By The New York Times
Donnelly loss is a blow to Democratic hopes
Republican businessman Mike Braun, of Indiana, has won his Senate race, beating Senator Joe Donnelly, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Donnelly’s defeat deals a significant blow to Democratic efforts to retake control of the Senate. Democrats expect Senator Heidi Heidkamp to lose her reelection race in North Dakota. That means the party has to sweep all four remaining competitive senate races to win the majority, an extremely high bar.
The Indiana race was a neck-and-neck contest until the final days, attracting top surrogates from both parties in the final days, including former President Barack Obama and two visits from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Donnelly was one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, who supported Mr. Trump’s proposed border wall and refusing to rule out changing birthright citizenship. Mr. Braun, meanwhile, ran as a staunch backer of the president.
Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was elected to a third term.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times
Menendez keeps his seat
Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was elected to a third term on Tuesday, withstanding a public backlash over his federal corruption trial and the official Senate criticism he received for misusing his office for personal gain. That’s a relief for Democrats who worried that the unpopular senator could deal a surprise blow to their already challenging chances of taking control of the chamber.
9 p.m.: more polls close
Polls have closed in 15 more states, including Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Minnesota has been ground zero for the Democratic efforts to retake the House, with half of the state’s seats in play. In Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat, and Martha McSally, the Republican, are vying in a tight race for Senator Jeff Flake’s seat.
And in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is facing a tough re-election battle against Tony Evers, the Democrat.
Amy McGrath, center, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Kentucky, watched election results in a hotel in Richmond, Ky., on Tuesday.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Kentucky 6th: Barr fends off McGrath
Representative Andy Barr, an incumbent Republican, defeated Amy McGrath, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent challengers, according to The Associated Press.
The contest took on national importance as a proxy for whether Democrats could win over white working class voters in rural areas and whether women would rise up against the barbed-wire rhetoric and harsh policies of the Trump presidency.
2 pickups for the Democrats
Democrats picked up two House seats early in the evening, with victories for Donna Shalala, in Florida, and Jennifer Wexton, in Virginia.
Ms. Shalala, a former Clinton administration cabinet official, beat Maria Elvira Salazar, a former broadcast journalist, for the Miami-area seat in a heavily Latino district.
Ms. Wexton has been leading Representative Barbara Comstock for months, leaving many in the party to anticipate her loss even as Republican officials kept spending money to support her re-election bid.
Her Northern Virginia district is home to a significant population of affluent, college-educated women, who’s been energized by their opposition to the president. How well Democrats do with that demographic will be crucial to their success in the suburban House races that make up many of the most competitive contests.
Their victories mark bright spots for Democrats, who’ve watched as their hopes have been dashed with losses in districts they’d hoped would be competitive elsewhere in Florida.
4 wins for Republicans
House Republicans have successfully defended a few conservative-leaning districts where Democrats saw at least some hope for upset victories, limiting Democrats’ potential gains in Florida’s historically Republican outer suburbs.
Three Republican incumbents — Representatives Brian Mast, Vern Buchanan and Mario Diaz-Balart — held their seats in districts based near Palm Beach, Tampa and Miami, respectively. In a fourth race, Michael Waltz, a Republican, claimed a seat outside Jacksonville left vacant by former Representative Ron DeSantis, who resigned to run for governor.
Democrats were not counting on any of the four districts in order to amass 218 seats for a House majority. But in recent weeks they had seriously contested the Mast and DeSantis seats, especially, and the ease with which Republicans held them may indicate a limit to Democratic inroads in areas with conservative political DNA.
More polls close, including in Florida and Texas
At 8 p.m., polls closed in 20 more states, among them parts of Texas, Florida and Michigan.
In Texas, Beto O’Rouke’s campaign mobilized Democrats across the country, as he’s closed the gap with Senator Ted Cruz. In Michigan, an all-female Democratic ticket, led by Gretchen Whitmer, the candidate for governor, is expected to make gains. And in Florida, Andrew Gillum would become the state’s first black governor if he beats former Representative Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
Results will also start coming soon for tight Senate races in Tennessee and Missouri.
Warren among early calls
Democratic senators in Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut have won their re-election races, as widely expected. The winners include Senator Elizabeth Warren, who spent much of her re-election campaign all but openly running for president. This fall, Ms. Warren said she would “take a hard look” at running for the White House after the midterms are over.
She’s argued that a female president could fix a “broken Washington.”
Polls are closed in Georgia
At 7 p.m. polls closed in: Georgia, much of Florida, New Hampshire, the remainder of Indiana, Western Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.
That means ballots will begin being counted in two of the most hotly contested governor’s races: Georgia and Florida. Democratic wins in both races would mark historic firsts for their states: Stacey Abrams would become the first black female governor in the country, and Andrew Gillum would become the first black governor in Florida.
Democrats are also hoping to pick up some House seats in Virginia, once a red state that’s become far more purple in recent elections. Virginia’s Seventh has been one to watch, with former C.I.A. agent Abigail Spanberger running a neck-and-neck race against incumbent Representative Dave Brat. Brat, a Republican, is famous for his surprise defeat of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Strategists are also keeping a close eye on Representative Barbara Comstock’s Northern Virginia district. A large Democratic turnout in the affluent, highly educated area would show the power of the energized women whose opposition to Mr. Trump has powered much of the Democratic enthusiasm throughout the midterms.
In Vermont, Christine Hallquist, the country’s first openly transgender nominee for a major party in a governor’s race, is trying to oust a popular Republican incumbent.
All over but the waiting
TOPEKA, Kan. — After months of parades and debates and commercials and bus tours, it was time to wait.
Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach, the Trump acolyte running for governor of Kansas, stood in a hotel ballroom in Topeka as Election Day faded into election night. The sprawling room was mostly empty, but patriotic table decorations, Kansas-shaped chocolate bars and stacks of dinner plates were already in place. In a few hours, the polls would close. His supporters would arrive.
Mr. Kobach, who barely won the Republican primary for governor, had spent the last months locked in an exceptionally close race with the Democratic nominee, State Senator Laura Kelly. One poll would show a two-point lead for one candidate, another a one-point lead for the other.
“It looks like it’s high turnout in more conservative counties and high turnout in more liberal counties,” Mr. Kobach told reporters Tuesday afternoon as Fox News played on a giant projection screen beside him. “I’m thinking that a lot of the pollster models may be off. Which direction they are off, who knows. We’ll find out tonight.”
After Ms. Kelly cast her ballot earlier Tuesday, at a theater in another part of Topeka, she said she was putting the finishing touches on her election night speech. Multiple versions of it.
Exit polls show voter pessimism
Early exit polls reported by CNN on Tuesday night showed a gloomy mood in the country after months of contentious campaigning against a recent backdrop of racial tensions and spurts of violence.
Fifty-six percent of voters said they thought the country was headed in the wrong direction, the cable network reported, with 56 percent disapproving of President Trump, 54 percent disapproving of the Republican Party and 55 percent disapproving of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.
That pessimism belied the positive impression most voters hold about the economy halfway through Mr. Trump’s term. Sixty-eight percent of voters said they believed the economy was in good shape, according to the exit polls, and when it came to personal finances only 14 percent of voters said they were worse off than a year ago. Eighty four percent said their finances were either better off or in the same position.
Mr. Trump has sought to frame the midterm elections as a referendum on his presidency and has campaigned on appeals to law and order and fears over illegal immigration. But exit polls reported by CNN suggested that most voters have been focused on something else: health care.
Forty one percent of voters said that health care was the most important issue facing the country, while only 23 percent cited immigration. The economy was the number one issue for 21 percent of voters, and 11 percent said they were most concerned with gun policy.
Overall, 39 percent of voters said they went to the polls to express their opposition to the president, while 26 percent said they wanted to show support for him. Thirty-three percent said Mr. Trump was not a factor in their vote.
Midwestern states helped make Mr. Trump president. Democrats think that all changes tonight, while Republicans are hoping for a couple of crucial, high-profile wins.
In Senate and governor’s races, Democrats believe they are prepared to rebuild the “blue wall” that Mr. Trump breached in 2016, particularly in Michigan. The biggest prize of the night would be toppling Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, whose conservative agenda has diminished the power of labor unions in that state.
But Republicans are betting that Mr. Walker hangs on, and that the party could win the governor’s race in Ohio.
Is history made or not?
Much of the attention has centered on a few high-profile candidates, like Andrew Gillum, who would be the first African-American governor of Florida, and Stacey Abrams, who would be the first African-American female governor in any state. But other barriers are almost sure to fall, like the election of the first Muslim-American woman in Congress and the first openly gay man to be elected governor of any state (in this case, Colorado).
What issues will have the greatest impact?
If American voters had only followed the 2018 election through Democratic campaign ads, they may have thought that the campaign was entirely defined by health care.
If they score major victories in the House tonight, their strategy of focusing more on health care than President Trump will be vindicated.
For Republicans, the issue set is more divergent. Some of their candidates in more moderate areas have focused intently on trumpeting the health of the economy.
But other Republican contenders in more conservative-leaning areas have echoed Mr. Trump’s hard-line rhetoric on issues related to race and immigration, hoping that sounding Trumpian notes will lure his voters out to the polls in larger numbers.
What kind of night will President Trump have?
What’s not in much doubt Tuesday night is whether Mr. Trump will accept any blame if Republicans suffer losses. Spoiler: he likely will not.
The best possible outcome for the president would be if his party retains its House majority, no matter how narrowly, while adding to its one-seat Senate majority and minimizing losses in governorships.
A bad night for Mr. Trump would be if Republicans lost the House, most of the most competitive governor’s races and did not net any Senate seats.
A disastrous night for the president? Democrats take control of the Senate and the House.
