Michigan election: Polls close, results start coming in

It's eight o'clock and polls across Metro Detroit are officially closed on this election night. Good evening. I'm Jessica Dupnak. Over the next several hours, we'll get a good idea of who will represent us in Congress, our next governor and several local races. Some results may take a while. Polls are still open in the Western U.P. until nine tonight. Now we do have team coverage tonight, both Democrats and Republicans holding watch parties in downtown Detroit as those results come in. Let's begin with the Democrats at Hudson's Detroit. That's That's where we find Fox 2's Dave Spencer. And Dave, it's getting loud behind you. What's going on? Everybody confident in this blue wave, or what's up? What's up? It certainly seems that way. They just are making some announcements, letting people know that most of those polls are closed, and they're going to start counting those ballots momentarily. As people start to mingle around here, they're starting to outnumber more than the press, because that wasn't the case for most of the evening tonight, as you can kind of take a look around the room. Seeing all these people here, most of them exchanging friendly congratulations and hugs and a drink or two as the work here is done. There's nothing more they can do to solicit any more votes. So they come here to watch Democrats from the top down. We're talking about the U.S. Senate race, the governor's race, and all those local House and Senate races as well will be all gathered here. Hopefully the announcements will come. Periodically throughout the evening, and we'll be able to bring you them as they kind of get the results in real time along with us, and we kind of watch. Obviously, all eyes are on that U.S. Senate race. In fact, today even, we're starting to get some more mailers coming in. Talk about waiting until the last minute. This was just at my house alone. I counted four of these in my mail, and not to count all the text messages that we've all been receiving. Mostly having to do with that hotly contested race between Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers and of course all the drama that's come with it within the last few days. But it really comes down for voters how they're going to decide on those kitchen table issues that being the economy, affordability, data centers, top of mind for a lot of Michigan voters, things of that nature. So again, campaigning, it's done at this point. All we can do is kind of sit back and wait and I'm doing it. Here with the Democrats as they kind of fill into this room. It's a beautiful space here in the Hudson building. The Woodward Hall is what this is called. And again, they're starting to make some more announcements talking about who's going to be here and what we're going to be expecting as the evening goes on. So make sure you keep it tuned here as you'll be checking in with me throughout the evening as we hope to hear people take that podium as soon as those polls close and they start to get some numbers and things come into picture a little bit more clearly. We're now reporting live in Detroit, Dave Spencer. I'll send it back to you, Jess. Oh, and you can see that there's, you know, tons of press next to you. Give us a scope of who's there. I mean, we're talking national, international media with eyes on Michigan. Thank you very much again. All the above, streamers, international media, regular media like you and us and our colleagues here, national media as well. I'm talking about at least 50 to 75 of these cameras on this podium. I've covered a number of elections, close to 20 of them, I'd say, and I've never seen a turnout like this. So all eyes are certainly on Michigan, certainly on that Senate race, for good reason, because a lot hinges on that, and we'll be there alongside of them. Reporting with them. And Dave, you talk to people at the grocery store, running errands. It seems that there's a little bit of election fatigue, at least the people that I've talked to. They're sick of the mailers and the text messages. It does look like it, though, that people are energized where you're at tonight. Yeah, I think that's it, right? So that part is over. They don't have to worry about conveying the message. And now it's just kind of, did it work? And they can kind of sit back and play Monday morning quarterback tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have some results this evening. And that's kind of what everybody's eager to see. And, yes, the confidence level here within the Democratic Party is pretty high. That's what we've seen. That's what some of the bigger polls have been showing, kind of the Democrats polling at a higher number. Now, if those polls prove to be wrong... It's going to come into question all of those polls and how much we can rely on them going forward. So all of that will play out here, and we'll be watching it in real time. It should be a very interesting night, to say the least. Yeah, we'll be watching it every step of the way. Thank you, Dave.