Don Davis for NC

And in North Carolina, what I watch for is does Roy Cooper win by so much that we see huge upsets in house races? The speaker, Mike Johnson, went to Greg Murphy's district today.

That is a district that they made more Democratic so that they could gerrymander Don Davis's first congressional district.

And Murphy, it's like a Trump plus 13 or 14 district.

The fact that the speaker is there on Election Day tells you something about how nervous Republicans are.

They might net one seat.

And then North Carolina, they tried to target Democrat Don Davis.

Not only might he win, but they might lose a seat in Western North Carolina that we've moved into Lean Dem.

And then Ohio, where Republicans were targeting the longest serving woman in the House, Marcy Kaptur, looks like she's going to hang on.

502 it is election day 2026 polls open in just under 90 minutes voters heading to the polls to help decide the direction of the country and our local communities President Trump and Republicans are fighting to keep control of Congress while Democrats are hoping to flip seats that includes here in North Carolina where Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Watley are facing off for a critical U.S. Senate seat.

Over in the House, the race between Democratic Congressman Don Davis and Republican Lori Buckout is now the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history.

Bianca Holman tracking the latest developments on this Election Day morning.

She's live at the polling site at Chavis Park in Southeast Raleigh.

So that race between Davis and Buckhout is basically a rematch from back in 2024.

So you may remember that Davis actually represents the first district in the located in the corner of the state.

Democratic US representative Don Davis is actually looking to hold on to that seat.

He's facing Lori Buckhout.

And that's why even though both our legislative and congressional maps were basically never supposed to have just about any competitive races, we now all of a sudden have a huge number of competitive races because all of those places that are supposed to vote for Republicans by 13 points are now somewhere in that D plus 2 to R plus 2 range one way or the other.

So I think that Don Davis is going to keep his seat even after they did the bonus mid-decade re-gerrymander to get rid of him.

And because of what they had to do to try to get rid of Don Davis, I do think the third district is now more competitive than it's supposed to be.

I think the 13th district in the triangle, sort of outer Raleigh suburbs, is more competitive than it's supposed to be.

I think the ninth district where Richard Hudson is a prominent Republican leader in Washington and is running for reelection, I think that's a lot closer than it's supposed to be.

If you had to take a guess at what we're going to wake up to on Wednesday morning, would it be nine to five?

My guess is nine to five.

I feel pretty good about Don Davis and Jamie Ager.

But through a combination of... differences in candidate quality, let's just say, and also just this national environment where Democrats are really fired up, Republicans are seeming like they might stay at home.

We could even see, you know, Democrats picking up five maybe even six seats even though normally we would expect them to only win three so you know maybe they'll win three maybe they'll win four if it gets to the point where they're winning like five or six then that is just kind of a blowout kind of night um obviously don davis um in northeastern north carolina the democrat they redrew his district to make it go republican but he has been neck and neck with laurie buck out his republican And then in Western North Carolina, in the 11th district, you have Jamie Ager, the Democrat, which a lot of national groups have kind of chalked that up for a Democratic win already over Jennifer Bauckham, who's the Republican.

This is a district that voted for Trump by like 12 or 14 points in 2024.

It is a heavily red district.

So let's look at a worst case scenario here for Republicans.

How much does the congressional map expand then?

Well, a worst case scenario would be, like I said, they redistricted Don Davis's seat to try to kick him out of Congress and flip that.

So worst case scenario would be really not only Don Davis hanging on, but then the other eastern North Carolina congressman whose district they made more Democratic to try to get rid of Davis, who's Greg Murphy, also losing him.

Let's don't go all Republican.

Don Davis.

This is a moderate district.

I think he's pretty moderate as a Democrat.

North Carolina District 1.

This is a redrawn district in North Carolina where Congressman Don Davis, a Democrat, is trying to hold on for dear life.

More than 20 million in ads have been made here, one of the most expensive House races in the country.

If you're a North Carolina, you've probably seen a bunch of ads like every 30 seconds.

And by the way, I'm originally from North Carolina.

Don Davis is running in the district I used to live in, Rocky Mountain area.

They've redrawn those lines three times.

Three cycles in a row, they've redrawn the lines on him to try and cut him out.

It's really interesting.

The way the state legislature has set this up should be giving Congress 11 Republicans and three Democrats from North Carolina we have 14 congressional seats and I don't think that's what we're gonna see tomorrow so I what what we're seeing and what I'm watching closely is district one very much at play that is representative Don Davis's district in the far northeastern side of the state Don Davis has given them a good run for their money.

This is the district that has been redistricted for a Republican to win.

He's up against Lori Buck out.