Óscar Puente finally decided to resign and leave frontline politics to try to save the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)’s election campaign, which was badly damaged after the second fatal high-speed rail accident in nine months. This is the interpretation most widely held within the government and the PSOE. Puente himself pointed to that idea: “No one is bigger than their organization. My ego has never been greater than my party.”

Spain is holding a snap general election on November 29. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who is running for re-election, brought the date forward following a wave of social protest over the affordability of housing, itself sparked by the eviction of an elderly woman from her home.

But the train crash in Toledo province, which killed 69 people and came just nine months after a similar accident on the same high-speed line, has eroded support for the leftist government. The pre-campaign, which had been going well for the Socialists until Wednesday of last week, has taken a radical turn in which the mainstream conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox increasingly seem convinced they have a landslide victory within reach.

Those who had sought the resignation of Puente, who was in charge of the transportation portfolio during both accidents immediately welcomed the decision. “It cannot be that nothing happens after two fatal accidents in nine months,” said one minister.

Puente ultimately resigned after presenting a package of measures to improve transportation safety and enduring a gruelling parliamentary hearing. The railroad industry is denouncing a lack of investment and staff. The railway system, once a source of pride and a symbol of modernization thanks to its commitment to high-speed rail, faces an undeniable problem of wear and tear. Earlier this year Puente acknowledged a €30 billion ($35 billion) investment shortfall in rail and the need to renew up to 500 trains in the coming years.

Those who thought Puente should stay praised his decision to step down but were simultaneously concerned that this could now direct all the public anger at Sánchez, who reportedly learned of Puente’s resignation only minutes beforehand and had no chance to stop it. However, the prevailing feeling in the government is that this step could re-energize the campaign and revive a political left that has been very dispirited in recent days.

“Puente has stood up, provided solutions and then stepped aside. Out of dignity. Out of respect for the victims and for the progressive project. That shows not all politicians and not all parties are the same,” said the prime minister shortly after, endorsing the idea that Puente had tried to save the PSOE’s campaign ahead of November 29.

Demands for Puente’s resignation had been loud among the political right. As he did so, Puente also noted that nobody resigned when the PP was in government during some of Spain’s worst tragedies, including the train crash in Galicia in 2013 and the flash flooding in Valencia.

Asked why he didn’t resign on day one, Puente argued he wanted to do it after investigating the accident, finding where the problems were, proposing solutions and finally giving explanations before Congress.

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The short answer to the million-dollar question is this: how long it takes to know the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections will depend on how close the races are. If the polls are broadly correct, control of the House of Representatives could be decided by tonight, while the Senate may become clear in the early hours of Wednesday morning. But if the key contests are tight, it could take days, or even weeks, to determine the Senate’s balance of power. The House could also take longer than expected.

What to expect

Democrats need 218 of the House’s 435 seats to win control. At the end of October, forecasting models from Silver Bulletin and The Economist gave them a 95% chance of doing so, while Decision Desk HQ put their odds at 80%.

The Senate is a closer contest. Republicans currently hold 53 seats and need only 50 to retain control, since Vice President J. D. Vance can cast the tie-breaking vote. Democrats need 51 seats, meaning they must gain four more seats than they lose.

According to EL PAÍS’s polling average, Democrats are leading in North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Kansas, Alaska and Iowa, all currently represented by Republican senators. But the margins are narrow: about three points in Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Maine; roughly one point in Alaska; and less than half a point in Iowa. Those leads are well within the typical margin of error of political polling.

What to watch, hour by hour

All times are Eastern Time. The first results will begin to come in as soon as polls close.

• 7:00 p.m.: Georgia and Virginia. The first competitive House districts to report are in Virginia. In Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff is defending his Senate seat with a polling lead of about nine points. If that race looks competitive, it would be an ominous sign for Democrats.
• 7:30 p.m.: North Carolina and Ohio. This is the first real test for the Senate. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley by roughly 11 points. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown holds a three-point advantage over Jon Husted. If Brown wins, the Democrats’ path becomes much easier; if he loses, they will need to win almost everywhere else.
• 8:00 p.m.: Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey, Maine and New Hampshire. Many of the most competitive House districts are located in these states. In Maine, Susan Collins trails Troy Jackson by about three points, but the state uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate wins more than 50% of first-preference votes, it could take days before a winner is known.
• 9:00 p.m.: The crucial hour for the Senate. Polls close in Texas (where James Talarico faces Ken Paxton), Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota and Nebraska, where independent candidate Dan Osborn trails Republican Pete Ricketts by less than two points. Key House districts in New York, Wisconsin, Arizona and Colorado will also be reporting results.
• 11:00 p.m.: California, Washington and Oregon. California counts votes slowly. If control of the House remains in doubt by then, districts in the state could delay a final outcome for several days.
• 1:00 a.m.: Alaska, where Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan are running nearly neck and neck. Alaska typically takes about two weeks to complete its vote count.

Three possible scenarios

• Democrats take control early: If Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown win early the Senate races in North Carolina and Ohio, and James Talarico and Josh Turek prevail in Texas and Iowa, Democrats would secure the four seats they need by the early hours of the morning, without having to wait for Maine or Alaska. That is assuming they hold on to all the Democratic-held seats currently up for election. The House would likely be decided even earlier, much as it was in 2018, when Democratic control became clear on election night.
• A nail-biter: If control of the Senate comes down to Maine and Alaska, there is little chance of a result tonight. In 2022, the Senate was not decided until the following Saturday, while the House remained unresolved for another eight days after Election Day.
• Republicans hold on: If Jon Husted keeps Ohio in Republican hands and Susan Collins survives in Maine, Democrats would need to win virtually all of the remaining competitive races. In that scenario, Republicans could effectively secure control of the Senate in the early hours of the morning, once results from Texas and Iowa are called.

It is worth being cautious with the first wave of results. States count early votes, Election Day ballots and mail-in votes in different ways and in different orders. That can create an early advantage for one party that later fades as more votes are counted.

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Few stars manage to keep shining after their death, and of all of them Marilyn Monroe is perhaps the one who continues to inspire the greatest fascination. That enduring appeal is reflected in the success of auctions featuring all manner of items connected to her life. Almost everything associated with Monroe has been sold, and just when it seemed there was nothing left to auction off, a set of frying pans, a compact of rouge and a bra surfaced, all fetching astonishing sums at the auction organized by Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles last June to mark the centenary of the late actress’s birth.

While Monroe may be the most emblematic, she is just one example of how the market for celebrities’ personal belongings is booming, attracting devoted fans with the means to spend tens of thousands of dollars on everything from something as mundane as a coffee maker, such as David Lynch’s, which sold for $35,000 in June 2025, to one-of-a-kind items such as the script for the penultimate episode of Friends that belonged to Matthew Perry and was sold for $75,000 this summer at a charity auction benefiting the actor’s namesake foundation, which focuses on recovery from substance abuse.

Within its Popular Culture category, the legendary Christie’s, whose origins date back to 1766, has sold such iconic pieces as Eric Clapton’s Blackie guitar and the original script of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, once owned by Audrey Hepburn. Among its most notable achievements in recent years was the sale of what remains the most expensive work of 20th-century art, Andy Warhol’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, which fetched $195 million in 2022. Although this was a work of art rather than a personal belonging, the staggering price nevertheless reflects the enduring fascination certain figures continue to inspire.

María García Yelo, CEO of Christie’s in Spain, attributes the success of items linked to the worlds of film, music and entertainment to their ability to provide “a tangible connection to the people and moments that have shaped popular culture.” She offers an anecdote that illustrates their “emotional power”:

“During the 2006 auction of Princess Margaret’s belongings, an elderly woman arrived with money her husband had given her for their wedding anniversary, intent on buying one of the pieces,” she recalls. “Although she was outbid again and again, she did not give up until she finally managed to acquire an umbrella that had belonged to Princess Margaret. By then, many in the room already knew of her story and her deep admiration for the princess. When the hammer fell in her favor, the room broke into applause.”

Among items associated with royal families, jewelry attracts particular interest because it combines history, luxury and celebrity. And some of the buyers are well-known celebrities themselves. For example, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins bid on pieces owned by Wallis Simpson in the late 1980s.

More recently, Kim Kardashian paid £163,800 (about $198,000 at the time) at a Sotheby’s auction in 2023 to acquire the late Princess Diana’s Attallah Cross, a diamond-and-amethyst pendant that the reality TV star has since worn on several occasions. On December 9, Sotheby’s will auction the iconic “revenge dress” worn by Princess Diana, which is expected to fetch between €130,000 and €258,000 ($145,000 and $288,000).

“A piece with a documented history, or one that belonged to a prominent figure, carries added value that goes beyond its material worth,” explains Alfonso Mato Yllera, CEO of Ansorena, one of Spain’s most emblematic jewelry houses and also a specialist in auctions. (The company recently made headlines after being tasked with appraising jewelry seized from former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.)

“That provenance captures the interest of collectors and the general public alike, generates greater anticipation and often drives the final price well above the initial estimate. That is why we take such care with the research and documentation of each story,” he adds.

Everyday objects from extraordinary lives

The eclectic catalogs of auction houses specializing in popular culture, such as Heritage Auctions, the aforementioned Julien’s Auctions and Profiles in History, reflect the growing demand for celebrity memorabilia.

Journalist María Estévez, who has lived in Los Angeles for two decades and is the author of Esto es Hollywood (This Is Hollywood), traces the origins of the business to the landmark sale conducted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1970s, when the studio disposed of thousands of items used in its films. In fact, pieces from that sale can still be found at some specialist auction houses today.

Estévez, who believes these auctions have expanded dramatically over the past 20 years, also points to the 2017 sale organized by the heirs of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, both of whom died in 2016 and were passionate collectors of Hollywood memorabilia. The collection, comprising more than 1,500 items and larger than the holdings of many museums, included such iconic pieces as Carrie Fisher’s director’s chair from Return of the Jedi (1983) and one of Reynolds’s dresses from Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

Today, sales are no longer limited to movie props or belongings of major stars. Virtually any personal object with even a tenuous connection to a celebrity can find a buyer. Freddie Mercury’s mustache comb, which sold for nearly $189,000; writer Joan Didion’s collection of pebbles and seashells, which fetched $7,000; and Kurt Cobain’s cardigan, which sold for $334,000, are just a few examples. The closer an item comes to a celebrity’s private life, the greater its value tends to be, a phenomenon that becomes even more pronounced when the celebrity died young.

Although one might assume that, in a globalized world, the market is fairly homogeneous, Darren Julien, CEO of Julien’s Auctions, revealed in an interview with Arts & Collections that different regions often have distinct tastes.

“You’ll sometimes see certain celebrities sell well in France; certain bidders come out of Germany,” he said. “Usually Asia and Russia like western pop culture. When we did Cher’s auction, most of the bidders came out of the United States and the U.K. But each celebrity is different. You can’t really tell, sometimes, until you make the announcement.”

He continued: “When we did the Michael Jackson auction, we toured it to China and Japan, because he is hugely popular in Asia. Even though he is popular all over the world, China and Japan just have a huge infatuation with Michael Jackson.”

In a separate interview with The New Yorker, the auctioneer also touched on the moral dilemmas surrounding particularly sensitive sales. He recalled declining to sell a record that John Lennon had signed for Mark David Chapman, the man who later killed him. He chose not to handle the sale, although another company eventually auctioned the item for $1.5 million. He also revealed that he withdrew the bed in which Michael Jackson died from one of his auction catalogs at the request of the singer’s family. What he did sell, however, were Truman Capote’s ashes.

Behind every sale, especially when it involves objects of major historical significance, intense public interest or exceptional rarity, there are months of preparation. Specialists must verify an item’s authenticity and determine its starting price. But how does an object end up in the hands of an auction house in the first place?

There is no single answer. In the case of Christie’s, María García Yelo explains that “the objects featured in our catalogs usually come through clients, collectors and families with whom we have built long-standing relationships and who trust Christie’s to bring their pieces to the global market.”

In the case of companies that only auction celebrity memorabilia, commercial relationships are often built not only with consignors but sometimes with the celebrities themselves. As the sector has become more visible, auction houses also receive tips and direct offers from potential sellers. Some of the items included in Julien’s Auctions’ 2024 sale of Kurt Cobain memorabilia, for example, came from a fellow patient at the late musician’s rehabilitation clinic. Active searches and scouting efforts in all sorts of places are also common.

In addition, until relatively recently, auctions of personal belongings were generally associated with a celebrity’s death, a divorce or financial hardship. That perception has changed, and auctions of possessions belonging to living celebrities are now commonplace. Indeed, the founder of Julien’s Auctions has emphasized this point. As he explained in his interview with The New Yorker, he actively encourages stars to recognize the financial potential of these sales:

“We encourage, we educate them: ‘When you get done with the concert, put the jeans, the shirt, the shoes in a bag with the date and the city to put in the archives, because that could be $10,000, $20,000, $30,000,” he said. “It’s like printing money for a lot of these celebrities.”

Estévez links the success of pop-culture auctions to the rise of modern fandom. In recent years, partly due to the false sense of closeness that social media creates between celebrities and their audiences, fan communities have become highly visible, and not always for positive reasons.

“Feeding fandom is part of what has created this craze for collecting pieces from actors, characters, films… There are so many fandoms that you have to enter that world to understand why those prices are paid,” the journalist says.

“There is a lot of business built around these objects; it is not just collectors buying them, it does not work only that way,” says Estévez, adding that some buyers acquire items with the intention of reselling them later once their value has increased. There are even companies dedicated solely to this kind of trading.

There is no doubt that this market generates significant sums of money, particularly in the United States, which accounts for the bulk of sales and remains the epicenter of mass-market pop culture. Yet, viewed in the broader context of the auction industry, celebrity memorabilia is not the category that generates the highest revenues. It can, however, serve as a gateway for new buyers.

García Yelo puts it this way: “While the sale of items linked to famous cultural figures usually generates considerable media attention, it does not reach the highest figures at auction, unlike 20th- and 21st-century art or exceptional, rare jewels. Nonetheless, these sales play an important role that transcends their economic results: they attract a broader — often younger — audience and introduce new collectors to the world of auctions and collecting.”

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