NBC News and other news organizations conducted exit polls across 45 key states for Election 2026, giving campaigns and voters a broad read on voter thinking instead of a vote total. The surveys include in-person interviews on Election Day, but they are not election results.
NBC News and 45 states
The scale is the point. Forty-five key states were included, which makes the poll wide enough to capture patterns across the country while still focusing on the places that matter most to national election coverage.
The polling also reaches beyond Election Day itself. In-person interviews are paired with mail, phone and online methods so early voters and mail-in voters are not left out of the picture. That mix gives the poll a broader snapshot of the electorate than a single-day survey could provide.
Election Day interviews
On Election Day, interviewers gather responses in person. Those answers are then combined with the other collection methods to build a fuller picture of who voted and why they made that choice.
That is the complication built into exit polls: they sit inside election coverage, but they are not vote results. They are meant to help the public understand the makeup and motivations of the electorate, not to count the vote.
What readers get next
For readers following Election 2026, the useful takeaway is scope. NBC News and the other news organizations are not offering a scoreboard here; they are offering a structured look at voter motives across 45 key states. Which other news organizations joined NBC News in conducting the exit polling remains the unanswered piece.
