Everything you need for election night: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to a special Election Day edition of the From the Politics Desk newsletter, where we’re putting all the links and information you’ll need when the vote tallies start rolling in tonight in one place.

And keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow morning for a post-election edition of our Morning Rundown newsletter wrapping up the results from all the key races.

— Adam Wollner

Everything you need for election night

Election Day is finally here! Voting is underway across the country, with control of the House and the Senate — and the direction of the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency — at stake.

As a reminder, Democrats would need to gain a net of three seats to win the House and four to win the Senate.

With the first polls closing soon, here are the NBC News guides and tools to have on hand to follow along with the results.

• Ben Kamisar and Bridget Bowman have a comprehensive guide on how to watch election night. They run through the poll closing times for each state, early bellwethers, and other key battlegrounds that will tell us which way the political winds are blowing.
• Stephanie Perry explains how the NBC News Exit Poll works and how the Decision Desk uses the results.
• Speaking of the Decision Desk, John Lapinski, Stephen Pettigrew and Marc Trussler lay out the factors that will determine when we will know which party has won the House and the Senate.
• The Kornacki Cam is back! Steve Kornacki will be live at the Big Board starting at 5:30 p.m. ET, and NBC News primetime coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. ET.
• Here are the links to our results pages: Senate; House; governor.
• And make sure to keep tabs on our live blog for minute-to-minute updates.

Final poll closing times

7 p.m. ET: Georgia, Indiana (parts close earlier), Kentucky (parts close earlier), South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia

7:30 p.m. ET: North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia

8 p.m. ET: Alabama, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida (parts close earlier), Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee

8:30 p.m. ET: Arkansas

9 p.m. ET: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas (parts close earlier), Louisiana, Michigan (parts close earlier), Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota (parts close earlier), South Dakota (parts close earlier), Texas (parts close earlier), Wisconsin and Wyoming

10 p.m. ET: Montana, Nevada and Utah

11 p.m. ET: California, Idaho (parts close earlier), Oregon (parts close earlier) and Washington

12 a.m. ET: Hawaii

1 a.m. ET: Alaska (parts close earlier)

🗞️ Today's other top stories

• ⛈️ Weather report: Flash flooding, heavy rainfall and tornadoes forced election officials in three regions across the U.S. to move polling locations. Read more →
• 🗳️ Vote watch: The Justice Department sent a record number of election monitors to polling places in all 50 states today. Read more →
• 🗳️Vote watch, cont.: Westchester County ballot tabulators malfunctioned across the county, alarming voters and fueling a flurry of conspiracy theories online. Read more →
• ⚖️ SCOTUS watch: The Supreme Court last night swiftly rejected the administration’s request that California separate out up to 20,000 mail-in ballots that officials allege could be submitted by noncitizens. Read more →

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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