First on LateNighter: Viewers who have grown accustomed to following midterm election returns alongside the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers will have to turn elsewhere this year.
None of the traditional nightly late-night shows have live episodes planned for Tuesday’s midterm elections, ending a streak that dates back to 2002, when Jon Stewart took The Daily Show live to cover that year’s returns.
The closest viewers will get this year is on ABC, which will air a new episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in its usual 11:35 p.m. time slot. Though Kimmel’s program will not air live, LateNighter understands the show is planning to tape later than usual Tuesday—late enough for Kimmel to react to some of the early results coming in from the East Coast.
The Daily Show will also air a new episode Tuesday night, but current plans call for it to be taped before polls close in New York.
NBC and CBS, meanwhile, won’t air their usual late-night comedy lineups at all. Both networks are planning to preempt them with live news coverage—a modern first for a midterm election.
ABC could still end up doing the same, at least temporarily. Network sources note that the news division may cut into Kimmel’s show with breaking news—like, say, if results come in during the show that determine control of the House or Senate.
Live midterm coverage was once a fixture of late-night television, beginning with Stewart’s Daily Show midway through George W. Bush’s first term.
The Colbert Report joined The Daily Show for the next three midterm elections, with Stewart and Stephen Colbert both broadcasting live in 2006, 2010, and 2014.
Then, in 2018, live midterm-night comedy reached its high-water mark.
On Nov. 6, 2018—the first midterm election of Donald Trump’s presidency—four late-night shows broadcast live as results came in: Trevor Noah’s Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
NBC News preempted Fallon that night, but the network handed the schedule back to Meyers at 12:35 a.m. so he could react to the results in real time.
By 2022, the number of late-night shows going live for the midterms had dropped from four to two, but the streak remained intact as both Colbert and Kimmel broadcast live on election night.
As for why 2026 would be the year that breaks a 20-year tradition, it’s likely a confluence of factors.
The unusually high stakes of this year’s midterms almost certainly play a role. With politicians and pundits casting the election in more consequential terms than ever, cutting away from live returns for late-night comedy may simply feel more incongruous than it has in the past.
Late night itself has changed, too. Tighter budgets make the added expense of going live harder to justify, while off-the-cuff political comedy carries more risk in an era when a stray line can instantly become a partisan flashpoint—all without any guarantee of a meaningful ratings bump.
And then there’s Stephen Colbert. He played a part in each of the previous six midterm election nights—first on The Daily Show, then The Colbert Report, and finally The Late Show. This year, for the first time in more than two decades, he no longer has a late-night show.
Whatever the reason, the result is the same: for the first midterm Election Night in 24 years, the returns will be live. The late-night jokes won’t be.
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