The Midday File — The Desk’s Report
Objective
At Noon the Rally Turns: The Counts Hold, the Chips Fall, London Raises
The midday state of the count and the markets: no new Senate call, Mississippi’s margin wider in the newest tally, the House counted four ways, Wall Street’s second reading an hour into the session, oil back up, the Bank of England up a quarter point, and the official statements of the second morning.
The Noon Count
No race was called in the morning, in either chamber, in any state. The Senate stands where the overnight edition left it: 54 seats for the Democrats and 44 for the Republicans, with Alaska and Mississippi uncalled. The Associated Press Senate file in its latest state still lists both races as too early to call. Control of neither chamber is in question in any count on the shelf. The morning’s work was arithmetic at the edges, the markets’ second reading of a result they had already priced once, and the statements of the men and women who will have to govern with the result in January.
The House is counted four ways at noon, and the desk prints the spread. The Associated Press tracker carried in the overnight edition stood at 235 seats won by the Democrats and 26 led, against 146 won and 28 led for the Republicans. Ballotpedia’s Thursday accounting puts the called figure lower and the open figure higher: Democrats have gained at least 30 districts and hold at least a 233–138 majority in called races, with 64 races uncalled—12 in Democratic-held districts and 52 in Republican-held—and it carries Decision Desk HQ’s projection of a final 249 and NBC’s of 255. The live results file carrying Decision Desk HQ’s own totals, in its November 5 update, runs the called figure higher than either: 251 House seats called for the Democrats and 153 for the Republicans, with 31 still uncalled. A morning accounting checked against CBS News and Reuters carries an estimate of the end: a final Democratic total between 251 and 268. The tallies were taken at different hours from different call desks; they disagree about how much of the House has been called, and they agree about everything else. Ballotpedia’s measurement of the wave itself is printed for the record: the Senate’s net swing of at least seven seats against the president’s party meets its threshold for a wave election; the House’s net Republican loss of 26 seats so far does not meet its threshold of 48, and the uncalled races could still change that total. Democrats will hold 21 state trifectas, the most the party has held since 1992, per the same accounting.
Mississippi and Alaska: The Margins at Noon
Mississippi’s margin is wider in the newest tally than in the figure this paper carried overnight, and the leader is the same in every tally. The overnight edition, following the Associated Press figures in the explainer then on the shelf, carried the Democrat, Scott Colom, at 464,926 votes to the incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith’s 463,788—a margin of 1,138, with an estimated 96 percent counted. The Decision Desk HQ figures carried in the live file are newer and larger on both sides: Colom 466,464, Hyde-Smith 464,612, a margin of 1,852, in a source update timed November 4 at 6:38 p.m. EST; a later Decision Desk update carried in the same file’s state panel, timed November 5 at 14:01 UTC, puts the pair at 466,689 to 464,871, a margin of 1,818. A third tally, updated at 10:14 a.m. EST today, puts Colom at 466,246 and Hyde-Smith at 464,526, a margin of 1,720. The desk prints the range rather than a single figure: at noon Colom leads by somewhere between 1,138 and 1,852 votes depending on the tally and the hour it was taken, and the race is uncalled in all of them.
The procedure did not change in the morning. Mississippi does not require a majority in a regular federal general election; the candidate with the most votes wins, and there is no runoff—the correction this paper printed in Edition No. 6 stands. Approximately 3,600 absentee-by-mail ballots remain to be received within five business days, and an unknown number of affidavit ballots remain to be processed, per Secretary of State Michael Watson’s statement carried in the live file. Affidavit identification is due by November 10; counties certify by November 13; the state holds no automatic recounts.
Alaska did not move at all. The Democrat, Mary Peltola, leads the incumbent Republican, Dan Sullivan, by 637 first-choice votes—102,962 to 102,325—in the Decision Desk figures and in the Associated Press figures quoted in the live file this morning, and by 626 in the wire figures carried in the overnight explainer. A second candidate named Daniel Sullivan holds more votes than either margin. Both leaders are below 50 percent of first choices. Alaska accepts domestic mail ballots for up to 10 days after Election Day and overseas ballots for up to 15 days, provided they were mailed by November 3, and the ranked-choice tabulation is scheduled for November 18. In the governorship the Democrat, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, holds 49.2 percent of first choices with about 74 percent counted, on the same November 18 schedule if no majority emerges.
Colorado and Kansas: No Move
Colorado’s 4th District stands exactly where the overnight edition left it. The Associated Press count in its latest state shows the Democrat, Eileen Laubacher, at 176,162 votes and the incumbent Republican, Lauren Boebert, at 173,649—a margin of 2,513 votes, with 92.64 percent of precincts reporting. Decision Desk HQ’s district file, timed November 5 at 1:21 a.m. EST, carries the same two totals, with the Libertarian, Douglas Mangeris, at 11,669 votes and 91 percent of the expected vote reported. About 30,000 ballots were reported outstanding in the district, concentrated in Douglas and Larimer counties. Colorado’s deadline for military and overseas ballots to arrive, and for voters to cure a missing or mismatched signature, is November 12. Colorado’s 3rd District remains uncalled, its leader disputed between two files the overnight edition printed; no newer count on the shelf this morning settles it.
Kansas’s governorship also stands where it stood. The Associated Press Kansas file shows the Democrat, Cindy Holscher, at 549,974 votes and the Republican, Ty Masterson, at 542,929—a margin of 7,045, with all precincts reporting, the race still too early to call. Decision Desk HQ’s Kansas file, timed November 5 at 9:14 a.m. EST, carries the identical totals. The secretary of state, Scott Schwab, has ordered close-race audits in six races that finished within one percent, the governorship among them, each a hand count of ballots in 10 percent of precincts. Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by Friday will be added. Holscher has declared victory; Masterson has not conceded; the governor, Laura Kelly, has congratulated Holscher as governor-elect. The statements stand, and the count proceeds underneath them.
The Markets’ Second Reading
Wednesday’s verdict is settled because Wednesday’s markets are closed: the Dow up 1,569.40 points, 3.03 percent, at 53,356.12; the S&P 500 up 1.58 percent at 7,688.62; the Nasdaq Composite up 1.44 percent at 25,736.51; Brent settled at $94.62, down 8.67 percent. The reasons traders gave were the ones the midnight edition recorded: the election ended the uncertainty, the president accepted the result, and oil fell on the expectation—an expectation, not an agreement—that the war with Iran will end sooner.
Thursday opened divided, on the same split Asia had shown overnight: the broad market held, the chip and data-center trade fell. Before the bell, Reuters’ futures file had Dow contracts up 258 points, or 0.48 percent, S&P 500 contracts up 0.5 points, and Nasdaq 100 contracts down 181 points, or 0.63 percent, at 5:04 a.m. ET. Qualcomm fell 10.1 percent in premarket trading after its fourth-quarter smartphone chip sales came in below estimates; Nvidia, Marvell, and Intel were down; the data-center operators and server makers were down; Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet were up about 0.5 percent each. A UBS note carried in the same file puts the question in figures: data-center pauses will slow the buildout into 2028, with about 30 percent of expected 2028 additions now at risk. At the opening bell the split held: Reuters’ opening report had the Dow up 330.63 points, or 0.62 percent, at 53,686.75, the S&P 500 down 12.86 points, or 0.17 percent, at 7,675.76, and the Nasdaq Composite down 198.95 points, or 0.77 percent, at 25,537.57. The live file’s 10:42 a.m. entry records the same pressure in two names: CoreWeave down 3 percent and Nebius down 6 percent on the day at that hour.
About an hour into the session the division became a general fall, and the desk prints the two states of the morning side by side because they do not reconcile into one. The early-session wrap, in quotes timed 15:41 GMT—10:41 a.m. ET—has all five of its tracked indexes lower: the Dow at 52,465.72, down 1.67 percent; the S&P 500 at 7,481.27, down 2.70 percent; the Nasdaq Composite at 24,658.53, down 4.19 percent; the Nasdaq 100 down 4.79 percent; and the Russell 2000 down 2.00 percent. Inside the S&P 500, information technology fell furthest, down 5.31 percent, while consumer staples led with a gain of 1.29 percent—a rotation out of technology and into defensive shares, which the wrap, citing CNBC, attributes to concern that a Democratic Congress will bring more regulation of the artificial intelligence buildout. The figures are snapshots, not closes, and the wrap says so itself. Between the opening bell and 10:41 the Dow moved from up 0.62 percent to down 1.67 percent on the figures on the shelf; what the close will show belongs to the evening edition. Ahead of the market sit three Federal Reserve officials scheduled to speak during the day, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin among them, and the October employment report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Oil took back part of Wednesday’s fall, on the same reasoning in reverse. Reuters’ London file had Brent crude futures up about 2.5 percent at $96.8 a barrel, having fallen below $100 for the first time in two months in the overnight drop, and last up 2.5 percent at $97 in its later state; an earlier Reuters state of the same session had Brent up 78 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $95.40 as of 0900 GMT, with West Texas Intermediate up 11 cents at $88.23. The explanation the analysts quoted give is uncertainty, stated plainly by a UBS analyst in the file: the situation in the Middle East is still unresolved, and that is why there is some modest recovery in prices. The ten-year Treasury yield was unchanged on the day at 4.89 percent in the London file, the dollar had recovered part of its fall, and gold traded above $4,100 an ounce, up 5 percent in two days. Europe’s STOXX 600 rose another 0.4 percent, with bank shares up and semiconductor-exposed shares down.
London supplied the morning’s one completed official act in the markets’ column. Reuters’ report of the Bank of England’s decision records that the Monetary Policy Committee voted 8–1 to raise Bank Rate to 4 percent from 3.75 percent, and that the bank warned at least one more increase was likely if the conflict between the United States and Iran continues. The dissent ran toward a larger rise, not a hold: Catherine Mann voted for a half-point increase to 4.25 percent, saying she was concerned about non-linear inflation risks after consumer price inflation rose to 3.5 percent in September. The bank expects inflation to reach about 5 percent in the middle of next year and does not see it returning to the 2 percent target until the third quarter of 2028. Governor Andrew Bailey’s sentence is printed as he said it: “Today’s increase shouldn’t be seen as the first in an inevitable long sequence of hikes. But unless the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, neither does it seem likely to be the last increase.” The committee’s next decision is due December 17. The American election is two days old; its war is in a British central bank’s rate decision, in writing, at noon.
The Official Statements
The president’s position at noon is the one he stated at the ballroom, and a second account adds the name he gave it. Reuters’ Washington file of November 5 records the appearance: the president called reporters in to show the under-construction White House ballroom, said of the work, “For me, it’s relaxing,” and turned to the election briefly—“I’ll get along probably with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive, but I have the power of the veto.” An account of his remarks to the New York Post carries the fuller version: “I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto. I’m not going to let them ruin it. And then at some point, we’ll probably make deals.” In the same account he said the Democrats did a good job and fought hard. The live file states the constitutional arithmetic beside the pledge: a veto can be overridden by two-thirds of both chambers, a threshold no count on the shelf gives either party. The president has said he will accept the results and work with the Democrats; he has also said what he will do with their bills. Both statements stand.
The incoming majority’s statements at noon describe a program and a first target. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become the first Black Speaker of the House, told reporters the incoming majority would be focused on affordability and accountability: “We don’t work for Donald Trump. We work for the American people. And the days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.” An account of the party’s legislative planning records what the majority says it will move first when the new Congress convenes in January: repeal of the president’s tariff measures, legislation strengthening congressional authority over tariff decisions, and a requirement of congressional approval to continue the war with Iran. Jeffries, in a television interview carried in the same account, put the order of business as he sees it: “The American people do not want us to seek revenge. They want us to deliver results on their behalf because the cost of living is too high.” On the trade file specifically, the account of the trade agenda records Representative Richard Neal, expected to return to the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee: “We know they are tired of paying for Trump’s needless war with Iran and price-hiking tariffs every time they visit the checkout counter or the gas pump.” The same account states the limit: the majority can pass the bills and hold the hearings, and the veto stands at the end of both.
The Republican accounting continued in the morning, in the party’s own words, and two of its senators named the same two causes. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, in a social media post carried in the live file’s 10:23 a.m. entry, called the result a “blue tsunami” and used a plainer phrase beside it, and wrote: “Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high. Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long.” Cruz noted that Texans had not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994 and swept the posts on Tuesday. Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring, stated the party’s choice in one sentence: “If we don’t change, we’ll take more beatings.” The vice president’s post of the night before stands unretracted at noon—“The reason we lost is the war”—with the president’s answer beside it, that the war drove gasoline up a little bit in the short term and that he would do it again because Iran cannot be allowed a nuclear weapon. Speaker Mike Johnson’s announcement that he will not seek the leadership of the Republican minority in January also stands. On the other side of the Capitol’s new arithmetic, Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan spent part of the morning stating, on two programs carried in the live file, that he will work with Republicans who said the harshest things about him during the campaign, naming Senator Cruz and a condition: good faith. His sentence on the vice president’s part in January is the morning’s lightest entry and is printed as he said it: constitutionally, the vice president is obligated to swear him in.
The Strait at Noon
No agreement was announced in the morning, and the state of the talks at noon is the state the overnight edition left, with one clarification added. The account of the mediation filed below records that Qatar has intensified its efforts, that both governments are reviewing the proposals the mediators have submitted, and that a senior Iranian official’s statement stands: the two sides remain a considerable distance from a deal, and Tehran’s conditions—removal of oil sanctions, an end to the American naval blockade, and the release of frozen assets—must be met before the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The clarification concerns the clock: an official familiar with the discussions said responses from the two capitals were expected within 36 hours, and the senior Iranian official later stated there was no fixed deadline for exchanging messages through the mediators or reviewing the proposals. Iran’s stated basis remains its seven-step plan of September, which Tehran says can now be implemented within two days of acceptance, the strait reopening inside that window. From Washington there is no agreement and no new word on the draft. Oil rose in the morning on the absence of an agreement; that is a fact about the market’s reading, recorded in the markets’ section above, and it is the only movement the strait produced by noon.
The Cocked Hat
Three bearings never give a point; they give a small triangle, and this paper prints the triangle. First, the House: 233 called seats in Ballotpedia’s Thursday accounting with 64 races open, 235 won and 26 led in the Associated Press tracker carried overnight, 242 called in NBC’s Wednesday-evening count, and 251 called in Decision Desk HQ’s own totals with 31 open—four call desks, four hours, one chamber, and a final Democratic total estimated between 249 and 268 by the offices that estimate such things. Second, Mississippi: the same race at 1,138 votes in the wire figures, 1,720 in a tally updated at 10:14 this morning, and 1,852 and 1,818 in two states of the Decision Desk count—the leader identical in every bearing, the margin a range, and the ballots that will settle it dated November 10 and November 13. Third, the market: the Dow up 0.62 percent at the opening bell in the wire’s report and down 1.67 percent at 10:41 in the early-session wrap, the Nasdaq down 0.77 percent at the open and down 4.19 percent an hour later—a disagreement that may be nothing but the record of a market turning inside a single morning, printed because a reader checking either file against this page will find the other number. Against the triangle, the load-bearing facts of the midday are single-valued: no race was called in the morning; Alaska stands at 637 votes and November 18; Colorado’s 4th stands at 2,513; Kansas stands at 7,045 with its audit ordered; Brent is back above $95 after settling at $94.62; the Bank of England raised its rate to 4 percent by 8–1 with the dissent asking for more; and the president’s word for his next two years, in his own coinage, is Mr. Veto. The count belongs to the clerks until Friday’s mail arrives in Mississippi and Kansas. The session belongs to the close. The log proceeds to the evening.