FTC Election Night 2026 Live Blog

9:45 PM

Some pics of the Election team prepping for their next broadcast.

9:30 PM

New York Race Update:

9:10 PM

Take a look how the FTC Election Night Results team works:

8:30 PM

With New York Polls less than half an hour from closing, the question is what races people are watching, and the Five Towns Mass Comm team has some answers.

Greg Patane, part of the crew keeping everyone on the Election Night team up to date on election results, gave a technical answer.  “We’re going to be paying attention to the Suffolk County races after all the results are in,” Patane notes, “but for the moment, I am paying attention to the Senate race and the House in real time. I’m just refreshing, going back-and-forth from the Associated Press and Nassau and Suffolk Board of Election sites, and then I’m plugging it into our document (for the producers to review).”

Chris Foley, another member of the Election results team, gave a more personal answer. “Yes, so I’m personally looking at the Democrat Chris Gallant versus the Republican Nick LaLota race for the 1st District of New York,” Foley said. “My vote was for a candidate who was looking at the actual housing crisis on Long Island, because it’s getting more and more expensive to live here, so I’m hoping for a candidate to be actually looking at that and be able to help all of Long Island be able to live affordably.”

U.S. Senate Race Updates:

• The North Carolina Senate race has been called with Democrat Roy Cooper winning the election, beating out Republican candidate Michael Whatley.  Cooper will be taking over the seat from Republican Thom Tillis.
• In Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff defeats Republican Mike Collins to defend his seat.
• And in New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas wins over Republican John E. Sununu to take over the seat from Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

There are still many more updates and races going on all over the country, and we will be bringing you updates on them both on our live stream and the live blog very soon.

8:10 PM

Our first broadcast of the night is live, and even down to the last minute, the Five Towns College Mass Comm students are still doing everything they can to prepare for Election Night coverage.

Josh Clopper is one of the students working on lots of things behind the scenes; while he won’t be on camera, his work will be very visible. “I did some of the graphics for tonight’s Midterm Elections, and I am also going to be running the teleprompter for the entirety of the show.” Clopper says, “It is really fun. I also kinda expected to be there (runing prompter) because a lot of the time, I’m the one that does a lot of the scripts and has added attention to detail that a lot of people don’t have, so I hope I do good.”

The desire to do good also applies to the anchors, as Adrian Kartalozi prepares to do his best on air. “In preparation for tonight, I’ve been getting the names of all the candidates that are all in the second and third congressional districts, including a bunch of districts in New York.” Kartalozi notes.  “I have phonetics down for some of the names so far, especially large last names that could be pretty difficult. I’m trying to memorize the map as much as I can to look more comfortable doing it.”

There are many more jobs done behind the scenes on election night, and my brother, Tristan McCready, has video coverage of them that you can check out below.

7:45 PM

7:30pm

Five Town College’s Election Night coverage is underway! The Mass Communication division is working in a different environment for Midterm Election coverage this year, moving from the school’s Studio 400 to the Gene Free Studios that house the FTC Sound Stream. Still, the number of behind-the-scenes work and effort remains the same. Loads of preparation go into making the show run smoothly for the night, from scripting and audio balancing to camera operation and finding the right videos to show on the live stream broadcast, and many more factors to consider when preparing the election night show to go on air.

Students like Logan Ashton have been helping prepare the scripts for the anchors, keeping up to date with all the latest election coverage. “I’ve been checking the AP news website for the most reliable results,” Ashton said, “And I’ve also been checking up on campaign websites and other news organizations and maps.”

Preparation isn’t just for those off camera; the anchors also do their own research to stay informed on the latest in the electoral race. “Definitely a lot of prep: doing a lot of research on governor races and local races all across Long Island,” Jack Barton, one of the three anchors for Five Towns’ Election broadcast tonight, notes. “It’s been an interesting challenge as an anchor for prep but definitely something that I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes to light. Especially working with everybody in the control room here at Five Towns and just working as a team.”

Alongside that, a lot of people are working on things you won’t see on the main livestream for election night. One of those people is me, Tyler McCready, who will do live blog updates on election results, behind-the-scenes looks at how our broadcast works, and questions of the hour on tonight’s Midterm Election. Another person is my brother, Tristan McCready, who’ll be doing Five Towns’ social media coverage of Election Night, keeping everyone updated and spreading our broadcast to a wider audience. Our whole team is here tonight to keep you updated on everything you need to know.

First broadcast goes LIVE at 8PM.