Tex-Mex restaurant while Talleriko was having a rally at a concert in Austin. During early voting, we saw record turnout with more than 7.7 million Texans casting ballots. Today on Election Day, I haven't seen long lines up here in North Texas, but we've seen a steady clip of voters, many of them just saying that it's an important election and they feel compelled to come out. So when are we likely to start seeing results? While some states might have them in a few hours after polls closed, in others, it might take a few days to get the final read. But if either party puts up a particularly strong performance, control of Congress could be determined tonight, even if all races haven't been called. For now, Democrats are favored to flip the House, but the Senate is very much up in the air. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters about Democrats' state of mind as he voted in Brooklyn today. As results do start to trickle in this evening, National Political Reporter Ken Thomas says there are a few races he's watching to get a sense of where things are headed. Ken, let's start with the barometer for House races in Kentucky. House races are among the earliest in the country to close at 6 p.m. Eastern. But there's one race in particular that you're going to be keeping an eye on. It's the sixth district around Lexington. What's special about it? Republicans have held this seat in Bluegrass Country since 2013. It's a district that Trump won by 15 points in 2024, but it has been very tight. The Republican is Ralph Alvarado, a former state senator, he's running against Zach Dembo. He's a former federal prosecutor. The expectation is that if Dembo can win that seat, it will mean that Democrats are likely to have a blue wave or something approaching that. The other race to keep an eye on tonight, as you start seeing the polls closing, is in Indiana, victorious sparts is a Republican who's running for reelection. It's a seemingly safe Republican district outside of Indianapolis. But the polls have shown a fairly tight race, and so if sparts were to lose, I think that would not bode well for Republicans. So those are early signs that Democrats might be having some success, but what would be some early signs for Republicans? I would keep an eye on two races in the New York metropolitan area. Mike Lawler is running for reelection against Kate Conley and Northern New Jersey. Rebecca Bennett is the Democratic candidate against Tom Kane Jr. Both Conley and Bennett are military veterans, and so if Republicans could hold off Conley and Bennett, that might mean that they're having a better night than expected. Moving now to the Senate, we've been talking here on the show about battlegrounds like Michigan and Maine and the potential for Democrats to win a statewide race in Texas for the first time in decades. You're zoomed in on Iowa as an early bill weather. Why? There's a competitive race for Governor Rob Sand is the Democrat there. He's the favorite in the race. Republicans held the governor's office since 2011, so that would be a significant flip. Then in the Senate race, you have a very tight race featuring Ashley Henson, she's a Republican Congresswoman from Eastern Iowa, and she is trying to hold on to that seat. It's a Republican seat against Josh Turrick. He's a state lawmaker from Western Iowa for a Paralympic basketball player. This is a seat that should stay Republican under normal circumstances, but if Turrick were to pull it out, I think that might tell you a lot about this cycle. Of course, I think the thing that everybody wants to know, right, is who controls the House and the Senate. How soon could we know that? Democrats would need to flip a net three seats in order to win the House. If they are able to win some of these seats early in the night that lean Republican, I think the expectation will be that you could see a call for control of the House relatively soon. On the Senate side, that could be more of a mixed bag. You have a number of races in Republican-leaning states that are competitive. If Republicans can hold onto those seats, that might indicate that they could hang onto their majority. Journal National Political Reporter Ken Thomas, thank you so much. Thanks, Stocks. Coming up, Russian attacks on Ukraine's civilians kill dozens of people, and stocks get a midterm bounce. Those stories and more after the break. President Trump said today that the U.S. would cut off aid to Israel by the end of the year. He mentioned it during an interview with Fox News this morning. Trump said that he had previously discussed the matter with his really prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but did this catch Netanyahu off guard at all? This is something that's been in the works for months, both the U.S. and Netanyahu have talked about phasing out the current traditional form of U.S. military aid to Israel. I think both the American and Israeli side saw the writing on the wall a bit, how the broad bipartisan support that Israel's always had seems to be cracking and crumbling, both in the Republican and Democratic parties. Now what caught Israeli officials here by surprise is the timeline. Netanyahu had previously proposed eliminating direct military aid from the United States over the course of the next decade, and Trump at this interview said it could occur much faster than expected. So why is Trump suggesting this now? I don't think you can divorce this from the politics of the day. This is the midterm election day. And Trump is facing a lot of pressure from certain flanks to the Republican Party that are questioning U.S. support for Israel against the backdrop of this war in Iran that has dragged on for months and months. But of course, beyond that, there's a broader trend here of pro-Israeli American officials and politicians are thinking through how to future-proof the U.S. Israel alliance. And one way to do it is to alter this aid to Israel. Right. And Trump also told Fox News this morning that this would get rid of a talking point used by some Democrats and other critics of Israel. But is he actually in control of this funding? Or is it up to Congress to decide how to appropriate those funds? The answer is a bit of both. The administration does have a say in advising Congress on how to disperse or allocate funds. It is ultimately up to Congress through a massive annual defense policy bill. There is an asterisk on this members of Congress with the administration's approval are thinking of transitioning some of this funding into joint procurement with Israel. That would mean it would set aside cash to cooperate with Israel. We can go have these say on a new missile defense technology, or new drones, or new counter-drone programming. And so they're thinking through ways where the U.S. can still fund military cooperation with Israel. That doesn't equate to direct military aid. Israel, of course, also recently had its own elections. And we're still waiting to hear whether there's a new prime minister. But if that does happen, could a new prime minister be asking for quite a different relationship with the U.S.? Netanyahu and his main rival, Eisenkot, one thing they do agree with each other on is Israel's security policy and broadly Israel's close relationship with the U.S.? No matter who prevails in this Israeli election, based on my colleagues' reporting, it sounds like there's a broad understanding and appreciation from the Israeli side that maybe there needs to be a shift in how Israel receives funds or cooperation from the United States here. Journal National Security Reporter Robbie Grammer, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. In Ukraine, a Russian air strike at a school where humanitarian aid was being handed out yesterday killed at least 31 people, and about 50 more people are missing. Today, more than 70 people were injured in a Russian strike on a hospital in the city of Karkiv. Moscow has continued to step up its attacks on civilian locations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was doing so while the U.S. is distracted by the midterm elections. And in China, where the economy is struggling, the journal has learned that the government told major securities firms and banks to slow down their work on IPOs and focus on boosting the stock market. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has dropped more than 9% over the past two months. By keeping a lid on new IPOs, regulators can prevent a flood of new shares from entering the market and disrupting the balance of supply and demand. Turning to U.S. markets, for more than 50 years, stocks have tended to get a little boost on midterm election day. And that was mostly true today, too. The S&P 500 was up 0.4%, while the NASDAQ added 0.8%, its first gain in almost a week. And that's despite a decline in Apple shares, which fell 1.9% and dragged on the Dow. The index lost 0.4%. That was the Dow's worst midterm election day performance since 1990. Investor Carl Iconz, CVR Energy, has agreed to buy two refineries from marathon petroleum for $4.2 billion. The companies of all sizes have been on the hunt to acquire more refineries to boost their fuel-making business, as the Russia-Ukraine War and conflicts in the Middle East have taken out much of the world's fuel-making capacity, driving up profits for American refiners. And finally, Gulf of America, Mount McKinley, and now Super Intelligence, President Trump has renamed quite a few things during his second term. But unlike a large body of water or a mountain in Alaska, a rebrand of artificial intelligence presents a problem for companies that have staked their futures on it. Trump has said that the word "artificial" makes it sound fake, which he sees as a problem. Monty posted on social media that the White House considers anyone who calls it "artificial intelligence" as opposed to "superintelligence" to be, quote, "the enemy." And tech executives have been walking a linguistic tightrope. That includes Elon Musk. "Well, I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of AI, which we'll point at." "S.I. Pardon me." "Thank you." "Superintelligence." And the host of the All-In podcast, David Sachs, a venture capitalist and the administration's former AI czar, and tech entrepreneur Jason Callicanis. "I saw some fake news that you guys had stopped using the term "superintelligence," you're getting some shade for that. "Oh, I've listened. We're here for this week in superintelligence right now." But the superintelligence rebrand isn't quite catching on. A WSJ analysis found that out of the 119 S&P 500 companies that discuss the technology on investor calls, securities filings, or news releases since last week, the number of them using some variation on superintelligence is 5. That's in part because superintelligence actually means something kind of specific in the AI community, these so far hypothetical artificial intelligence that surpasses human capabilities. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Danny Lewis and Anthony Bansy, with supervising producer Tally Arbel. I'm Alex O'Solev for the Wall Street Journal. In my house, we'll be watching the election results roll in tonight, but in case you don't plan to watch them live, we'll be back with a new show and a lot more election news tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.