Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum likes to start her day with a run. As the minutes trickle toward the Election Day polls closing, we’re in for a sprint.
MacCallum, who anchors the network’s afternoon telecast “The Story,” is continuing her long-running duties as one of Fox News’ election anchors on Tuesday alongside Bret Baier as New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California residents turn out in historic numbers for an off-cycle election. While CNN and MSNBC are launching large-scale election coverage, starting at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively, MacCallum and Baier will host an election special from 10-11 p.m. on Tuesday night, preempting Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show before “Fox News @ Night” anchor Trace Gallagher carries the election coverage from 11 p.m.-1 a.m.
The interest in this year’s off-year cycle has been unusually high as President Donald Trump’s policies have dominated the news. Early voting has surged in New Jersey and Virginia, where Democrats are vying to lead both states, and in California for a Democrat-backed voting measure to redraw its congressional maps.
Meanwhile, New York City saw more people vote early in-person this election cycle than in any other nonpresidential election as Zohran Mamdani seeks to fend off Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Silwa to become the first Democratic socialist mayor in the city’s history.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” MacCallum told TheWrap Tuesday morning.
TheWrap caught up with MacCallum as she prepared for her marathon day about the network’s plans, how the elections could impact 2026, whether she’d be interested in joining Bari Weiss’ CBS News and whether she’ll interview Mamdani again whether he wins or loses. “I have kept in touch with his campaign,” she said.
TheWrap: Do you have an Election Day routine? A favorite coffee, a snack vice or something you do every November?
MacCallum: I always try to get up and go for a run, which I did this morning, which is just a good, energizing way to start the day. Today was a perfect day for it, because it’s just a beautiful November election morning, and I just try to eat right and eat healthy so that I don’t burn out on some sugary something early in the day. Just sort of try to stay steady and focused and be ready for the big night.
We’re in an off-year election cycle, and I know that some of the other networks are coming on a little bit earlier with their election coverage. Why is Fox News starting its news coverage around 10 p.m.?
I mean, we have obviously a very strong lineup all throughout the day. I’m doing “Outnumbered” today, I’m doing my show at 3, Bret’s doing his show at six. So, we’re doing what we always do. We’re a team-based organization, so we’ll be coming on and off, really, all day.
What races are you paying the most attention to tonight?
It’s kind of exciting for those of us who happen to live in New York and New Jersey. You know, often we’re focused on races across the country, but these are hometown races for us in New York, so I find that particularly interesting. [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Jack Ciattarelli has run three times in New Jersey. Each time he’s gotten closer. We’ve seen movement in New Jersey in a more red direction when you look across the counties in New Jersey. Whether or not that will lead to a win for him tonight is why we tune in to watch the game. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Obviously, the New York race has been fascinating to me. I interviewed Zohran Mamdani on my show and got to kind of see him up close a bit, and, obviously it’s very historic if we end up having a socialist mayor of New York City. That’s going to be a big story. So it looks very good for him. I think that’s not going out on a limb to say at this point, I think if anything other than that happened, it would be a huge upset. If you took one of the polls right now, and despite the fact that we’ve seen a huge early vote turnout — I always anticipated, actually, that we would just see a really big turnout for this election, because generally, the New York City Mayor’s race is won or lost in in June in the primary, you know. It’s not usually a race that we watch that closely in November. It’s pretty much a done deal. But that’s not the case at this time.
As you mentioned, you did Zohran’s first and only Fox News interview this election cycle. Have there been any conversations about bringing him onto the network again if he wins or loses?
Absolutely. I have kept in touch with his campaign, and I do anticipate that he’ll be joining us again, especially if he becomes the mayor of New York City. Yeah, we’ve talked about doing another interview.
When do you expect to see results tonight? There’s been talk, especially since 2020, about elections dragging on for days. Do you think we’ll have new mayors, new governors, new attorney generals in Virginia by the time we all go to bed on the East Coast?
Yeah, that’s the big question that we just don’t know the answer to. Look at the polling — we know the polls been very uneven in recent cycles. We have new Fox News polls that we’re going to be watching tonight. It’s the newest version of our voter analysis. So that’s a pretty good benchmark, and we’ll see how those are when they start coming in early in the evening, and we’ll get a look. I don’t know, you know? I mean, if the polls are right, then we certainly could see tight races in New Jersey and potentially in Virginia. It basically goes up to close. So you’ve got the close in Virginia at 7 p.m., the close in New Jersey at 8 p.m. and the close in Manhattan, in New York City, I should say at 9 p.m. I think we’re going to have some answers tonight. I’d be surprised if it drags on. The one place that I think you could maybe see it go longer is potentially in New Jersey.
We’re about to enter the longest government shutdown we’ve ever had this week. Are you seeing that having an impact on how people are voting?
I think it could very likely have an impact in Virginia. I mean, you have all of those counties around Washington D.C., where most of the federal workers actually live, and many of them work there as well. So I do think that there’s an opportunity for impact from the shutdown to be sure. There’s some discussion that maybe Democrats wanted to keep the government shut down until after the election as a motivator for some of those individuals who are impacted. That might be a somewhat cynical view, but it’s certainly out there. So I think, [in] Virginia, that could be a big part of the conversation when we’re analyzing Virginia tonight.
Another race that has been garnering some national attention is the ballot initiative in California to reshape its congressional maps. Are you focused on that race and what is the impact of that ballot initiative?
We are absolutely. That’s one of the four places that we’re covering tonight, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and that California Prop 50, which is a big issue we’ve heard a lot about with the redistricting effort in Texas. We know that Republicans are backing that strongly, and we see that Gavin Newsom, who’s considered a top contender for 2028, is really pushing this Prop 50, which would allow a temporary redistricting move to basically counteract what is underway in Texas. So obviously all of this makes the midterm heat turned up, and as soon as tonight is over, the focus will be very strongly on those midterms. So we’ll see if people in California support this ballot initiative tonight, and if it’s going to sort of shake up the way things look in California. You got a lot of big names in California on both sides of that issue, a lot of people very invested, on the GOP side, in trying to make sure it doesn’t happen. On the Democrat side, you’ve got Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi and all the big players on that side, [Arnold] Schwarzenegger and Kevin McCarthy on the other side.
Taking together all of these races, what is the impact for the 2026 midterms?
I think there’ll be a lot of prognosticating about what the tea leaves look like after tonight for 2026, but I always feel like, although the election cycles go really quickly, it is rare that when the midterm comes around, we’re really talking a lot about a special election or an off-cycle election that happened 18 months before. I think there’s always new issues that are in front of people. At that point, we’re going to see what’s going on with the economy in 2026 about the shutdown as well. You know, in all of the times that I’ve spent on the ground talking to reporters and talking to voters over all these years, it’s so rare that someone says, “Well, I’m voting based on that shutdown that we had 18 months ago.” It’s just not something that sticks with people. Obviously, it has a short-term impact of the shutdown, but I don’t think it has a lasting impact ultimately. You know, when you really look at this situation, I know I’m going down the shutdown road here for a second, but you have about 5,000 jobs that have been eliminated because of the shutdown. They have way more than that who are not currently working, but those people all get repaid. So unless you’re directly impacted by that — and that is a big deal, obviously, for those individuals, and certainly it’s a broader deal for the people who are affected by airline travel — but I think that when you get to 2026, the focus is going to be heavily on how the U.S. economy is doing. The president has made a lot of big bets when it comes to tariffs. I think the impact of tariffs has been much softer than people imagined that it would be. I think you’re going to be hearing more layoffs that are potentially AI-related. So you know, when I start looking ahead towards 2026, I think I’m going to be a lot more focused on those issues than on shutdown or an election in Virginia or even New Jersey.
Well, we’re seeing a lot of people talk about the stakes in electing Mamdani or passing Prop 50 or electing Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, or if a Republican takes the governor’s house in New Jersey, which hasn’t happened in a good number of years. So do you see the effects of these elections having some impact on just how voters are living their lives now leading up to 2026?
You can’t completely discount it, and you do look at movement, right? For example, in New Jersey, you’ve had a pretty steady movement in the red direction. That doesn’t mean that those counties voted for Republicans. But you see that movement, especially in some of the like Cumberland, some of the far south districts in New Jersey, to Passaic County, which is a heavily Hispanic County in New Jersey, has become more progressively red, which are trends that we saw in the last presidential election as well. So those trends and how close it is in certain areas will certainly be something that we’re going to analyze and look at that movement of where voters were going. Black voters, Hispanic voters, obviously made big moves in the 2024 presidential [election], and so I think that is very valuable in terms of looking at where the movement is right now.
You’ve seen some of the other networks join Fox in using AP data to help power its tabulation and help produce results. How has that partnership worked for Fox over the last few years, and do you think that’ll make an impact on just how quickly you guys get votes?
The operation gets better and better with each election cycle. We have a lot of year-round work that goes into this analysis and to our decision desk work. So I just feel like technology allows us to get better and better at making these calls. I have a lot of confidence in it. You know, our record over all of these years is excellent in making these calls so and, as I said, with added technology and sharpening these partnerships, I think it just gets better.
What does tomorrow morning look like for you? Do you think we’ll be in a different political headspace or landscape?
I think if we have a Democratic socialist in charge of New York City, I think that’s something that’s going to prompt quite a bit of conversation and thought about where the Democratic Party in particular is headed. Now, New York is obviously unique. It’s much more liberal generally than other big cities across the country, but we are seeing a number of socialists on the ballot in the Midwest as well, in Minneapolis. So I think that that’s a conversation that’s really significant when you look at American politics in terms of where the Democratic Party is going. So I imagine we’ll be very focused on that, especially if Mamdani wins in New York tomorrow.
I know the president likes to make a habit of calling into shows. Do you see him potentially publicly speaking out on Fox about the election? I know he made a statement yesterday.
It’s certainly possible! You know, he weighs in and speaks to the press on most days, several times a day, which is a stark difference from what we had in the prior president. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he weighed in, but I can’t really say at this point whether or not we’ll be talking to him tonight.
Fair enough. Just on a broader note, we’re seeing a lot of change in the media landscape generally, especially those leading news organizations. Do you have any interest or any consideration in joining Bari Weiss’ CBS News?
I’m in a long-term contract here at Fox, and very happy to be in that situation. We have a really amazing team. It’s no surprise to me that people would be interested in our team, but we have something special here. It’s no surprise to me that other places are trying to become more like Fox and to be a little bit more fair in their coverage and to recognize, you know, all parts of the country, and not just small sections of it, which I think has been a huge mistake for the legacy media organizations, and I think they’re waking up to that and they’re putting some new leadership in charge because of it. So I think that anything that makes news better across the board is a positive for the country.
Do you find that CBS News has gotten better since Weiss has been in charge?
I think it’s too early to say.
