Fetterman beats GOP’s Oz to flip Pennsylvania Senate seat
Kemp defeats Abrams again in Georgia’s governor race
GOP holds Ohio Senate seat; Abbott re-elected in Texas
Hochul holds off Zeldin to win full term as NY governor
Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona Senate seats up for grabs
While Kevin McCarthy is projecting optimism, no networks have called the House yet, and such a move doesn’t appear close at all right now.
There are still dozens of races left to call. NBC’s modeling right now shows the House on a knife’s edge. So it’s entirely possible it’ll take quite a while before any House call can be made.
In New York, Republican Mike Lawler addressed a roomful of supporters at his campaign party: “We are not yet ready to declare victory, but with just a few more votes to be counted, we are poised to make history.”
“One-party rule in Washington, in Albany and in New York City has failed us, and that is why when all of the votes are counted, I am confident I will be your next Congressman,” he said.
“We have to wait just a little bit longer for the voters of this district to serve Sean Patrick Maloney the best dish of Chef Boyardee.”
Ron Johnson says he’s optimistic about his Wisconsin Senate win, but is waiting to see additional results.
“We’ve looked very closely at the numbers. We feel very confident that there’s no way that they really make up that gap, but I’m not going to declare victory until all the numbers are in. But I just want to give you guys the sense that this race is over.”
Hillary Scholten’s victory in Michigan’s 3rd means a risky Democratic strategy paid off: spending money in Republican primaries to ensure more extreme candidates won, and then beating them in the general.
It’s not a new strategy, but some Democrats criticized using spending to support Republicans like Scholten’s opponent John Gibbs, who said the 2020 election wasn’t legitimate. In the primary, Gibbs faced Representative Peter Meijer, one of only 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 riots.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee defended the spending at the time, saying the ultimate goal was to ensure they flipped House seat. And now they have.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy at an election night party says: “It is clear we are going to take the House back.”
“When you wake up tomorrow we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority.”
Democrats are keeping the balance of power in the House closer than anticipated. After enduring big losses in Florida early in the evening, they recovered with a string of victories in districts that voted for Biden in 2020 by single-digit percentage-point margins.
The problem states for Democrats have been Florida, where Republicans won 20 of 28 districts under a map signed by DeSantis, and New York, where a map implemented by a special master is less favorable to Democrats than the map the Democratic legislature drew and a court invalidated as an unlawful partisan gerrymander.
Trump has pledged a big announcement next week — but in swing state Pennsylvania, he had a “terrible night”, according to Jonathan Tamari of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Also in Michigan, Republican plans to enact post-2020 voting law restrictions were quashed by voters with the approval of a ballot measure that guarantees expanded voting access in the state Constitution.
Proposal 2 prohibits photo-ID requirements, requires state funding for both absentee ballot requests and voters’ return envelopes, mandates state-funded ballot drop-boxes, and prevents third-party post-election audits — all things the state GOP legislature was angling to snuff out.
Additionally, the amendment mandates the state’s rancorous two-Republican, two-Democrat canvassing board certify presidential electoral college votes based only on the results provided by local election officials — blocking a pathway Trump supporters sought to undermine the state’s 2020 election result.
The proposal came in response to GOP plans to overhaul election law in a way Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer couldn’t veto. Last year Michigan GOP Chairman Ronald Weiser said Republicans would use the state’s initiated legislation process — which lets the legislature adopt statutory ballot proposals—to enact voting restrictions.
AP calls the Michigan 3rd Congressional District where lawyer and Democrat Hillary Scholten defeated Trump-endorsed John Gibbs after Gibbs unseated Trump impeacher Peter Meijer in the primary. The Grand Rapids-area was also redrawn to have a slight Democratic lean.
Updated 18m ago
A statement from Maddy McDaniel, spokesperson for the Barnes Senate campaign:
“We always knew this race would be incredibly close. No matter what anyone says, we are committed to making sure every vote is counted. We will wait and see what the Wisconsin voters have decided after all their voices are heard.”
“Whether it’s tonight, or tomorrow — or four weeks from now — we will hear from the people of Georgia,” Warnock tells supporters. “Keep the faith. Keep looking up.”
And here’s a snapshot of House races. Click here for the live graphic.
As we approach 2 a.m. in New York, here’s a look at where Senate races stand. Click here for our live graphic.
And so the US Senate comes down to these four states: Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona.
If Democrats win two of them, they keep control of the Senate.
Biden sent a congratulatory text to John Fetterman, the White House said.
Maloney’s campaign is telling reporters that there are votes in Democratic-leaning Westchester that could make up the margin, but this is one of the key races to watch as we inch away from election day and into overtime.
This is one of the few yet-to-be-called New York races.
The guy in charge of the House Democrats’ campaign arm may have stemmed losses for his party, but may not be able to keep his own seat.
One thing that’s striking right now — how remarkably stable this election has been so far.
Three of the last four presidents’ first midterm elections were washouts for the party in power. Remember Bill Clinton’s inauguration and the following Republican landslide of 1994? Barack Obama and the 2010 Tea Party wave? The Trump backlash in 2018, when Democrats posted their largest net gain in the House since Watergate?
No matter how it ends up, it’s already clear that this has very much not been one of those elections.
With votes in the US still being counted, these headlines hitting the wire from across the Pacific:
*NORTH KOREA FIRED UNIDENTIFIED BALLISTIC MISSILE: S.KOREA
*N. KOREA FIRED BALLISTIC MISSILE TOWARD EAST SEA: S. KOREA
Updated 37m ago
BLOOMBERG OPINION: The midterm elections are neither a Republican landslide nor a Democratic surprise … but there is still a long way to go before we have winners in several key races, and control of the Senate isn’t likely to be known for a while, writes Bloomberg Opinion’s Jonathan Bernstein.
Still, there are some clear lessons emerging from the night’s results.
Read the rest here.
Republicans get a pickup on Long Island in New York’s 3rd Congressional district, with George Santos beating Democrat Robert Zimmerman.
This seat was most recently held by Democrat Tom Suozzi, who mounted a failed bid for NY governor this year.
Updated 46m ago
Incumbent Democrats do well in the Upper Midwest with these recent calls:
Angie Craig won re-election in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, the Associated Press said, beating Republican Tyler Kistner.
Tony Evers was re-elected as Wisconsin governor, NBC and ABC said, defeating Republican Tim Michels.
AP: Republican Mike Lee wins reelection to the Senate from Utah.
Updated 51m ago
Democrat Angie Craig won re-election in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, the Associated Press said, beating Republican Tyler Kistner, Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Elkin reports.
Updated 53m ago
Also in Wisconsin, Democratic Senate nominee Barnes is “working as hard as possible to make sure that every vote is counted and that basically they do what they can to make sure that the votes that come in are counted accurately,” said Wisconsin State Representative Daniel Riemer, a surrogate for Barnes. “So that hopefully he comes out on top.”
“The basic message of the campaign is to stand by,” Riemer said.
In Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels has conceded, according to local media. Tony Evers, the incumbent Democrat, holds on in a swing seat, according to ABC and NBC.
Updated 54m ago
Another long-overdue milestone for women in politics: Women will serve concurrently as governor and lieutenant governor in a state for the first time.
Arkansas Republicans Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Leslie Rutledge were elected governor and lieutenant governor in separate elections. They’re joined by Massachusetts Democrats Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll, who were elected to the top two jobs on a ticket.
Michigan Goveror Gretchen Whitmer just gave a speech at her party — not officially declaring victory but almost.
“We are thrilled at the unexpected high turnout, we are thrilled that the 3 ballot intiatives passed, I never thought I’d be so happy about Fox News but I’m glad they called this election too.
“We are waiting for some final numbers — but we are feeling damn good about where we are headed.”
Just a programming note: Kevin McCarthy has yet to speak at his party tonight.
Bloomberg’s Erik Wasson is on the ground there waiting to see if he will speak.
Fetterman is addressing the crowd at his headquarters now:
“I never expected we would turn these red counties blue, but we did what we had to do.”
Updated 58m ago
Fetterman takes the stage to give his victory speech.
Updated 42m ago
There will be more women serving as governor than ever before in US history, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Cortez Masto takes the stage at Nevada Democratic Victory election party in Las Vegas and is greeted by an energetic, cheering crowd. The senator looks optimistic as she addresses the crowd:
“The votes are still being counted. We know this will take time and we won’t have more election results for several days,” she said “I am confident in this team. I’m confident in the campaign that we’ve built to win.”
“We’re not done yet,” said Cortez Masto. “Let’s keep the positive energy flowing.”
Democrat Annie Kuster won the race for New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, fending off Republican Robert Burns, according to the AP. Burns is a pro-Trump, anti-abortion former treasurer of New Hampshire’s Hillsborough County.
Updated 59m ago
AP finally called the race for Monica De La Cruz, a pickup for Republicans in a newly drawn South Texas House district.
Updated 60m ago
The success Democrats have had in the House so far tonight means that Republicans won’t have the wide majorities that some predicted. Two big implications here:
The lame duck will get a lot more interesting. There’s more incentive for Senate Republicans to cut deals with Democrats before the end of the year on some of the unfinished policy items, including energy permitting and tax cuts. This also potentially paves the way for Democrats to raise the debt ceiling before the end of the year.
Kevin McCarthy is going to have a tough time corralling his members. A slim majority means McCarthy can’t ignore the fringes of his party. He has to negotiate with them.
Representative Thomas Massie at the McCarthy party predicts a narrow majority will be good for conservatives.
“If you have a 218 majority then everybody’s vote counts,” the Kentucky Republican said. “Go ask Joe Manchin.”
CNN is showing footage of a jubilant crowd at Fetterman headquarters in Pittsburgh. They’re waiting for him to make a victory speech.
Updated 16m ago
Seven hours ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this in a PBS interview: “We think we’ll do much better than anyone expects.”
It’s a prediction that’s working out for her.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer stops short of declaring victory, but projects optimism.
“We are thrilled at the unexpected high turnout, we are thrilled that the three ballot initiatives passed, I never thought I’d be so happy about Fox News, but I’m glad they called this election too,” she said. “We are waiting for some final numbers, but we are feeling damn good about where we are headed.”
Pennsylvania’s economy has been slower to recover from the pandemic than elsewhere, especially compared with other Sun Belt battleground states like Arizona and Georgia. The state’s unemployment level isn’t back to pre-pandemic levels — although it’s getting closer. Like in the rest of the Northeast, inflation hasn’t been as high as the national average, but residents still faced steep increases food and energy prices. Gas prices shot up in the weeks before the election.
The state’s inflation was 7.4% in September, according to Moody’s Analytics. While lower than the national number, the rate is still historically high. In the four months ended in September, consumer prices in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, the state’s capital, rose 7.6% from the previous year, according to Moody’s Analytics. In other Pennsylvania metro areas, including Scranton — President Joe Biden’s birthplace — State College, Allentown and Pittsburgh, the inflation rate was about 7.4%.
Former White House spokeswman Jen Psaki, summing up her view of the night:
So dems have a Florida problem, but Republicans have a trump problem That seems harder to solve
Since there’s an increasing chance that the Georgia Senate race could go into a runoff, here’s a refresher from Georgia Public Broadcasting about how that process works:
Chris Pappas, a New Hampshire Democrat, holds his House seat, AP says.
In the Wisconsin Senate race, 90% of the votes are in. Johnson leads Barnes, 50.7%-49.3%, according to AP data.
Fetterman’s win in Pennsylvania is the first Senate-seat flip of the night.
Updated 1h 20m ago
Fetterman claims victory.
NBC calls for Democrat Fetterman in Pennsylvania. And Fox matches the call. Pickup for Democrats.
Democrat Fetterman Wins PA. Senate Race to Flip Seat: NBC, Fox
Updated 1h 21m ago
Zeldin is refusing to concede to Hochul in the New York governors race:
“There is still a piece of this story that is still to be told. There are over 1.4 million election day votes that are still out.”
In Nevada’s Senate race, Democrat Cortez Masto has 55% of the vote and Republican Laxalt has 42.3% with 33% of votes counted, according to the AP.
Results are starting to trickle in from Nevada. Still waiting on Alaska results to come in after the remaining polls close there at 1 a.m. Eastern time.
Many Oz supporters are packing up and leaving his election party, which has died down since its start as Fetterman continues to hold the lead by a slim margin in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
Updated 1h 25m ago
If Republicans do win House control, it won’t be by nearly as much as they thought it would. Tiny margins cause problems when you’re talking about actually governing.
Several House GOP sources tell CBS after midnight tonight that they are now increasingly worried that if GOP wins a narrow House majority, it’ll be utter chaos for McCarthy/leadership team. Rep. MTG & her allies would have much more sway in a tight GOP House, the sources predict.
CNN projects that Brad Raffensperger has been re-elected as Georgia’s Secretary of State.
More West Coast calls rolling in. The AP projects wins for incumbent Senate Democrats Patty Murray of Washington and Brian Schatz of Hawaii.
Updated 1h 24m ago
The AP has only one race it hasn’t called in Texas: District 15, which snakes from the suburbs of San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley in the south.
Republican Monica De La Cruz leads Michelle Vallejo by about 13,000 votes, or nine percentage points, with 73% of the vote counted. The other two Republicans in “The Valley” lost their campaigns. De La Cruz could be the only one of the “triple threat” of South Texas Latina candidates to win.
How long were the lines to vote at Michigan State, in one of the closest House districts in the country?
The Lansing State Journal reports the final student got in line just before polls closed at 7:59 p.m. local time — but the rules say if you’re in line at the close, you can cast a ballot. He voted more than four hours later, just after midnight.
Veteran political handicapper Stu Rothenberg, on four key Senate races:
Bloomberg’s Erik Wasson is at the House GOP party, but the mood isn’t incredibly festive.
New York’s contest between Maloney and Lawler remains too close to call.
Westchester County Commissioner Tajian Nelson told Bloomberg that on Wednesday the county would start to scan absentee ballots received Tuesday and later.
Strong Democratic turnout in the county, which leans left, would be key for a Maloney win.
And this just in: Republican Kean won the House race in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, ABC and NBC says, beating Democratic incumbent Malinowski.
Updated 1h 33m ago
In New Jersey, the congressional race between Malinowski and Kean remains too close to call, but about an hour ago Kean took the stage at a campaign party and announced his victory against his opponent as Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” blasted through the speakers.
“You made this happen,” Kean said to applause. He pledged to steer this nation “to greater prosperity and greater affordability” and thanked Malinowski for his “spirited campaign” and “years of service.”
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office is not aware of any counties shutting down voting — despite what the Walker campaign says — and several thousand more votes will be tabulated in the next hour.
Some counties tomorrow will have independent boards do some verification of problematic ballots — but that is a very tiny number.
The public information officer for the Secretary of State in Nevada just informed me that all polls have closed in the state. Let the results begin!
Updated 1h 2m ago
Some strong emotions from a House Republican candidate who didn’t win.
At a campaign event for Walker, political consultant and former Georgia Republican Party Chair Ralph Reed said “we are unlikely to resolve this tonight.” He added that some outstanding voting is shutting down in some counties for tonight, and says those are counties that favor Walker.
Reed says it is going to be a very long night.
“Here’s the good news: we are hitting all of our projections. Herschel is ahead right now. We feel very good where we are.”
He told the crowd to leave the ballroom where the event is being held in 30 minutes.
More from Lake’s speech:
“Two minutes into voting we had people being told ‘Well you are going to have to put your little ballot over here into another box.’”
In a speech shown on CNN, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake implies there could be election dishonesty at play in what may be a harbinger of the next few days if she loses.
Right now the race is too early to call.
One clear winner tonight: abortion rights.
Voters in Michigan, California and Vermont have all amended their constitutions to explicitly allow for abortion and contraceptives.
We’re still waiting to see final results from Kentucky, but voters there are poised to reject a measure that would state that their constitution does not provide the right to abortion. This follows Kansas voters in August affirming their state’s right to abortion.
New York Times elections analyst Nate Cohn on the state of the House:
Republican Masters is trailing Democrat incumbent Mark Kelly in Arizona’s Senate race by more than 17 points with 52% of the vote counted, CNN says.
Democrat Cheri Beasley just conceded the Senate election to Republican Ted Budd in a speech at her election party in Raleigh, North Carolina. She called him to congratulate him on the win before coming on stage.
“Regardless of the result, I remain resolved to fight for our beloved state,” she said.
She spoke about what a milestone her race was for the state.
“My mother was given the right to vote 57 years ago,” she said. “By taking up the fight we always make progress. It is with that that I stand before you as the first African American woman to be nominated for Senate from the state of North Carolina.”
Updated 1h 53m ago
If Republicans take the Senate, Mitch McConnell will return to the position of majority leader, and next year he will become the longest-serving Senate party leader ever, surpassing the 15-year record held by Democrat Mike Mansfield for more than four decades.
At least one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection will be returning to Congress next year.
Representative Dan Newhouse, a Washington Republican, has won his re-election. His seat was considered safe, unlike that of California Rep. David Valadao, which is ranked a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Valadao and Newhouse were the only two of the 10 who made it to the general election, with the others either announcing retirement or being defeated in primaries.
California’s Newsom celebrated his re-election as leader of the nation’s “most diverse democracy” and a “bastion of freedom”, as he criticized “red state governors” in a clear swipe at Florida’s DeSantis and Texas’s Abbott.
“We have governors that are banning books, speech and abortion,” Newsom said. “Here we are in California moving in a different direction in advancing freedom and fairness.”
Newsom said his re-election should be seen as California’s repudiation of a “culture of cruelty and a zest for demonization” among Republicans re-elected in other states.
Without naming DeSantis, Newsom said “that cruelty is extended by flying migrants to an island and leaving them there,” a reference to flights Desantis bankrolled earlier this year, sending undocumented migrants to Martha’s Vineyard off of Massachusetts with no advance notice, leaving locals scrambling to accommodate them.
It looks like only one member of Gen Z is headed to Congress next year. Republican Karoline Leavitt has conceded to Democratic Representative Chris Pappas in New Hampshire’s 1st District.
That means Maxwell Frost from Florida is set to be the youngest member of the 118th Congress.
Ohio’s Ryan gives a concession speech:
“I have the privilege to concede this race to JD Vance, because the way this country operates is that when you lose an election you concede and you respect the will of the people.”
New York Representative Sean Patrick Maloney’s campaign is not ready to make any decisions, according to John Gromada, chair of the Rockland Democratic Party.
“The results are still coming in from Westchester,” Gromada said around midnight, addressing the thinning crowd of supporters at an event in Nyack, New York. “We won’t have those results for some time.”
Maloney, who is at risk of losing his bid for a sixth term in Congress, went to Washington earlier in the day. The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee faces a tight race against challenger Mike Lawler.
With 94% of the votes in, AP shows Lawler in the lead.
Michigan voters have also backed a measure protecting abortion rights, NBC says.
Updated 1h 34m ago
A couple of surprises for Democrats are coming onto the board. One of the biggest for me is Landsman defeating Chabot in a Cincinnati-area district.
The Landsman-Chabot race is one of several that had flown a bit under the radar. Chabot is not some high-profile bomb thrower in the House who drew bucketloads of Democratic money in opposition. He’s just basically a median member of the Republican congressional delegation.
Yes, it was a Cook-rated toss-up, but on the sort of night Republicans were expecting to have, this is not the sort of race Republicans would be losing.
This is becoming a trend.
Cincinnati Councilman Greg Landsman won the House race in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District, ABC and CNN reported, flipping the seat to Democrats.
Updated 1h 35m ago
Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas has fended off a challenge from Republican Cassy Garcia, a former Senator Ted Cruz aide, networks report.
It was among the Hispanic-majority districts in Texas that Republicans had hoped to flip.
Updated 1h 56m ago
CNN’s Phil Mattingly at the White House says Biden administration officials are seeing a “very different picture than they were expecting” in the results coming in.
Big win for Democrats: They pick up a seat in North Carolina, with Wiley Nickel besting Republican Bo Hines in the 13th Congressional District, according to ABC and NBC.
This is the seat formerly held by Ted Budd, who won his race for North Carolina Senator tonight.
Updated 2h 11m ago
ALASKA AT-LARGE HOUSE DISTRICT Democrat Mary Peltola is up for a re-match against Republican former Governor Sarah Palin, Nick Begich III and Libertarian Chris Bye, after making history in a special election just months ago.
Peltola won the open seat in August, making her the first Democrat from her state to go to Washington since 1972, as well as the first Alaskan Native and first woman to represent Alaska in the House. Democrats have cited her surprise win as a sign that enthusiasm is on their side.
Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system, one of only a few places in the nation to do so.
ALASKA SENATE (Polls close at 1 a.m. ET at the latest.) In Alaska, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate, is facing off against Kelly Tshibaka, her Trump-backed GOP challenger, under a newly instituted ranked-choice voting system that allows the top four finishers of the primary to advance to the general elections.
Murkowski, who has been in the Senate for nearly two decades, has stood to the left of her party on issues including guns, abortion and climate change. She was also one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, and the only one of those GOP senators running for re-election this year.
Tshibaka, who previously worked as the commissioner for the Alaska Department of Administration, has portrayed Murkowski as a career politician “who can’t be trusted.” She has branded herself as a political outsider who would be a “a strong independent Alaskan leader.”
Only 20,000 votes separate Warnock and Walker in Georgia’s Senate race right now, CNN says.
Jennifer A. Russell, public information officer for the Secretary of State in Nevada,said there are two polling places still open in the state.
“Results tonight will include in-person early, in-person Election Day and some mail ballots,” she said in an email.
“Counties by law have until November 12 to receive mail ballots so the results will be coming in over the next several days.”
Updated 1h 2m ago
No concession yet from Mastriano, via a livestream of his appearance:
The Pennsylvania Republican’s campaign was asking for patience even as his opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, claimed a decisive victory in Pennsylvania governor’s race.
“We’ve got a ways to go. Have faith,” Mastriano told his supporters gathered in Camp Hill. “We’re going to wait until every vote counts.”
He said he would respect the results.
“It is a constitutional republic that we have, and the people get the last word. So we’re going to wait patiently to see what the people of Pennsylvania said, and what the people of Pennsylvania say, we’ll of course respect that.”
And a CBS reporter tweets a pic:
The New York Times’s Annie Karni with a little color at House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s victory party:
“The scene at what was to be a large victory party for Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, in Washington is low key. The televisions are on mute. There’s no music. And, without a decision in the race, the crowd is steadily thinning out.”
Hawaii polls are set to close at the top of the hour, as are some polls in Alaska (where things don’t shut down entirely until 1 a.m. ET).
Georgia’s Kemp took shots at Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams’s backing from the entertainment and political establishment, saying 90% of her funding came from out of state.
Abrams had the “talk show hosts, Hollywood celebrities, President Biden, President Obama. And she even had Oprah, again. But they ran into a big problem, folks. Despite all the fanfare, the money and the fame, they didn’t have you.”
Another pro-abortion-related measure passes, following the one in California.
Vermonters back a ballot measure that amends their state constitution to add a right to “personal reproductive autonomy,” according to NBC and ABC.
Updated 2h 17m ago
These market shifts in Asia are interesting. I talked with a few traders in Singapore this week, and they were all pricing in Republican gains in line with recent polling averages.
So yes, these results are coming as a small surprise for many — not least of whom the traders in markets that are open right now.
Markets: The US midterm election results are “a bit tight” so far and are causing a selloff in Asia stocks and US futures, according to Ruchir Desai, a fund manager at Asia Frontier Capital.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index briefly erased gains of as much as 0.5%, led by losses in China, Hong Kong and Japan shares
Democrat Ron Wyden has won re-election as a US Senator from Oregon, according to the AP.
Wyden is currently the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees all tax, trade and health issues. He’s known for pushing lots of progressive tax ideas, including an income tax on billionaires, as well as more rigorous taxes on the investments of the wealthy. If Democrats maintain their Senate majority, he will stay on as chair.
Updated 2h 15m ago
It’s notable that several high-profile Republicans on the ballot who haven’t always been on the same page with Trump seem to have done very well regardless.
Kemp won in Georgia
DeSantis won big in Florida
Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who crossed Trump on the 2020 election certification, also won re-election.
Northeastern governors Phil Scott and Chris Sununu both won easily despite Democrats doing well in their states otherwise.
Abrams, conceding to Kemp, says:
“I may no longer be seeking the office of governor, but I will never stop doing everything in my power to ensure that the people of Georgia have a voice.”
Updated 2h 26m ago
Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke hinted that his failed run for governor of the Lone Star state may be his final campaign.
“This may be one of the last times I talk in front of you all,” O’Rourke told a gathering of supporters in his hometown of El Paso on Tuesday night. After thanking family and friends for their support, he said “who knows what the future holds for any of us?”
He exited the stage without formally conceding the race to incumbent Republican Greg Abbott.
SENATE UPDATE: Three of the key Senate races are incredibly close right now.
Republican Johnson has 50.9% to Democrat Barnes’ 49.1% in Wisconsin, according to the latest data from AP. A full 74% of the votes in the Badger State have been counted.
In Georgia, Republican Walker and Democrat Warnock are evenly split, 49%-49%. A third-party candidate, Oliver, has 2% and the race might be heading to a Dec. 6 runoff. But 15% of the votes still haven’t been tallied.
In Pennsylvania, Democrat Fetterman has a very narrow 49.5%-48.2% lead over Republican Oz, with 76% of ballots counted.
Things are different right now in Arizona. Democrat Kelly has a more comfortable 58%-39.7% lead over Republican Masters with 47% of votes in.
California has passed a ballot measure to codify the right to abortion in the state’s constitution, according to NBC. This is one of five abortion-related measures on state ballots this cycle, following the Supreme Court’s June decision to roll back abortion rights and give the states the ability to set their own policies.
Updated 2h 30m ago
ABC is calling Alabama’s Senate race for Republican Katie Britt.
Britt will fill the seat held by Richard Shelby, who is retiring after 35 years in the Senate. Britt previously served as Shelby’s chief of staff.
So you’re saying there’s a chance? Nate Silver thinks so.
NBC just projected that a California proposition to make reproductive freedom a constitutional right will pass.
The AP says Democrat Alex Padilla has won re-election as a senator from California.
Updated 2h 30m ago
Here’s a snapshot of where House races stand across the country. Follow the live results graphic here.
Updated 2h 42m ago
Virginia Democrat Elaine Luria, a member of the Jan. 6 committee who lost to Republican Jen Kiggans, issues this concession statement.
“The peaceful transition of power is a cornerstone of our democracy, and I congratulate Jen Kiggans on her win and wish her success. I have instructed my team to be as helpful as possible to ensure a smooth transition and continue providing seamless constituent services to the people of Coastal Virginia.”
One emerging storyline: Partisan polls (that had weighed on polling averages in the direction of Republicans) missing in race after race after race.
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silverhas shifted his prediction to say Democrats are slightly favored to hold the Senate after Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan fended off a challenge from Republican Don Bolduc in New Hampshire.
If House Democrats avoid a blowout, they can point to resilient incumbents like Sharice Davids of Kansas’s 3rd District. Even after Republican-led redistricting shifted out most of Wyandotte County in and around Kansas City, reducing Joe Biden’s 2020 election margin of victory to just 4 percentage points, Davids was trouncing Amanda Adkins by more than 12 percentage points in a nearly final count of votes — even bigger than the 10-point margin by which she beat Adkins in 2020.
Davids emphasized her support for abortion rights in a suburban district that voted overwhelmingly in August to preserve those rights in the state constitution. Democrats tied Adkins to her former boss, ex-Governor Sam Brownback, who left office in 2018 with poor approval ratings.
Iowa’s Grassley, the Republican in the Senate with the most seniority, has won an eighth term, the AP projects.
Updated 2h 41m ago
Wisconsin was among the dozen states that were back or above pre-pandemic employment levels by the beginning of the year. But employment has been declining every month since June, while the jobless rate has ticked up.
That may be a reflection of a slump in production, with a gauge of manufacturing in the southeast Wisconsin and northern Illinois region dropping to the lowest since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That said, the unemployment rate of 3.2% in September remains low by historical standards, and businesses have been struggling to find workers.
Life may be cheaper in the Midwest than on the coasts, but Wisconsin’s small and midsize cities experienced an early surge in inflation this year. Even though the pace has abated, it remains elevated by historical standards and a surge in gas prices just ahead of the election probably worsened the financial pain in a state where many are highly reliant on their cars.
Wisconsin, a manufacturing hub, also has been hit by soaring material costs and worker shortages — and more recently a slump in production.
While Wisconsin’s smaller cities saw a surge in consumer prices that made the state an early hotbed of inflation, areas around Phoenix, Atlanta and elsewhere in the South have by now surpassed them. But inflation remains elevated in many places across the state, according to data by Moody’s Analytics. The state’s rate in September was almost 8.5%, slightly above the national number.
Attendees at Walker’s event in Georgia are chanting “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye,” to image of Abrams on the big screen, amid a report on her losing to Kemp.
Those familiar lyrics, of course, by widely forgotten group, Steam.
NBC and ABC call Ohio’s 13th Congressional District for Democrat Emilia Sykes.
That’s Tim Ryan’s old congressional seat.
Updated 2h 42m ago
A Republican takeover of the Senate now seems unlikely, a Real Clear Politics analyst says.
In the race for Senate control, neither party has flipped a seat yet. Close races have been called in North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio, but they are all “stand pat” outcomes that stay with the same party.
Updated 2h 53m ago
A surprise potential flip for Democrats is Republican Lauren Boebert’s district in Colorado.
Democrat Adam Frisch leads by about 9,000 votes with 71% counted. Boebert has been one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House, touting guns and sometimes picking fights online with Democrats.
Democrat Josh Gottheimer has won re-election in New Jersey’s 5th District, according to the AP.
Gottheimer, who represents northern New Jersey, is a key player on crypto issues and also advocates for expanding the state and local tax deduction, which is valuable to residents in high-tax states.
Updated 2h 54m ago
Despite some polling last month that suggested GOP Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa could be in trouble, right now he’s comfortably ahead in his race against Democrat Michael Franken.
He’s leading 56.2%-43.8% with 75% of the votes in. However, major networks haven’t called the race yet.
NBC and ABC call the North Carolina Senate race for Republican Ted Budd.
Updated 2h 58m ago
It’s really tight in Wisconsin, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Daniel Bice is reporting that both sides see Democrats with an advantage in the governor’s race.
Biden has been briefed by staff on Tropical Storm Nicole, a White House spokeswoman told Bloomberg. The storm is expected to hit Florida’s east coast as a Category 1 hurricane Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
Thousands of Floridians are still recovering after Hurricane Ian struck the state’s west coast in late September.
“I just spoke to governor Pritzker and congratulated him on his win tonight,” Illinois Republican candidate for governor Darren Bailey said at his campaign event, where some 150 people gathered.
“I may not be going to Springfield as your next governor, but I will never stop fighting for you.”
At Democratic Governor JB Pritzker’s campaign party in Chicago, where some 600 people gathered to celebrate his victory, Juliana Stratton, Illinois Lt. Governor, said she is ready to serve a second term.
“Our country has experience far too many dark days in recent years,” she said. “Our democracy is worth fighting for.”
“We balanced the budget, paid all our overdue bills, and we got six credit upgrades,” Pritzker said. “Anyone who thinks they can come into this state and try to force some right-wing MAGA war on a woman’s body, you will never get an inch of Illinois.”
Democrat Kathy Hochul won the election for New York governor, ABC and NBC said, defeating Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.
Updated 3h 5m ago
Newsom is expected to speak within the hour at an event sponsored by supporters of Proposition 1, a ballot measure to establish the constitutional right to abortion in California.
Newsom is expected to celebrate the passage of a measure he considers central to California’s status as a sanctuary for reproductive freedom, following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade this year.
California Governor Gavin Newsom easily defeated his Republican challenger, state senator Brian Dahle, to win a second term in the most-populous US state.
A landslide by the 55-year-old Democrat was all but ordained in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly two to one, and a member of the GOP hasn’t been elected to statewide office since 2006.
The victory came after Newsom largely ignored his opponent and instead spent much of his campaign building his national profile and promoting progressive causes, emerging as one of the Democrats’ sharpest and most cited culture warriors.
Hochul Beats GOP Challenge to Win NY Governor Race: ABC, NBC
New Mexico voters are set to overwhelmingly approve a ballot measure that will cement funding for the broadest free child-care program in the country, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The initiative will increase the percentage of a key oil-revenue-backed education fund that is paid out each year, with $150 million going to early childhood learning and care.
The state, one of the poorest in the country, created its child-care program in 2020 and used federal Covid relief funds this year to make it free for New Mexicans earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Advocates for the ballot measure say the money will pave the way for the legislature to expand the program to all households, or at least make pre-K free for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
The measure, which will amend the state constitution, had more than 70% of the vote, with 53% counted, according to the Associated Press
Republican Governor Kemp Wins Re-Election in Georgia: NBC, ABC
Updated 3h 6m ago
Democrat Stacey Abrams has conceded the Georgia governor race, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Updated 3h 10m ago
GOP Senator Lindsey Graham on NBC:
“It’s definitely not a Republican wave – that’s for darn sure.”
This is another key hold for Democrats.
Democrat Marcy Kaptur won the House race in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, the Associated Press reported. Kaptur defeated Republican J.R. Majewski, a first-time candidate.
DemocratSeth Magazinerwins the House race in Rhode Island’s 2nd District, according to the AP, beating Republican opponentAllan Fung.
This is a race that Republicans were eyeing as a pickup.
Updated 3h 14m ago
On abortion, Kentucky appears to be following the path of Kansas as this red state is on the verge of rejecting a ballot proposal to ban abortion, with 53% of the voters saying ‘No” with 80% of the vote in, according to the AP.
The same phenomenon occurred in Kansas in August when abortion-rights voters turned out to defeat a similar initiative.
Vance is a big win for Republicans.
Democrat Tim Ryan had run a really spirited campaign, and led in several polls throughout the summer. And Vance stumbled, repeatedly, through this campaign. But Ohio has shifted to the right over the last several years and the environment won out.
Of big note: Ohio’s other Senate seat — currently held by Democrat Sherrod Brown — is up in 2024. That will likely be one of the hardest-fought Senate races in the nation.
Democratic Gov. Newsom Wins Re-Election in California: AP
Updated 3h 17m ago
Military Times editor Leo Shane notes that Vance’s Marine Corps service means another veteran will join the Senate:
After a bitter campaign, Los Angeles is deciding between two registered Democrats for its next mayor: longtime progressive Congresswoman Karen Bass against billionaire developer Rick Caruso, a former Republican.
A Caruso victory would be monumental — toppling the Democratic establishment that coalesced against him as he poured nearly $100 million of his own fortune into the race. He ran on a law-and-order message and a promise to fix LA’s worsening homeless crisis.
Bass, meanwhile, would be the first Black woman to lead LA. “She represents the aspirations of Los Angeles,” Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, told me.
CALIFORNIA HOUSE DISTRICTS 22 AND 45 (Polls close at 11 p.m. ET.) Republican incumbent David Valadao in the 22nd Congressional District in central California is one of only 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump. He is running against state representative Rudy Salas, in a district that has been substantially redrawn since 2020. This heavily Latino district has been targeted by Democrats for years.
Republican Michelle Steel is defending the 45th district against Jay Chen. Steel, first elected in 2020, has the upper hand in this Southern California contest. This race has gotten ugly on racial and ethnic lines with Steel, who is Korean-American, accusing Jay Chen, who is of Taiwanese descent, of being sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party. That kind of accusation resonates loudly in a district where the largest voting bloc is Vietnamese Americans.
OREGON GOVERNOR (Polls close at 11 p.m. ET.) In Oregon, voters may elect the first Republican to the governor’s office in 40 years.
Polling indicates that the race between Republican Christine Drazan, a state legislator, and Democrat Tina Kotek, the speaker of the state House of Representatives is a toss-up the normally deep blue state. Governor Kate Brown, the outgoing Democrat, is leaving with a 56% approval rating.
Inflation in the Midwest has been slighlty midler than nationwide. Still, at 8.4% in September, based on Moody’s Analytics data, Ohio is slightly above the national number. Some pockets of the state have been experiencing higher increases in consumer prices in recent months.
A look at Moody’s data over the four months ended in September shows inflation topped 9% in two Ohio metro areas, including around Wheeling, West Virgina, across the border from Ohio, and Ashland.
Ohio hasn’t fully recovered the jobs lost since the beginning of the pandemic. After steadily improving through the first part of 2022, some measures of employment have started to edge down in recent months as the jobless rate ticked up slightly.
The state’s employment level has been slightly decreasing in the past three months after rising steadily in the previous year. Still, at 4% in September, the jobless rate remains near the record low of 3.8% reached in January 2001.
ABC and NBC have said that Democrat Sharice Davids was re-elected to her Kansas District. That’s another key hold for Democrats.
It’s also a sign of how Democrats in Kansas have been mobilized over abortion. Voters in the state voted to affirm a state right to abortion access earlier this year.
Updated 2h 56m ago
Networks are calling the race for incumbent New Hampshire Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan.
She faced a late surge from Republican Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who wasn’t the preferred candidate of the Republican leadership.
We’re less than 10 minutes away from poll closings in California.
SENATE UPDATE: The battleground races for Senate control:
Georgia: Republican Walker holds a wafer-thin lead over Democrat Warnock, 49.4%-48.6%, according to AP data. A full 71% of votes are tallied.
Ohio: With 78% of ballots counted, Republican Vance is edging out Democrat Ryan, 53.9%-46.1%.
North Carolina: Republican Budd is ahead of Democrat Beasley, 51%-46.9%, with 76% of votes counted.
Pennsylvania: Democrat Fetterman leads Republican Oz, 50.1%-47.5%, with 57% of Keystone State ballots tallied.
Wisconsin: A 50%-50% split between Republican Johnson and Democrat Barnes, with 60% of Badger State ballots counted.
Arizona: Democrat Kelly is ahead of Republican Masters, 58.1%-39.6% with 47% of votes tallied.
Senate Democrat Maggie Hassan Wins Re-Election in NH: ABC, NBC
Updated 3h 15m ago
An update on two close Ohio House races — both of which are trending positively for Democrats:
In the 1st District, Republican incumbent Steve Chabot is trailing by more than 7,000 votes.
In the 9th District, Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur is ahead of Republican J.R. Majewski by nearly 20,000 votes.
Roughly 75% of votes have been reported in both races.
Bloomberg Government’s Alex Ruoff checks in on ballot proposals in South Dakota:
A happy-looking POTUS reminds voters to stay in line as he calls Democratic winners.
New York: In what’s turned out to be an uncharacteristically competitive race for governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul was leading the polls in the state’s most populous city. She has so far garnered 62% of the vote, with 92% of scanners reported as of 10:40 p.m., according to the city’s board of elections.
More than half of the state’s 6 million registered Democrats live in New York City, where Hochul spent the bulk of her campaign against Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin from Long Island. There are more than 12 million active voters in the state, including 2.8 million registered Republicans and Conservatives.
In Erie County, which includes Hochul’s hometown of Buffalo, she was leading 53% to Zeldin’s 47%. The race looked closer in Nassau County on Long Island, where Zeldin was leading 51% to 49% with 25% of precincts counted.
Meanwhile, CNN projects Virginia Democratic incumbent Representative Elaine Luria has lost her election bid to Republican Jen Kiggans.
Updated 3h 33m ago
Spanberger, who defeated Tea Party darling Dave Brat to win her seat, pushed her party to adopt and promote more moderate policies.
This doesn’t suggest that Democrats are having an awesome night. But it does indicate that may not be a terrible, horrible, no-good night.
Spanberger, a former CIA case officer, was elected in 2018 as part of that year’s blue wave. She was one of seven freshmen Democrats with backgrounds in national security who called for impeachment hearings into Trump’s conduct in 2019.
NBC and CNN project that Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger has won re-election in Virginia.
That’s big for Democrats.
Updated 3h 28m ago
New Jersey: The ultra-competitive congressional race between Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski and Republican Tom Kean Jr. in the Garden State’s 7th District has drawn national attention as the GOP vies to take back control of Congress.
Malinowki’s early edge has slipped somewhat as Kean Jr. gains ground, but he still has a steady lead with 54.2%, while Kean Jr. is at 45.8%, with 66% of vote counted.
Malinowski fended off Kean’s election bid by a razor-thin margin two years ago.
At the beginning of the evening, supporters of Kean packed into a ritzy boutique inn nestled in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. By 10:36 p.m., with two-thirds of the vote in, the ballroom has emptied out considerably.
Updated 3h 25m ago
Biden has made congratulatory calls to Senator Chris Van Hollen, Senator Michael Bennet, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Representative Jennifer Wexton, per the White House.
Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jonathan Tamari says Oz’s hopes in Pennsylvania are dependent on the Philadelphia suburbs.
Georgia: Walker, in a short speech to his supporters, tells them to keep holding out for a win.
“I’m telling you right now, I’m like Ricky Bobby. I didn’t come to lose,” he said. Ricky Bobby was the lead character played by Will Ferrell in the 2006 movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which features an “an immature yet successful NASCAR driver,” per Wikipedia.
Abbott was favored to win re-election, with polls showing the incumbent having anywhere from a lead of 5 to 11 percentage points. The results suggest Texans still trust Abbott to lead the state on issues like immigration and the economy — the top concerns among voters. Abbott’s stances favoring a ban on abortions with very few exceptions and loose gun policies were popular with his base.
“It was a bad year for Texas Democrats across the board given an unpopular Biden administration, record inflation and a national Democratic Party that holds positions that are very salient for Texans — such as oil and gas and immigration — that are at odds with those of a majority of Texas voters,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
During his campaign, Abbott spoke frequently about strengthening border security and providing property tax relief, two areas likely to be a focal point in next year’s session.
Republican Greg Abbott won re-election for a third term as governor of Texas, signaling voters approved of his conservative views on immigration, gun policy and the economy.
Abbott, 64, received 54.5% of the vote, with 57% counted, versus 44.4% for challenger Beto O’Rourke, according to results from the Associated Press. Both NBC and Fox News called the race, though the AP has not yet.
The Lone Star State hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since the 1990s.
Shapiro Wins Pennsylvania Governor Race as Democrats Hold Post: Fox, NBC
Updated 3h 44m ago
Walker takes the stage at his Georgia watch party.
“We’re in a fight, are we not?” he asks the crowd. “We’re here to win an election, are we not?”
Walker has a slight lead over Warnock. The two have been close all night, pulling ahead and behind as additional results come in.
The sort of results we’re seeing — Republicans not hitting wave numbers so far (outside of Florida) — suggest that we could be in for a really, really long night.
Maybe multiple nights, plural, if it stays close, because there are many states in play where mail ballots can be received for days to come as long as they are postmarked on time.
Over an hour since polls closed in New York, Assemblyman Mike Lawler leads over Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, now vying for his sixth term in the House.
But of the District 17 counties, Westchester — which leans left—has reported the lowest proportion of its votes, according to the AP.
I’ve been keeping an eye on exit polls and noticing an interesting dynamic with the inflation responses. The issue remains at the top for voters, but it’s highly divided along political lines.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite inflation as adding severe hardship to their lives, and it was more important of an issue for Republicans.
Arizona’s employment in September was well above its pre-Covid level, with almost 170,000 more people at work than in February 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The unemployment rate, at 3.7% in September, is low by Arizona’s historical levels. However, it’s been inching up since May, when it was at a record low of 3.2%.
As in the rest of Sun Belt, Arizona saw its housing market boom during the pandemic. But after mortgage rates soared in recent months, markets such as Phoenix have chilled. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home-price index for the city fell in August from July. Still, it was up 17% from a year earlier.
Democrat Balint wins a Vermont House seat, making her the first woman to represent the state in Congress. Now all 50 states have sent a woman to Washington.
Updated 3h 50m ago
While the victors tonight get sworn in come January, current members of the Senate and House will be back in Washington for a lame-duck session next week.
Both chambers need to work on annual spending bills, an annual defense bill and other matters — including legislation to ensure federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Republicans in both chambers will elect new leadership for the next session. (Democrats will elect their leaders weeks later.)
Republican Governor Abbott Wins Re-Election in Texas: Fox, NBC
Updated 3h 50m ago
More good early numbers for Fetterman in Pennsylvania, though way way way more to go from here.
Among the states that will help decide this election, Arizona and Nevada had the highest pace of inflation over the past year. Consumer prices in the two states soared more than 9.6% in the year through September, according to Moody’s Analytics estimates. Data show that in recent months, inflationary pressure has shifted from southern states to mountain regions like Nevada.
Nevada was among states where polls closed at 10 p.m. ET. Another of those key states that will help decide this election, it’s among regions that have been hit hardest by the pandemic recession — as well as the rampant inflation that followed the economic reopening.
Las Vegas, which tends Democratic, was hammered harder than many places as its services and hospitality sector cratered. The region also has some of the country’s fastest rental-price growth.
The AP calls the Oklahoma governor race for Republican Kevin Stitt.
Updated 3h 58m ago
Via the live-stream: The “Rocky” theme song played as Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano took the stage to greet supporters gathered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
He said he is looking forward to a victory in the Pennsylvania governor’s race. With 43% of votes tallied, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro holds a lead, primarily due to mail-in ballots.
“What a wild ride it’s been,” Mastriano said before invoking Pennsylvania’s role in the nation’s founding, its Civil War history, and the memory of Todd Beamer, one of the passengers who attempted to regain control of United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked and crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.
Barnes is leading Johnson in Wisconsin’s pivotal Senate race. Barnes leads 50.9% to 49.1%, according to the AP. Around half the votes have been counted.
AP calls the open Missouri Senate seat for Republican Eric Schmitt.
It’s early but CNN’s John King is casting doubt on a “red wave” election. He’s notes there are still a lot of votes to be counted.
New York Republican Mike Lawler criticized his opponent Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, for skipping an election party in his Hudson Valley district to stay in Washington.
“It’s frankly fitting that he ends his campaign down in Washington while I’m here,” said Lawler, who was in Pearl River, New York, and was leading the 17th Congressional Distract race by 7.2 percentage points at 10:08 p.m. with an estimated 30.5% of votes counted, according to AP.
Some Democratic strongholds in North Carolina — like Wake County, where Raleigh is — have largely not reported yet, giving Republican nominee Budd an early edge for the US Senate race ahead of Democrat Beasley.
Wake has only reported 31 of 208 precincts. Still, Budd is ahead at 50.9% compared with Beasley’s 47%, with 82% of precincts statewide reporting so far.
Bennet’s race had tightened recently, bolstering GOP hopes of taking the Democratic Senate seat, with the Cook Political Report shifting it from “likely” Democrat to “lean.”
Updated 4h 8m ago
Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado has won re-election, AP says. His race has been seen as competitive this year, but not a toss-up.
Updated 4h 6m ago
Georgia Senate: The race is now a dead heat with Warnock and Walker tied at 49% apiece with 77% of the votes counted, per CNN.
Notably, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver has 1.9% of the vote.
Updated 3h 58m ago
A fast update on Spanberger: She has now pulled ahead of her Republican opponent by about 4,500 votes with about 95% counted.
Things can change quickly, folks!
In the latest update to the Harris County, Texas, polling issues today, the state Supreme Court blocked a lower-court order allowing polls to remain open an additional hour and said any ballots cast after the regular poll closing time of 7 p.m. should be kept separate from votes cast prior to the deadline.
A judge in the county, the third most populous in the US, had earlier ordered polls to remain open for an additional hour following a lawsuit alleging delayed openings at some locations today.
Too soon?
Biden called Democrat Abigail Spanberger to congratulate her for winning re-election in her closely watched Virginia district. But, the AP has yet to call the race. She trails her GOP opponent Yesli Vega by fewer than 5,000 votes, with 84.4% of the results counted. The NYT projects that Spanberger will pull out a win.
Things are not looking so hot for Democrat Elaine Luria, who is also defending a Virginia district and trails Republican Jen Kiggans by more than 22,000 votes with 55% counted.
If Democrats lose both those seats, it’s a not-so-good night for Democrats. If Spanberger wins, they’ll breathe a sigh of relief.
Even though polls have closed in Nevada, if you are in line you are still allowed to vote, and results will not be released until the last voter has submitted a ballot.
In Georgia, Kemp is leading Abrams 53.6% to 45.7% with 77% of the vote counted, per CNN.
Weather may have played a role in turnout in the Western US.
Lake Tahoe and parts of northern Nevada faced snow. LA, which is picking its next mayor, saw a powerful rainstorm blow through that resembled a short-lived nor’easter.
NEVADA SENATE (Polls close at 10 p.m. ET.) Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is at real risk of losing her seat to Republican Adam Laxalt. He’s a former state attorney general and the grandson of previous Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, and early on unified the Trump and establishment wings of the GOP.
Laxalt has attacked Cortez Masto for spending bills and regulations that he said stoked rising inflation and gas prices, and for failing to control the border with Mexico. Cortez Masto, a first-term senator, has focused on Laxalt’s support of the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning Roe v. Wade and his efforts to overturn former Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Laxalt is leading by 2.4 percentage points in a RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
Updated 4h 18m ago
Polls in Montana, Nevada and Utah closed at the top of the hour. Here’s a look at the timetable for the rest of the night:
Democrat Jared Polis wins re-election for governor in Colorado, the AP projects.
Updated 4h 7m ago
In Texas’s 15th District, which includes a small sliver of the Rio Grande Valley, Democrat Michelle Vallejo is staying close to Republican Monica De La Cruz. With 45% of votes counted, according to AP, the race is a lot closer than handicappers had projected. Vallejo is leading De La Cruz by almost 14 percentage points in Hidalgo County, the most populous county in the district.
Vallejo is a much more progressive candidate than her neighboring Democratic candidates in the 34th District to the south and 28th District to the north, yet she’s only trailing by about five percentage points.
Vallejo’s immigration policy included humanitarian assistance for migrants, but for cross-border commerceas well.
The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AC.NEWS
Disclaimer: This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). AC.News will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this articlewww.ac.news websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner. Reprinting this article: Non-commercial use OK. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Discussion about this post