Midterm Elections (2022)

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      Midterm Election Results

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      The majorities in the House and the Senate remain uncalled. Here’s what we know. Democrats defied expectations in the midterm elections, potentially defending enough seats to maintain control of the Senate but likely not enough to keep Republicans from taking the House. The battle for power in Congress stood too close to call this morning.The Democrats’ biggest win of the night came in the Pennsylvania Senate race, where John Fetterman defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz to flip the seat, which is held by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey. Three other races critical to the outcome of Senate control — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — were too close to call. Democrats, who are running incumbents in all three seats, probably need to win two to keep the Senate; Republicans have to pick off two to take over.We may not know who won the Senate for some time: Georgia’s contest appears headed to a runoff election, to be held in December. (See the latest Senate results.)In the House, Republicans are favored to win control, but they appear to be on track to do so by less than many political observers expected. The Times forecasts that Republicans will end up with 224 seats, just above the 218 needed to secure a majority. That result would be the weakest performance by the president’s opposing party in a midterm election since 2002. “This is not the night the Republicans wanted,” Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, wrote. “The party is underperforming most everywhere.” (See the latest House results.)* Incumbent | Results as of 6 a.m. E.T. | Source: The Associated PressFor President Biden, a Republican-controlled House dooms his chances of passing the rest of his agenda in the next two years. Keeping the Senate would let Democrats continue approving Biden’s nominations for his administration and the courts.Here’s where we stand:Three high-profile Republican governors — Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas and Brian Kemp of Georgia — won re-election. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for governor, easily beat Doug Mastriano, an election denier. Democratic incumbents won in Wisconsin and Michigan.Voters in Vermont, California and Michigan approved constitutional amendments protecting abortion and reproductive rights. An anti-abortion ballot initiative in Kentucky was too close to call. More than 210 Republicans who questioned the 2020 election won seats in Congress and in state races. Whether and how Republicans who lose will accept defeat is a major unknown.Many of Donald Trump’s most prominent endorsements came up short. He delivered brief remarks at a Mar-a-Lago party last night, and made no mention of DeSantis, a potential 2024 rival.America leaves these midterms much as it entered, The Times’s Lisa Lerer writes: a divided country that remains anchored in a narrow range of the political spectrum.It could take days to get all the results. Here’s a potential timeline.SenateMany of the biggest contests are too close to call. Here’s where the rest of the major races stand:Georgia: Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, leads Herschel Walker, the Trump-backed former football star, but the race appeared headed to a Dec. 6 runoff. Nevada: The race between Catherine Cortez Masto, a one-term Democratic incumbent, and Adam Laxalt, the state’s election-denying former attorney general, remained too close to call. Many ballots are left to count.Arizona: Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, led Blake Masters, a Trump-endorsed venture capitalist, according to The Times’s election needle. The race was leaning toward Kelly.Wisconsin: Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, narrowly led Mandela Barnes, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor.Republicans held on to seats in Ohio, where J.D. Vance, a critic-turned-defender of Trump, beat Tim Ryan, a Democratic member of Congress., and in North Carolina, where Ted Budd, a Republican member of Congress, defeated Cheri Beasley, the state’s Democratic former chief justice.Maggie Hassan, a two-term Democratic incumbent in New Hampshire, easily beat Don Bolduc, a Republican retired Army general who had questioned the 2020 election results.HouseHeaded into the election, Democrats held a narrow majority in the House: 220 to 212. Republicans needed to win 19 competitive seats to take control. So far, they have won five. Democrats would need to win 46 to keep control and have claimed 19.Republicans flipped seats in New Jersey and Virginia. In New York’s Hudson Valley, Mike Lawler was leading Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democrats’ House campaign arm.Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a political pariah, glided to victory in her predominantly Republican district.Democrats flipped Republican-held House seats in Ohio and Michigan and held on to vulnerable seats in Virginia, New Hampshire and elsewhere.Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, won re-election in an Ohio district redrawn to favor Republicans. She is set to become the longest-serving woman in congressional history.Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, was ahead of Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich in Alaska’s sole House election.Vermont elected Becca Balint, a progressive Democrat, to its lone House seat, becoming the last U.S. state to send a woman to Congress.Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat, will become the first Gen Z member of Congress after winning a Florida House seat.GovernorsGov. Ron DeSantis won re-election in Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesHeaded into Election Day, Republicans controlled 28 governors’ mansions, while Democrats controlled 22. Democrats flipped the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts. Some notable races:Florida: DeSantis won historically Democratic parts of the state, giving his party an unusually strong performance. The results may boost his prospects as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.Arizona: The race between Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who falsely claims Trump won the 2020 election, and Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, remained uncalled.New York: Kathy Hochul won a full term, beating Lee Zeldin, a Republican member of Congress, in one of the state’s closest races in decades.Maine: Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, won a second term, defeating Paul LePage, the Republican former governor.Michigan: The incumbent Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer, defeated the Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon.Arkansas: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, will be the state’s first female governor.Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott won a third term, beating Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat.Massachusetts: Maura Healey, a Democrat, became the nation’s first openly lesbian governor, flipping control of the governorship from Republicans.Maryland elected Wes Moore, a Democratic former nonprofit executive, as its first Black governor.Races in Nevada and Oregon remained uncalled.Ballot measuresMaryland and Missouri voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Similar efforts failed in Arkansas and North Dakota.Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly voted for a higher minimum wage for tipped workers.Ballot initiatives restricting forced prison labor passed in Alabama, Tennessee and Vermont and failed in Louisiana. Results in Oregon were too early to call.Commentary“Big winners tonight: Biden, who lost far fewer congressional seats than historical averages; reproductive rights, which proves a major issue among voters; democracy, with huge voter turnout and many high-profile election deniers losing big.” — Mark Updegrove, historian“There wasn’t a red wave. That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters.” — Marc Thiessen, Washington Post columnist and Fox News commentator“If you’re worried about the health of our democracy, it seems pretty good that we’ve had big turnout — implying that both sides think their votes actually matter.” — Farhad Manjoo, Times Opinion columnist“Voters weren’t necessarily looking to move the country left or right. They were anxious about the ways our country feels like it is unraveling. They went looking for a safe harbor in a storm.” — Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster“Dems have a Florida problem, but Republicans have a Trump problem. That seems harder to solve.” — Jen Psaki, former Biden press secretaryTHE LATEST NEWSEuropean leaders announced funding for poorer nations damaged by climate change.Climate change already has a growing impact on almost every aspect of U.S. society, a federal report found.Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it was cutting more than 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of its work force.Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star, is being transferred to a Russian penal colony.A $2 billion lottery ticket was sold in Los Angeles County.MORNING READSLeading artist: Revisiting Winston Churchill’s paintings.Stolen Rolex: A high-drama divorce in Italian soccer royalty.Full-body workout: You can do it in 20 minutes.Lives Lived: Evelyn de Rothschild, heir to a European banking dynasty, might have become a playboy. Instead, he joined the family business and helped reshape the British economy. He died at 91.PLAY, WATCH, EATDavid Malosh for The New York TimesWhat to CookMelted Cheddar and fermented kimchi make instant ramen even more satisfying.What to ReadYuval Noah Harari rewrote the story of human history for kids.Late NightStephen Colbert called Republican victories “a pink trickle.”Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was hourlong. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Okay! (Four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. The DealBook team has grown: Ravi Mattu is now managing editor and Bernhard Warner is a senior editor.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about the midterms. On “Still Processing,” disco is back.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Nevada Election Results Could Take Days, Officials Say

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      Overwhelmed election officials in Nevada say that they have been flooded by thousands of mail-in ballots, and that it may take several days to count the votes and upload results.Last year, the state began requiring that mail-in ballots be sent to every registered voter. While ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, they can be counted if they arrive as late as Saturday.Elections officials have emphasized the need for patience and have not offered predictions on how quickly they will be able to offer tallies.Jamie Rodriguez, the interim registrar of voters in Washoe County, said she was expecting roughly 16,000 mail-in ballots to arrive on Election Day. She said that those votes would not be counted until Thursday because poll workers were so behind.“Understand that whatever results posted tonight, if there are close races, there are definitely still a large number of votes to be counted,” Ms. Rodriguez said on Tuesday night.And even the results that have come in came slowly. Nevada does not post its results until the last voter in the state casts a ballot, and the polls did not officially close until after 9 p.m. local time. Tallies did not start coming in until late Tuesday, after many contests on the East Coast had already been called.Long waits and continuous warnings from elections officials did not prevent the candidates in a competitive race for a Nevada Senate seat from projecting confidence about their standing. Early Wednesday morning, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, was slightly behind her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt.“We have a lot of our votes coming in all across the state, yet to be tabulated,” Mr. Laxalt said on election night at a party in Las Vegas. “We are going to win this race.”“We had people voting in the snow and then the rain because they want a better Nevada and a better America,” he added. “Unfortunately, we’re in for a long night and maybe a few days into this week as all the votes are tabulated.”Ms. Cortez Masto was also upbeat, but made the situation clear: “We won’t have results for several days.”The lag means Nevadans will also have to wait for results in other competitive state races, including the governor’s race between the incumbent, Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Joe Lombardo. Mr. Lombardo held a narrow lead early Wednesday morning. More

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      The House Hangs in the Balance, as Fetterman’s Win Boosts Senate Democrats

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      Republican hopes of an emphatic repudiation of President Biden had morphed into a district-by-district slog by Wednesday. But the party still had multiple paths to a House majority.Democrats displayed unexpected resilience in the 2022 midterms, flipping a Republican-held Senate seat in Pennsylvania and rebuffing G.O.P. candidates in a wide array of House seats. But the party’s excruciatingly narrow margins in both chambers meant the battle for power on Capitol Hill remained undecided early Wednesday morning.In the House, Republicans have a multitude of pathways to seize control from Democrats, needing to flip just five seats, and G.O.P. leaders expressed bold confidence about their chances overnight.“When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, predicted to supporters at 2 a.m. Yet when he spoke, only a single House Democratic incumbent had been formally defeated, a sign of how the night fell far short of Republican expectations. A number of Democrats were trailing in races that were still too close to call, including the chairman of the Democratic House campaign arm, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, whom Mr. McCarthy predicted would ultimately lose. The 2022 midterms were hard-fought — over crime, inflation, abortion, immigration and democracy itself — and the results so far reflect a deeply yet closely divided nation. For Republicans, their hopes of an emphatic repudiation of President Biden and his party had morphed into a district-by-district slog.Republican majorities in one or both chambers would usher in a new era of divided government at a turbulent moment in American politics, all but freezing the Democratic policy agenda for the second half of Mr. Biden’s first term and very likely signaling the start of endless investigations into the administration.On the Friday before the election, Mr. Biden warned in unusually blunt terms what the future would look like if Republicans took both the House and Senate. “It’s going to be a horrible two years,” Mr. Biden said in a Chicago speech to donors.In the weeks before the election, Democrats had been forced to spend time, energy and money deep in blue territory, in liberal parts of California and New York, where Mr. Biden had won with ease two years ago. The tilt of the battleground map was widely seen as a sign of Mr. Biden’s unpopularity.Yet on Tuesday, Democrats mounted a stiff defense in a remarkably diverse set of geographic and demographic corners of America. Incumbents fended off Republican challengers in an upscale suburb in Kansas, a sprawling exurban district in Northern Virginia, a conservative-leaning seat that encompassed Toledo in northwestern Ohio and a district in Central Michigan that drew more than $25 million in outside spending.Representative Mayra Flores, a Republican from South Texas, began Tuesday posting an image on Twitter of a cresting red wave. “TODAY’S FORECAST,” she captioned it. Sixteen hours later, she had an update: “The RED WAVE did not happen.” She had just been defeated by Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat.Overall across the country, Election Day seemed to have unfolded smoothly for millions of Americans. But in some communities, lawsuits were filed and scattered problems were reported, including technical glitches that disrupted ballot counting in Arizona’s Maricopa County.The closeness of the races across the nation and the slow counting process in many states, including California, injected a high level of uncertainty into where the final margin in the House would land. For Mr. McCarthy, a slim majority would complicate both his path to the House speakership and his ability to govern should Republicans take control.John Fetterman and his family after winning the Senate race in Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThe biggest win of the night belonged to a Democrat: John Fetterman, the sweatshirt-wearing lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, who defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz in a fierce battle for Senate that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. “I am so humbled,” Mr. Fetterman said after 1 a.m., delivering a victory speech in a black hoodie.His win brightened Democrats’ chances to keep hold of a 50-50 Senate where the party did not have a single seat to spare. The Pennsylvania seat that Mr. Fetterman won is currently held by a Republican, the retiring Senator Pat Toomey. Now, in order to keep the Senate majority, Republicans must flip two other Democratic-held seats, with three potential opportunities still uncalled as of early Wednesday: Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, led Herschel Walker, a Republican former football star, with nearly all of the vote counted early Wednesday morning. But Mr. Warnock was hovering shy of the 50 percent threshold he would need to avoid a runoff in December.In other key Senate races, Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, won re-election, while two Republicans whom Donald J. Trump had endorsed and helped win primaries — Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina and the best-selling author J.D. Vance in Ohio — both won as well.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, comfortably won re-election despite facing a Democratic challenger, Representative Val Demings, who was fueled by $73 million in campaign contributions.Florida was a bright spot for Republicans. Mr. McCarthy boasted of winning four House seats there. And Gov. Ron DeSantis coasted to re-election, with his race called by The Associated Press just minutes after the polls closed.The results cemented the fact that the once-battleground state has shifted decidedly to the right in recent years. Nowhere was that clearer than in the heavily Hispanic and populous Miami-Dade County, where Mr. Rubio and Mr. DeSantis were both ahead; Mr. Biden had carried that same county in 2020 even while losing the state.In a victory speech, Mr. DeSantis, who is considered a possible 2024 candidate for president, said Republicans had “rewritten the political map” of the state.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida greeted the crowd alongside his wife Casey after winning the Florida governor’s race during his election night party in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTwo Democratic candidates for governor once seen as rising stars in the party — Beto O’Rourke in Texas and Stacey Abrams in Georgia — were defeated.But Democrats scored notable successes in other governor’s races, especially in presidential swing states where Republicans had nominated a candidate who had embraced the election denialism espoused by Mr. Trump. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin turned back such Republican challengers. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, dispatched his far-right opponent.In Arizona, Kari Lake, another Trump-aligned Republican, was locked in a race that was too close to call with Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state.The Democrats also won back the governorships of Massachusetts and Maryland from departing anti-Trump Republicans.The victories came even as polls showed Democrats were battling intense national headwinds, with voters deeply concerned about the economy and inflation. Republicans sought at every turn to tie Democratic candidates to their national party, while Democrats often portrayed their opponents as far outside the political mainstream, especially on issues of abortion.Some Democratic strategists believe the party’s efforts to make abortion one of the defining issues of 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years of precedent and eliminated the federal right to an abortion in June, had strengthened the party’s hand, galvanizing the Democratic base. Even before the polls closed, people close to the White House were already bracing for Republican-led investigations on Capitol Hill, as far-right members — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats — could join the powerful House Oversight Committee, which has broad subpoena power. “There will be voters in my race who vote for change because of the economy,” said Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey. “That doesn’t mean they’re voting for chaos. That doesn’t mean they’re voting for Marjorie Taylor Greene to spend the next two years burning down the House of Representatives.”He was trailing early Wednesday, but the race remained uncalled. More

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      Malliotakis Defends N.Y.C. House Seat, Toppling Familiar Democratic Foe

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      Representative Nicole Malliotakis defended her seat on Tuesday against Max Rose, the Democrat whom she unseated two years ago, preserving her status as the lone Republican in New York City’s House delegation, according to The Associated Press.Ms. Malliotakis was widely expected to win re-election in New York’s 11th Congressional District, which encompasses Staten Island and a section of southern Brooklyn, and is the most conservative-leaning in the city.Shortly after The A.P.’s race call, at around 9:45 p.m., Ms. Malliotakis led Mr. Rose by more than 26 percentage points. She held a significant lead with voters in Staten Island, which makes up the bulk of the district.In Ms. Malliotakis’s re-election campaign, she followed her party’s strategy of focusing on the economy and public safety, pinning rising inflation and crime on Democratic leaders and, by extension, on Mr. Rose.In particular, she focused on changes to New York’s bail laws made by state Democrats in 2019, which she blamed for an uptick in crime. Though Mr. Rose was not involved, she noted that he had voiced support for the principles behind bail reform in the past.Mr. Rose focused his campaign heavily on abortion access, arguing that Ms. Malliotakis would support further restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He also tried to link Ms. Malliotakis to far-right factions of her party, zeroing in on her voting against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.But Ms. Malliotakis, a former state assemblywoman, was able to build on the success she found in 2020, when she beat Mr. Rose by about six percentage points, and kept the seat in Republican hands after it flipped parties in each of the previous two elections. More

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      Rubio Is Re-elected to Senate, Defeating Demings in Florida

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      Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, defeated his Democratic challenger, Representative Val Demings, on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. The win secures his third term in Congress and further cements the G.O.P.’s grip on the state.Ms. Demings, a Black woman who served as Orlando’s first female police chief, was seen as a formidable opponent to Mr. Rubio, a polished mainstay of Florida politics. Ms. Demings mounted a serious challenge in which she highlighted her law enforcement credentials in a midterm cycle in which Republicans tried to paint Democrats as soft on crime.In the final days of the race, Ms. Demings campaigned with President Biden, who had considered her during the 2020 campaign as a potential running mate. Mr. Rubio held a rally with former President Donald J. Trump.But Ms. Demings struggled for months to narrow Mr. Rubio’s lead in the polls in a state that has shifted rightward. Mr. Rubio, who held few campaign events while the state was recovering from Hurricane Ian and delivered a gaffe-free performance in the single debate between the candidates, gave her few opportunities to undercut his campaign.Mr. Rubio painted his opponent as extreme, calling her a “puppet” of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and claiming that she would be “Florida’s most liberal senator ever” and was “dangerously radical.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Re-Elected in Georgia

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      Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories put her on the fringes of the Republican Party when she was first elected two years ago, was re-elected on Tuesday and is poised to play a more central role in the next Congress. The race was called by The Associated Press.Ms. Greene’s win in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District was never in question. The district is one of the most Republican in the country, and The Associated Press called the race for her over her Democratic opponent, Marcus Flowers, soon after the polls closed. But her growing status and clout, coupled with the likely election of similar candidates elsewhere in the country, reflects a broader transformation of the Republican Party.When Ms. Greene won the party’s nomination in 2020, it caused consternation among mainstream Republicans who did not want to be associated with her promotion of the QAnon movement and other far-right conspiracy theories. Among other things, she had suggested that the Sept. 11 attacks were a hoax; that wildfires had been caused by space lasers controlled by the Rothschilds, the banking family used as a metonym for Jews in antisemitic conspiracy theories; and that Democratic leaders should be executed.But, after initially trying to ignore her, Republicans rallied around Ms. Greene when House Democrats stripped her committee assignments. In her primary this year, she easily defeated a more moderate Republican. Far from being a pariah, she is an increasingly influential player in the House Republican caucus.In September, she stood directly behind Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, as he described the priorities of a future Republican majority. More