As evening falls on Tuesday and polls begin to close, Americans nervously waiting for election results should ignore the early exit polls and anecdotal evidence of long lines or lack thereof.

Instead, interested parties should focus on a handful of races in a handful of states where polls close early and whose results will tell us how things are trending nationwide.

The first polls close at 6 PM ET in most of Indiana and Kentucky. And two House contests here will hint at just how much trouble the GOP may be in that night.

In Kentucky, the Sixth District is the race to watch. The seat is open thanks to GOP Rep. Andy Barr’s run for Senate. Although President Donald Trump carried the district by 15 percentage points in 2024, recent polls show Democratic nominee Zach Dembo ahead of Republican nominee Ralph Alvarado. That said, all of the race’s public data has come from Democratic campaigns or groups’ internal polling, so take the numbers with a grain of salt.

However, if Republicans had data showing something different, they would almost certainly release it to try to change the narrative. The fact that they haven’t is a bad sign for the GOP. In fact, Alvarado was one of the first Republican candidates to scrub mentions of Trump from his website—actions showing that the GOP is sweating this seat.

If the Republicans lose a seat like this—which includes both blue-trending suburbs and rural, Republican areas—then we can reasonably expect the party will be struggling in other seats across the country that Trump carried by double digits.

Then, in neighboring Indiana, zoom in on the Hoosier State’s Fifth District. This seat is held by GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz, who has made a name for herself for waffling on standing up to Trump and her party.

Spartz’s seat, which Trump won by nearly 17 points in 2024, was not on any of the race-rating organizations’ radars until this fall. However, by mid-October, both The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections moved the race onto the board. Cook now rates the race a “Lean Republican” contest, while Inside Elections views it as a “Likely Republican” seat.

Republicans are clearly scared about losing this race, though. They injected hundreds of thousands into the contest in the final weeks of the cycle. If Democrats are overperforming here, or even winning, then it’s going to be a very, very bad night for the GOP.

On Tuesday, the next hour will bring even more clues. Polls in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, and most of Florida close at 7 PM ET.

Florida counts votes quickly, so we will know pretty soon how the Sunshine State is trending. Republicans have been growing anxious about early-vote data, which suggests the GOP base is not voting in as high of numbers as past elections. If things are trending badly for Republicans in this red state, then the rest of the country could be a bloodbath.

Ultimately, it will be a while until media outlets make the official call about which party controls the House or Senate. For the House, they’ll have to wait for poll closures in the west, which don’t begin until 10 PM ET. And for the Senate, it’s possible that the outcome will hinge on Alaska, where most polls don’t close until midnight ET, and where ranked-choice voting can drag out the process for days.

However, it will be pretty clear early on in the night how the midterms are panning out. For those with early bedtimes, you will probably know a lot directionally about where things are headed by the time you head off to sleep.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos