This lesson provides several activities for students to help them understand coverage of election night as they watch on November 3rd, 2026. Teachers can choose to have students view election night coverage while taking notes, mapping votes as they come in, playing a vocabulary BINGO game, evaluating election night speeches, or comparing news networks’ coverage of election night. Students can view coverage of the 2026 elections on C-SPAN or other news networks. These activities provide students a foundation to discuss the election the next day in class.

Beginning at 4 p.m. ET on Election Night, C-SPAN will deliver at least 20 continuous hours of live, commercial-free coverage, following the races that will determine control of Congress and governorships across the country. While other networks turn to partisan panels, predictions, and political debate, C-SPAN's original programming will focus on the election itself: comprehensive election results, victory and concession speeches, LIVE coverage from more than 30 locations across the country, and firsthand accounts from the battleground states where the balance of power will be decided. No commercials. No partisan pundits during the flagship C-SPAN production. Just democracy, unfiltered.