This episode of The Headlines previews Election Day in the United States, where voters are deciding on President Trump's second term and Republicans brace for midterm losses. Christine Jeong explains why early returns can show misleading leads, known as mirages, and why final results may take days to settle.
The show also covers Trump's offer of a $1 million reward for reports of voter fraud, which some local officials fear could fuel vigilantism. Other stories include U.S. strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island, the addiction risks of kratom, and the rising number of men taking Pilates classes.
In this episode Tracy Mumford, Christine Jeong
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From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Tuesday, November 3. Here's what we're covering.
I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, to be honest with you. I'm just looking at, you know, what's in the best interest of my family.
It is Election Day in the U.S.
Health care is a big, big issue. And Trump, like, what are you going to do about it?
Biggest struggle that we have right now is just the high cost of everything. It's pretty bleak.
And Americans across the country are headed to the polls for the chance to deliver a verdict on President Trump's second term, which has been marked by tariffs, an unpopular war with Iran, and an aggressive immigration crackdown. Republicans are largely bracing for losses, which is not unusual. More often than not, for at least the last 100 or so years, the party that controls the White House loses seats in the midterms. This year, Republicans widely expect to lose control of the House, and they've grown increasingly worried about the Senate too, though that's a more complicated picture.
While polling has shown Democrats with a lead in several key Senate races, their path to getting a majority runs through a number of states that are longtime Republican strongholds, like Texas and Kansas. With so much up for grabs today, a lot of Americans will be on the edge of their seat, and it will be key to be patient.
One really important thing to keep in mind as the results start coming in is that the first election results that you see may not be representative of the final vote tallies. A candidate could be way ahead in the initial vote reports, but that lead could shrink or even reverse as the night goes on and more votes are counted. This phenomenon is known as a mirage.
Christine Jeong covers election data for The Times. She says mirages can occur for a number of reasons.
The most common reason could be that the county or state processes different types of ballots at different times. For example, some states pre-process mail and absentee and early ballots, and those types of early votes tend to lean Democratic. So you'd see a blue mirage in this case. Another example of when this might happen is when certain kinds of areas in a state report first. So in some states, the smaller, more rural counties are the first ones to report, and that creates somewhat of a red mirage because rural counties in most of the country lean Republican.
This might cause confusion or invite suspicion about the vote count, but it's important to keep in mind that mirages like this are quite common and somewhat predictable depending on the state or jurisdiction.
The other thing to keep in mind heading into Election Night is that it's possible there will not be clear results for a while. In 2022 and 2024, it took eight days to call which party would control the House. The Times will have live updates as we go. Meanwhile.
I'm also going to be issuing a million-dollar bonus or reward or whatever you want to call it for anybody that reports voter fraud.
Throughout his midterm campaigning, President Trump continued to make unsubstantiated claims about widespread voting fraud, and he upped the stakes of his messaging recently by announcing a reward: $1 million for information that leads to an election fraud conviction. Now some local authorities say they're concerned the president's offer could fuel unrest or even vigilantism, with Americans eyeing each other with suspicion at the polls today. The sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, told The Times, quote, "Our elections are handled at the local level, but yet we have fire and brimstone, if you will, coming down from the federal level."
And the head of the police department in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said he was concerned the reward could further heighten tensions at polling sites. The White House declined to answer questions about how the reward would be funded or how Americans should report fraud. Yesterday in Iran, the U.S. launched new strikes on Qeshm Island in what American officials described as a small-scale defensive move.
The island is right along the narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz, and the strike is the latest in a string of similar attacks the U.S. has conducted in Iran over the past few weeks, though neither country has publicly acknowledged them. According to one U.S. official, the strikes are intended to stop Iranian attacks on commercial ships, which had been ramping up. Last month, Iran fired on more ships in the strait than at any point in the war so far. Another U.S. official said yesterday's strike came after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps shot down an American drone and shot at, but missed, two American fighter jets flying nearby.
At this point, the Strait of Hormuz has been almost entirely closed since the fighting began in February. That has upended the global energy markets, though American oil companies recently reported more than $130 billion in profits during the war, almost three times as much as they made during the same stretch last year. Over the past decade, a certain kind of product has been popping up for sale in gas stations, in smoke shops, and online.
This one is the sparkling lemonade. I've already drank half of it. It's actually pretty good.
Sometimes it comes in colorful cans, small tonic bottles, or powders you dissolve in water yourself.
It's just a really natural substance that has a lot of different alkaloids. It has a really high.
The active ingredient: kratom, a substance derived from a tropical tree whose advocates say it can do things like boost your energy, act as a painkiller, all kinds of things.
So these help you with your anxiety?
Yeah, they definitely calm me down a lot.
Companies have been hawking samples at gyms and on social media, but what the marketing often fails to acknowledge is the potential for kratom to lead to addiction, liver injury, seizures, and in some cases, fatal overdoses. The Times spoke with people who say they tried kratom for their own health reasons, only to become seriously addicted. One 30-year-old woman said at first kratom sounded like a life hack. She was looking for an alternative to her anxiety medication and started taking kratom capsules.
Soon she started taking more and more until she was up to 100 capsules a day. Another woman told The Times she maxed out two credit cards to support her addiction, but she felt too ashamed to tell anyone. She said, quote, "Who's going to believe me if I'm addicted to a wellness tonic?" Experts say people who previously struggled with alcohol or other drugs may be especially vulnerable to kratom addiction, and the marketing, often health and wellness-focused, gives buyers a false sense of safety.
Some states have banned the substance or restricted sales to minors, and federal health officials have warned about its risks. But despite those warnings, the drug remains legal and widely available in many parts of the country. And finally, somehow men's bodies became more of a theme this election season than I think most people saw coming.
But on that note, here's an apropos story: more men are doing Pilates, the full-body workout that focuses on core strength and slow, controlled movements, has long been seen as more of a women's workout. But big names in men's sports have turned to it: Tom Brady, LeBron James. And it's not just them. According to the Health and Fitness Association and Industry Group, the number of men taking Pilates classes in the U.S. has doubled in the last five years, from 2 million to 4 million.
Despite being closely associated with matching two-pieces, Pilates was never intended as a gendered exercise. Its founder, Joseph Pilates, was a German circus performer and boxer who, when he was being held in the U.K. during World War I, started teaching his methods to his fellow inmates. From there, he moved to New York, where a lot of dancers, many of them women, took his classes at his studio, and it spread and spread. The shift now, with more men trying out Pilates, either on a mat or on a reformer machine, is in line with a shift in exercise trends more broadly, according to the president of the Health and Fitness Association.
She said overall there's now a less gendered approach at the gym, saying, quote, "You see women in the weight room now, and you see men in Pilates." Those are The Headlines. Today on The Daily, The Times' chief political analyst Nate Cohen on how Election Night and the days after could play out. And if you are not a Times subscriber yet, The Times just made all of our midterms coverage free through the election.
You can download The Times app now to access all of it, so get started. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
Plus, “who’s going to believe me if I’m addicted to a wellness tonic?” Here’s what we’re covering:Voters Prepare to Deliver a Verdict on Trump’s Second Term, by Reid J. EpsteinTrump’s Election Fraud Reward Raises Fears of Vigilantism, Local Officials Say, by Zolan Kanno-YoungsU.S. Military Strikes Iran’s Qeshm Island in What U.S. Officials Call a Defensive Measure, by Helene Cooper, Tyler Pager and Jonathan SwanThey Tried Kratom for Its Purported Health Benefits, Then They Became Addicted, by Olivia TauberThe Pilates Bros Have Arrived, by Kristy Alpert
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