After our 2026 World Cup report, the Sequel Observatory moves on to another major news moment: the 2026 US elections, the midterms held on November 3. The field changes, from sport to politics, and so does the question. During the World Cup we asked who won the race for the news carousel on an event a whole country was following live. Here we ask whom Google trusts to tell the story of an election, and whether the answer changes depending on where you are.
That is why the observatory looks at the same election from two places. On google.com, with the searches US voters actually make, the midterms are domestic news, and the Top Stories carousel becomes the battleground of the major American outlets. On Google Italy, with the searches an Italian reader makes, the American vote is foreign news, contested by all-news channels, wire services and national dailies. Same event, same measuring engine, two different hierarchies of information.
Data collection started on October 4, a month before election day, and runs until the count is over. The two rankings below are live: they update themselves after every run, with the time of the latest update shown at the top. This page is the window on the race while it is being run. The full report, with the final ranking for both markets, the phases and the content that won, will come once the count is over.
The US carousel
Liveupdated 23/10/2026 13:00US Midterms 2026 · United States
The publishers most present in Google's Top Stories carousel on the event's most relevant queries.
nytimes.com- 02
foxnews.com10.8% - 03
nbcnews.com7.0% - 04
apnews.com7.0% - 05
yahoo.com5.3% - 06
reuters.com5.1% - 07
cnn.com4.9% - 08APap.org4.3%
In the United States the observatory reads the most relevant searches voters make, from control of Congress to the results. Here the carousel appears almost always and it is crowded: the race is open among TV networks, national dailies, wire services and international publishers writing in English. Next to the big names come sources that would find no room in the carousel of a foreign news story: independent analysts on searches about polls, local newsrooms on the races for governor and for House seats.
That is the deepest difference between the two markets. In Italy the midterm carousel is a contest among national outlets. In the United States it is a mosaic where the major dailies, the networks, the wire services, an international press and local newsrooms all live side by side.
The same election, seen from Italy
Liveupdated 23/10/2026 13:00US Midterms 2026 · Italy
The publishers most present in Google's Top Stories carousel on the event's most relevant queries.
tg24.sky.it- 02LAlab24.ilsole24ore.com14.0%
- 03
ansa.it9.7% - 04
ilmessaggero.it7.4% - 05
adnkronos.com3.7% - 06
ilfattoquotidiano.it3.6% - 07STstartupbusiness.it2.8%
- 08SEsellainsights.it2.8%
In Italy the American vote is foreign news, and the carousel tells it through those who produce continuous news: all-news channels, wire services, national dailies and digital native outlets. The ranking counts Italian news outlets only. Encyclopaedias, think tanks and foreign sources, in practice the Swiss outlets publishing in Italian, are left out, so that it reads the competition among those who produce news in Italy.
There is also a finding that the ranking does not show, and that matters as much as the ranking. On a large share of the broadest election searches, the news carousel does not appear in Italy at all: Google shows a dedicated elections module instead, with results and structured information. For publishers it means that on the most searched queries the race for visibility is played on a narrower field than it looks, and that owning the more specific searches, from polls to the Senate races, becomes decisive.
It is also why the Italian ranking can change quickly. With fewer carousels to measure, one article more or less is enough to move the top spot. The right reading is over distance: whoever stays high for weeks is building a presence, whoever leads for a day got one article right.
What we will watch until election day
An election has a precise calendar, and each phase rewards different content. During the campaign weeks polls, analysis and candidate profiles matter most. Early voting brings up service searches on where and how to vote. Election night turns the carousel into a race of continuous updates on the results, and the counting days reward those who stay in the story when attention fades.
The World Cup showed that Top Stories reward those who own service journalism with continuously updated formats, more than those with the largest newsroom. The midterms test that lesson on different ground: a political event, told in two languages, where authority, speed and being recognised as a source all count. Once the count is over we will publish the full report, with the final ranking for both markets, the phases of the race and the content that won.
Data covers Google Top Stories on google.com for US users in English and on Google Italy in Italian, across a panel of searches related to the 2026 midterm elections, sampled several times a day since October 4, 2026. The ranking accounts for the position in the carousel and the relevance of each search, gives more weight to recent days and favours consistent presence over single appearances. The full methodology is proprietary to the Sequel Observatory.
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