As Final-Round Voting Opens Today for the 2026 CMA Awards, Here Are the Races We’re Watching
Billboard ·
Lainey Wilson, Tim McGraw, Jack Antonoff and more could set records.
If you’re a voting member of the Country Music Association, be sure to check your email inbox today. The third and final ballot for the 60th annual CMA Awards is set to be emailed to all CMA voting members in good standing on Thursday (Oct. 1). Voting closes on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. CT.
The 60th annual CMA Awards will air live on ABC on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and will stream simultaneously on Disney+ for the first time. (It will be available the next day on Hulu.) Lainey Wilson is set to host the show for the second year in a row. She’ll become the first woman to solo-host the show twice. Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire each did the honors once, in 1988 and 1991, respectively.
This will be Sarah Trahern’s final show as CMA’s CEO. In January, Trahern, who has held the post since 2014, announced her intention to retire at the end of the year. Trahern’s successor Brittany Schaffer, former dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Nashville’s Belmont University, began Sept. 8, working alongside Trahern for three months.
The CMA Awards present awards to music creators in just 12 categories, compared to a whopping 100 categories at the upcoming Grammy Awards. Theoretically, that should make it easier for CMA voters to really focus on these categories and decide who they think most deserves to win. To get CMA voters to start thinking along these lines, here are some artists, songwriters and producers who could make a strong showing at the 60th annual CMA Awards.
And if you don’t watch the CMA Awards faithfully, this would be a very good year to check in. Three of the five nominees for single of the year made the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, the first time in more than 50 years that that has happened.