Live updates: High economic dissatisfaction among U.S. voters could mean problems for Democrats

Former President Donald Trump said he will make a “big announcement” on Nov. 15 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he is widely expected to launch his 2024 presidential campaign.

“I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump said at a Save America rally in Vandalia, Ohio on the eve of the midterm elections.

Trump is eager to jumpstart his third run for president, and staffing conversations have ramped up significantly in recent weeks. An early list of potential top aides has already trickled out.

Trump’s line about Nov. 15 came near the end of a more than 90 minute speech, during which he railed against Democrats, judges who have ruled unfavorably in cases against his family, run down U.S. airports and above all, President Joe Biden.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request from CNBC to confirm that his Nov. 15 event will be a campaign launch.

As Trump inches closer to formally kicking off the 2024 presidential race, polls show he enjoys unparalleled support among Republican voters.

Trump would also enter the race with more than $60 million in cash held by his leadership PAC, Save America, and a prodigious small dollar fundraising operation that vacuums up online donations from the Republican base.

— Christina Wilkie

Officials from Arizona’s most populous county, which will help to decide some of the most closely watched midterm election races in the country on Tuesday, aimed to dispel heightened concerns about misinformation and Election Day security.

The county now has the country’s eyes on it as it faces increased threats to election workers, voter intimidation at drop boxes and heightened concerns about misleading information surrounding the midterms. Maricopa will help to decide control of the U.S. Senate, as Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly tries to defend his seat against Republican challenger Blake Masters in the chamber split evenly by party.

The nation has also watched Arizona’s race for governor, where Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs faces Republican Kari Lake, a leading proponent of Trump’s false election fraud claims.

— Rocio Fabbro

On a day that will have massive repercussions for President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and his presidency, the president, for now, is going to be laying low.

An initial White House schedule shows that Biden will not make any public appearances on Tuesday. There is nothing on his calendar except a daily national security briefing at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Presidents typically do not hold events on Election Day, so as not to draw attention or crowds away from candidates.

But on the day of former President Barack Obama’s first midterm election on Nov. 2, 2010, the president’s public schedule included four radio interviews and a meeting with the secretary of Defense at the White House, in addition to his daily economic and national security briefings.

The White House said Monday that Biden would likely wait until Wednesday to comment on any results from the election. Democrats are expected to lose the House majority, while the race for Senate control is a toss-up, based on the latest polling.

— Christina Wilkie

Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the U.S. economy at levels not seen ahead of a midterm election since 2010, according to a new NBC News poll released over the weekend.

The latest survey found that 81% of respondents were either somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the state of the economy, while only 19% were satisfied.

The gloomy economic outlook could have big repercussions for Democrats on Election Day. The last time Americans were this unhappy with the economy ahead of an election was 2010, when 84% of voters told pollsters they were dissatisfied with the U.S. economy.

That year, Republicans picked up 63 seats in the House, the biggest single party flip since the late 1940s.

Going into Election Day, the nonpartisan Cook Political report has rated 36 House seats as toss ups, 26 of them held by Democrats and only 10 by Republicans. Another 15 seats held by Democrats in the House are rated as competitive, but leaning towards the Democrat.

— Christina Wilkie

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who is not up for reelection this year, was pegged with a can of beer while participating in a World Series victory parade for the Houston Astros, police said.

An alleged video of the incident shows Cruz, standing in the truck bed of a military vehicle, raise his arm and attempt to duck out of the way as a can sails toward him from off screen. The can appears to bounce off the senator’s body, at which point another man in the truck appears to point law enforcement in the direction from which the can was thrown.

Before the incident, videos show Cruz being loudly booed by crowds lining the street for the Astros’ victory parade — an echo from weeks earlier, when Cruz was heckled and booed by baseball fans at Yankee Stadium.

Houston Police said Monday afternoon that they arrested a 33-year-old male who “threw a beer can at U.S. Senator Ted Cruz as the Senator was on a float in the 2400 block of Smith St.”

“The beer can struck the Senator in the chest/neck area. The Senator did not require medical attention,” the police said on Twitter.

The alleged can-thrower was taken to jail and is charged with assault, according to the department’s tweets.

— Kevin Breuninger

Oregon voters will determine Tuesday whether to pass stricter gun laws — the only ballot measure nationwide that addresses gun violence. 

The gun-control initiative, which critics say is the nation’s “most extreme,” requires people to obtain permits and complete safety training to acquire a firearm. It also bans high-capacity magazines and calls for State Police to create and maintain a searchable database of gun ownership.

Supporters, including shooting survivors in the state and across the country, say Oregon Measure 114 is necessary to reduce gun injuries and deaths.

Read more from NBC News.

— NBC News

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned that her husband Paul Pelosi had been brutally attacked last week when Capitol Police officers banged on her door at 5 a.m., she revealed in a new interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“I look up, I see it’s 5, they must be at the wrong apartment,” Pelosi recalled thinking. But the knocks continued, “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door,” she said.

“So I run to the door, and I’m very scared. I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We have to come in to talk to you,'” Pelosi recounted.

“And I’m thinking my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say. And so they came in. At that time, we didn’t even know where he was,” she said.

Paul Pelosi was attacked on Oct. 28 by an intruder wielding a hammer who had broken into the couple’s San Francisco home. Police arrived at 2:31 a.m., and Paul Pelosi was transported to a hospital and underwent emergency surgery to repair a skull fracture.

U.S. Capitol Police first learned of the attack when they noticed squad cars and sirens on a live feed of Pelosi’s house on monitors in their Washington headquarters.

— Christina Wilkie

Some of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top donors are privately panicking about Republican challenger Rep. Lee Zeldin’s recent surge in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s midterms, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Republican, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has trailed Hochul by only single digits in some recent polls — prompting the governor’s corporate backers to push her to change tactics, according to these people.

At the start of October, Hochul led Zeldin by an average of 14 percentage points, according to data from FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates data from several polls. RealClearPolitics, which looked at several polls taken during the second half of October, showed Zeldin closing in on Hochul, who was up by an average of 6 percentage points. A Quinnipiac poll from mid-October showed an even smaller lead for Hochul, who was ahead of Zeldin by just 4 percentage points at the time.

Business leaders have encouraged Hochul in private meetings, including one with top real estate executives in late October in New York City, to pivot away from focusing on the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and other social issues. They, instead, have advised her to show how she’s going to fight inflation and a recent rise in crime in the city, those familiar with the conversations explained.

— Brian Schwartz

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the brutal home invasion and attack on her husband Paul Pelosi by a conspiracy theorist will affect her decision on whether to retire.

The formidable California Democrat has led the Democratic Party in the House for nearly 20 years. But with Republicans expected to win a majority of seats on Tuesday, there had been widespread speculation even before the attack that Pelosi, 82, would decide to retire before handing over the gavel to the current Republican Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy.

In her first major interview since the Oct. 28 attack, Pelosi would not confirm whether she’s made a decision on her potential retirement. But she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her “decision will be affected about what happened the last week or two.”

“Will your decision be impacted by the attack in any way?” Cooper asked.

“Yes,” Pelosi replied.

“It will?” Cooper reiterated.

“Yes,” Pelosi repeated.

— Christina Wilkie

The Justice Department announced it will monitor polls across the country to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws — only a day before the midterm elections that could realign the majority party in Congress.

The department’s Civil Rights Division selected 64 jurisdictions in 24 states, including Alaska, Florida, Georgia and Nevada, for oversight in both the general election and early voting. The division has routinely monitored elections in the field, starting with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Personnel from the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Office of Personnel Management will assist the DOJ Civil Rights Division in monitoring efforts and maintaining contact with state and local election officials.

Poll monitoring is part of the division’s mission to protect the civil right to vote under the Voting Rights Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Civil Rights Acts and the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the DOJ. 

— Chelsey Cox

Americans should not be concerned for their safety on Election Day, and the Biden administration has not been advised of any “specific credible threats,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

“Law enforcement has briefed us that there are no specific credible threats at this point,” Jean-Pierre said at the White House press briefing. “Americans should feel safe going to the polls. It is important for Americans to do so.”

President Joe Biden has repeatedly condemned threats of political violence ahead of the midterm elections and in wake of the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi.

“It remains important to the president to state strongly and unequivocally violence has no place in our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that Biden believes leaders of both parties have a duty to communicate that.

— Emma Kinery

The top election official in Georgia opened a probe of Cobb County’s failure to mail absentee ballots to hundreds of voters who had requested them.

The investigation by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office came a day after civil rights groups on behalf of four voters filed a lawsuit asking a judge to issue orders to ensure that everyone who sought an absentee ballot gets their vote counted.

The head of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registrations said human error was to blame for the situation.

All of Georgia’s congressional districts, one of the state’s seats in the U.S. Senate and its governor’s office are at stake on Election Day.

In the Senate race, incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is in a statistical dead heat with GOP challenger Herschel Walker, the former college and pro football star.

— Dan Mangan

Americans headed to the poll early across the country in the final days of the 2022 midterm elections.

— Getty Images/Reuters

Social media platforms including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Google’s YouTube are readying themselves for another heated Election Day this week.

The companies now regularly come under close scrutiny around election time, something that accelerated following findings that Russian agents used social media to sow division in the run-up to the 2016 election. During the last presidential election in 2020, the platforms faced the challenge of moderating election denialism as an outgoing president stoked the false claims himself, leading several of them to at least temporarily suspend him after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

This year, the platforms are using all of those experiences to prepare for threats to democracy and safety as voters decide who will represent them in Congress, governor’s offices and state legislatures.

— Lauren Feiner

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said he interfered in past U.S. elections and would continue doing so in the future, the first such admission from a figure who has been formally implicated by Washington in efforts to influence American politics.

In comments posted by the press service of his Concord catering firm on Russia’s Facebook equivalent VKontakte, Prigozhin said: “We have interfered (in U.S. elections), we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.”

The remark was posted on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections in response to a request for comment from a Russian news site.

“During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” Prigozhin said. He did not elaborate on the cryptic comment.

Prigozhin, who is often referred to as “Putin’s chef” because his catering company operates Kremlin contracts, has been formally accused of sponsoring Russia-based “troll farms” that seek to influence U.S. politics.

— Reuters

One of the first states to close its polls Tuesday night will be Virginia, where voting ends at 7 p.m. ET. For those watching election results at home, there are three House races in the commonwealth whose outcomes could offer clues as to how Republicans will fare nationwide in their quest to win a big majority in the House.

All three races feature female Democratic incumbents locked in tight contests against relatively moderate Republican challengers, two of them women.

In Virginia’s 2nd District, which includes Virginia Beach, Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria is seen as particularly vulnerable in her race against state Sen. Jen Kiggans.

In the 7th District, which includes Washington D.C.’s most outer suburbs and two rural counties, former CIA agent turned Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger is facing Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega, a former police officer. Crime and abortion have dominated the airwaves in the campaign.

Further north, in the most affluent and well educated part of the state just outside D.C., Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton is defending her seat against Hung Cao, a Navy veteran, in the 10th District. President Joe Biden won Wexton’s district by double digits in 2020.

— Christina Wilkie

Every state runs its own elections, which means poll closing times vary significantly on Election Day. Below is a list of when polling places close in each state.

Schedules are organized by state, not by time zone. So for example, while half of Kentucky is the Eastern time zone and the other half of it is Central time, polls will close at 6 p.m. ET across the state, so it’s listed under 6 p.m.

This is not an official list and some counties keep polls open longer to accommodate heavy turnout, so please check with your local election board to determine when your own polls close.

6 p.m.

Kentucky and Indiana

7 p.m.

Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming

7:30 p.m.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia.

8 p.m.

Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

9 p.m.

New York

NOTE: New Hampshire closing times vary county by county, but none is earlier than 7 p.m. Tennessee also varies, as does North Dakota, where polls close between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

— Christina Wilkie

Voters in California, Kentucky, Michigan and Vermont will decide during the midterm elections whether abortion is protected under their state constitutions.

But Michigan and Kentucky are shaping up as the two biggest battlegrounds on abortion in the midterms. Michigan is poised to become a safe haven of constitutionally protected abortion rights in the Midwest, where access is shrinking.

Kentucky, on the other hand, is set to entrench its abortion ban unless reproductive rights activists pull off an upset victory in the conservative Southern state.

— Spencer Kimball

Voters in a handful of states – including four that traditionally favor Republicans – are set to decide Tuesday whether to legalize recreational marijuana, paving the way for its sale and cultivation in newly regulated markets across the country.

Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota could join 19 other states and the District of Columbia, which have already legalized recreational marijuana. The votes come about a month after President Joe Biden urged state and local officials to follow his lead in pardoning those convicted on prior federal charges of simple marijuana possession.

— Stefan Sykes

Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk threw his support behind Republicans in their bid to take congressional majorities in the midterm elections, saying that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties.”

“Therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Musk wrote in a tweet addressed “to independent-minded voters.”

In a follow-up tweet, Musk added, “Hardcore Democrats or Republicans never vote for the other side, so independent voters are the ones who actually decide who’s in charge!”

Musk’s tweets, and other aspects of his leadership, have come under intense scrutiny since the billionaire boss of Tesla and SpaceX acquired Twitter last month for $44 billion.

The succession was marked by massive layoffs, a bristling reception from some advertising groups and confusion about the platform’s policy changes. A regular flow of eyebrow-raising commentary from Musk, most of it from his own Twitter account, added more chaos into the mix.

He blamed “activist groups” for Twitter suffering a “massive drop in revenue … even though nothing has changed with content moderation.” Days later, Musk announced that any Twitter handles impersonating people without clearly labeling themselves parody accounts “will be permanently suspended.”

He has also hit back at many of his critics, including progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and has replied favorably to numerous prominent conservative media figures.

— Kevin Breuninger

The fight for the midterms may still be in full swing, but it’s clear that some key figures are already laying the groundwork for 2024 and beyond.

Former President Donald Trump, who has regularly hinted he may seek the White House again, this weekend dropped some of his strongest suggestions yet.

“I promise you in the very next very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy, okay,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania for GOP Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial hopeful Doug Mastriano. “We’re going to take it back and you’re going to be hearing about it very soon. Very, very, very soon.”

Trump, who never conceded his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020, considered announcing his next presidential bid at that rally, but opted not to distract from the Oz and Mastriano campaigns, a source told NBC News on Sunday.

Trump at that rally also took a shot at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely seen as having presidential ambitions, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has reportedly decided against a run for president in the next cycle. And Biden has privately told allies he is planning to run again, news outlets have reported.

— Kevin Breuninger

Tuesday’s midterm elections will determine which party takes control of the Senate, seizing the power to steer investigative committees, advance major legislation and potentially approve — or block — President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees.

Candidates in a handful of must-win Senate races appear to be in a dead heat in the polls, and Republicans need to pick up just one seat to gain a majority.

Use CNBC’s guide to the top Senate races to keep track, and learn important facts about each candidate.

— Kevin Breuninger

The 2022 elections are expected to cost over $16.7 billion, making them the most expensive midterms ever, according to a study by the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.

“No other midterm election has seen as much money at the state and federal levels as the 2022 elections,” said Sheila Krumholz, OpenSecrets’ executive director. “We’re seeing record-breaking totals spent on elections up and down the ballot.” Election Day is Tuesday.

The fight for control of the House and Senate in particular saw massive spending, according to the OpenSecrets data. Republicans hope to win back control of both chambers for the final two years of President Joe Biden’s first term.

Outside groups spent about $1.9 billion to influence federal elections through Oct. 31, blowing past the 2018 midterm outside spending record of $1.6 billion, adjusted for inflation.

Two Republican political action committees have led the way in outside spending for federal races.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has poured over $205 million into the midterms while backing Republicans running for Senate. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a hybrid PAC supported by House GOP leaders, has spent more than $188 million.

Megadonors from both sides of aisle have poured millions of dollars into the 2022 midterms. The top donors this cycle going into Election Day include billionaires George Soros, Richard Uihlein, Ken Griffin and Sam Bankman-Fried.

— Brian Schwartz

It was a busy weekend on the campaign trail as both parties sent out their all-star surrogates in the final days leading up to the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

— Getty Images | Reuters