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If there was just one person who might decide control of Congress this fall, they would look a lot like Jen Hernandez.
Hernandez, an independent who has voted for Republicans, Democrats and third-party candidates, was undecided in late September when she spoke to The Washington Post about her choices in the midterm elections.
She lives in Colorado’s battleground 8th Congressional District, where Rep. Gabe Evans (R) is facing off against Democrat Manny Rutinel, a former state lawmaker. This swing district voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024, when Evans unseated a Democratic incumbent by less than one percentage point.
People like Hernandez — a married, Mexican American millennial without a college degree who lives in a small city — are disproportionately important to determining House control, a Post analysis earlier this year found.
So who is she going to vote for?
Hernandez said she liked Evans’s support for the oil and gas (the district has a big oil industry), but favored Rutinel’s stances on health care, immigration and the economy.
After careful consideration, she decided she’s voting Democratic.
Many in her community — which stretches from Denver’s northern suburbs to her home in the meatpacking hub of Greeley — appear to be inching in the same direction.
On Oct. 23, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the race from a “toss-up” to one that “leans Democratic,” signaling that Rutinel has a slight edge.
Our reporters heard Republicans, who are bracing for crushing defeats on Tuesday, presenting the midterm elections as an existential crisis. Across the country on Saturday, GOP candidates and their allies tried to warn voters that Democratic victories would usher in far-left extremism.
Here are three examples:
- “This race is about defending our state and our country. It’s also about safeguarding our way of life,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate in a surprising toss-up race, said in a rally at Fort Worth. “So, I’m not exaggerating when I say, we lose Texas, we lose America.”
- “We are no longer going to be arguing about marginal tax rates, we’re not going to be debating shades of difference in foreign policy and regulation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said while rallying for Republicans in Michigan. “We’re going to be talking about whether we’re going to maintain the republic, the very foundations of America. We’re going to go down this dark, dangerous road to communism.”
- “Are you ready to protect Ohio from the spread of communism? Because that’s what this election is about,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor, said in a Lorain County campaign stop. “It’s communism versus common sense.”
A record 7.4 million Texans voted early in the midterms, giving Democrats an apparent lead in turnout and forcing Republicans to rely more heavily on independents to win key races, analysts say.
Texas voters don’t register with a party. Analysts extrapolate party affiliation from records showing which primary they voted in, with those who skip the primary considered independent.
More Democrats voted early than Republicans in urban counties. More Republicans voted in the state’s suburban and rural areas. But the number of independents outpaced both parties.
“Democrats lead in Texas’s big counties. Republicans lead everywhere else. Independents decide it,” nonpartisan Houston area-based early voting expert Steven David said in his analysis.
David said 54 percent of independents need to vote Republican for the GOP to break even with Democrats, and that’s unlikely. Usually they’re evenly split between the parties, he said.
A number of factors, he said, make it difficult to predict voter behavior: enthusiastic first-time and sporadic left-leaning voters and disaffected right-leaning voters staying home, splitting their ticket or skipping certain races.
Most independent early voters didn’t vote in 2024, nearly half are Latino, and many are young and female, Tom Bonnier, a polling analyst at Target Smart, noted on X.
That doesn’t guarantee Democrats victory in the crucial U.S. Senate race, he said. “Dems start in a big hole in [Texas]. To me this shows the race is in play.”
Additional Coverage
- October 31, 2026
Texas Republicans sweating over low turnout in early voting
Forget the Alamo.
Ken Paxton, the Republican Texas attorney general running for U.S. Senate, no longer appears to have plans to host a closing rally at the famed San Antonio battle site known as the “Shrine of Texas Liberty.”
Paxton’s campaign initially planned to end its “Come and Take It” tour at the Alamo on Monday night, but it published an event page saying Paxton would instead spend Monday evening roughly 300 miles away, in Allen, Texas.
Paxton will still swing by San Antonio on Sunday evening, though the event is slated to be roughly 15 miles north of the Alamo.
His campaign has been guarded about the details of the Alamo rally and did not respond to a query on whether it would ever take place. The Alamo Trust’s rules of reverence prohibit “events or gatherings that include advocacy around public policy, are political in nature, or involve fundraising activities not affiliated with the Alamo.”
The site of a fateful battle where the Anglo Texians lost to the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution, the Alamo holds a colossal place in the Texas psyche. The command to “Remember the Alamo” has become a rallying cry to persevere against impossible odds.
Paxton is in a highly competitive race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, who has for months led slightly in polls and vastly in fundraising. Paxton’s campaign has been hampered by past allegations of criminal misconduct and personal indiscretion, including an impeachment in the state House over alleged bribery. He was acquitted in the state Senate and has maintained his innocence.
As costumed leopards and jungle birds paraded by and guests feasted on a buffet of delicacies in a ballroom swirling with dry ice, President Donald Trump hosted Halloween at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.
Dressed in his usual suit and red tie, he told reporters that he “came as Donald Trump.”
“I didn’t have time to get — people spend a lot of time and money, rich people, they spend nine hours getting ready,” he said. “I had 10 minutes, so I came as Donald Trump.”
The event had a jungle theme, and reporters spotted guests in sequined leotards, face paint, and cheetah, leopard and tiger-print dinner jackets. Circus performers hung from the ceiling.
Guests included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who was seated next to the president at dinner later in the evening. Across the table was U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who traveled from Washington with the president on Friday, could also be seen by his side. Also seen mingling with guests was Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The lavish event came three days before voting ends in the midterm elections, which have been dominated by voter concerns about the cost of living.
Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska) said he will accept the results of Tuesday’s Senate race in his state even if he does not prevail.
The race in Alaska has been the subject of in controversy over the presence on the ballot of another man with a similar name, Dan J. Sullivan Jr. The New York Times has reported that the campaign of Democratic nominee Mary Peltola was involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher, to run in a bid to dilute support for the incumbent. Peltola’s campaign denied the allegations.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit to potentially block the results from being certified if the incumbent senator loses by a margin less than the number of votes for his challenger with the similar name.
But asked Sunday on CNN whether he would accept the election results only if he wins, Sullivan replied: “No. I’m going to accept the election results.”
On Saturday, Alaska’s Republican-led government urged a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department’s bid to block the certification of the Senate race if Sen. Sullivan loses, writing in a filing that the demands were “inappropriate and not even possible given Alaskan voters’ vital right to ballot secrecy.”
SEARSMONT, Maine — Democratic congressional candidate Matt Dunlap visited volunteer wood choppers Saturday morning to highlight the economic hardship many Mainers are feeling over a basic, but critical fuel for many who live here.
The Waldo County Wood Shed has been providing free firewood to people who need it to stay warm during the winters for more than a decade.
President and founder Bob MacGregor said he is expecting more demand this year because of the rising cost of heating oil in Maine. His organization relies on donations to buy logs and hands out about 200 cords per year.
“The only thing we can do is give out wood until we run out,” he said.
Dunlap said affordability has been the theme of the election. Last year, he largely heard from voters concerned about the rising cost of health care, but since the war in Iran, it’s the cost of everything. He said his own property taxes are going up 8 percent this year so his community can pay for the diesel used by its snowplows.
That experience has allowed him to connect with disappointed Trump supporters in this conservative-leaning district.
“They’re paying the same prices everybody else is paying and I think it’s left them feeling kind of demoralized,” Dunlap said. “What I hear from folks is they’re just tired.”
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