How Election Week 2022 Went Down

Good morning! (It’s still technically morning, give me a break). Let’s take a look at where things stand in the Arizona Senate race, which is crucial from a balance-of-power perspective.

Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly still has a lead with 69 percent of the expected vote reporting. Kelly currently has 51 percent to Republican Blake Masters’s 46 percent (Libertarian candidate Marc Victor has consistently peeled away about 2 percent of the vote). This is a race that has wound up being a lot closer than it looked like it might be a month ago. Kelly had been performing well throughout the campaign while Masters struggled to gain the same traction as Arizona’s other Trump-endorsed, election-denying Republican running in a statewide race: gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. In late September, our forecast had Kelly with about a 4-in-5 shot of winning the race, but things tightened in the home stretch and our final Deluxe forecast gave Kelly 66-in-100 odds of holding onto his seat. Part of this is likely due to the political climate in general favoring the GOP – voters were unhappy about inflation and Biden’s favorability remained low – which Kelly was able to counter through his incumbency, name-recognition, and extremely well-financed campaign (one of the most well-funded in the country). While Blake remained a weaker candidate, he likely got a bump from voter enthusiasm over Lake. The result is a race that will remain tight we await more ballot drops later this evening. We expect many of those to be Election Day ballots and have a GOP edge, but Kelly may have enough of a lead to overcome a late Republican surge.

Marijuana was on the ballot in five states last night, and the results were kind of mixed. ABC News reports that Maryland and Missouri are projected to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. In Maryland, adults will be allowed to possess 1.5 ounces of marijuana (or two marijuana plants) for personal use starting in July 2023; in Missouri, adults will be allowed to possess 3 ounces of marijuana (or six flowering plants). Some people with a criminal record for marijuana-related offenses can petition for expungement of their records in Maryland and Missouri as well. There are now 21 states that have legalized recreational marijuana.

But marijuana legalization did not fare well in three other states. ABC News reports that ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana failed in North Dakota, South Dakota and Arkansas. It’s perhaps a sign that even though public opinion on marijuana has changed a lot over the past decade, recreational marijuana may still be a hard sell in redder states.

Let’s take a step back and look at the battles for the Senate and House, which could still go either way at this point.

In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans have each won 48 seats, and four states are still unprojected: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. However, it’s almost certain that a Republican (either Murkowski or Tshibaka) will win in Alaska, so really it’s more like 49-48. That means Democrats need to win two of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada in order to hold the chamber.

In the House, 209 seats have been projected for Republicans, and 193 have been projected for Democrats. A majority is 218, so Republicans are closer to that, but it’s not impossible that Democrats could run the table. Given how many unprojected House seats there are in California alone, and how slowly California counts its votes, we could be waiting days for an official projection.

In the Nevada attorney-general race, the Democratic incumbent, Aaron Ford, is slightly ahead of his Republican challenger, Sigal Chattah, 51 percent to 46 percent. Results from mail-in ballots will continue to be counted until Nov. 12, so we will continue getting results throughout the week. We may not know the results of close races in the state for days.

ABC News reports that NY-01 has been projected for Republican Nicholas LaLota. This is the seat currently held by Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, who ran against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and lost. Democrats were hoping the seat would be competitive, but the district is still Republican-leaning, so this outcome isn’t too much of a surprise.

With so many House races being called this morning, here’s the current number of seats won by Democrats and Republicans, as of 11:36 a.m. Republicans are nearly at a majority.

Last night, ballot measures in Arkansas and Arizona that would have made it more difficult to pass future ballot initiatives both failed. According to The New York Times, Issue 2 in Arkansas, which was referred to voters by the state Legislature and would have required a 60 percent supermajority for future ballot measures to pass, lost 59 percent to 41 percent. In Arizona, Proposition 128 would have allowed the Legislature to amend or repeal ballot initiatives if any part of them were declared unconstitutional or illegal in court, and it failed 64 percent to 36 percent, according to the Times.

ABC News reports that Democrat Jared Moskowitz is projected to win Florida’s 23rd District, in an open race due to redistricting.

ABC News reports that in Colorado’s 7th District, Democrat Brittany Pettersen is projected to win. This was an open seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter, and there was some thought that Republicans could flip it, but it was always going to be an uphill battle for them.

We have a pretty big projection here! ABC News reports that incumbent Republican Ron Johnson is projected to win the Wisconsin Senate race, defeating Democrat Mandela Barnes, 51 percent to 49 percent. According to our preelection forecast, this was a “Likely Republican” race, so this isn’t too surprising. Still, Barnes made it a pretty close race in the end, despite Johnson attacking him for being soft on crime.

This doesn’t really change Democrats’ math in the Senate, either; they would have liked to pick up this seat, but they don’t need to in order to take the majority. All eyes are on Nevada and Arizona at this point.

Despite the House likely switching to Republican control, Democrats are still on track to have a great midterm outcome. The president’s party typically loses seats during midterm elections, but this year is shaping up to be the best outcome for the president’s party since 1950, given the president’s approval rating.

ABC News is also reporting that Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan has won reelection in Indiana's 1st District. Since Indiana is one of the first states to close its polls, this was a seat we were watching early in night as a possible bellwether for how the House would go. So, uh, yeah, that didn't really pan out. 🙃

ABC News reports that Democrat Ann Kuster is projected to win in New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District over Republication Robert Burns, 56 percent to 44 percent. With that win, Democrats have held onto both of New Hampshire's congressional seats. During the redistricting process, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu had promised to veto two maps drawn by the Republican legislature that would have led to one likely Republican seat and one likely Democratic seat, leading to a map drawn by a special master that led to two highly competitive districts.

We have a few House calls out of Michigan. ABC News reports that Democrat Hillary Scholten is projected to defeat Republican John Gibbs in the race for MI-03, an open seat in the Grand Rapids area. And in MI-07, ABC News reports that Rep. Elissa Slotkin is projected to win reelection, defeating Republican Tom Barrett. Slotkin was elected in 2018 and faced a fairly competitive race against Barrett -- in our forecast, she was only slightly favored to win. Overall, this is more evidence of a strong showing for Democrats in Michigan.

ABC News is reporting that Nebraska's 2nd District has been projected for Republican Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon was a fairly heavy favorite in our preelection forecast, but the race was surprisingly tight — 52 percent to 48 percent — reflecting the relatively good night Democrats had nationally.

Checking in on some down-ballot races we're watching, it looks like the Secretary of State race in Nevada is incredibly close. Marchant, the Republican candidate, has a slight edge with 48 percent over Francisco Aguilar's 47 percent. As Nathaniel has written, Marchant is arguably one of the most extreme election deniers in the country, and, should he win, will preside over an election in a swing state Biden won by fewer than 34,000 votes.

Big news out of New York: Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the DCCC, has conceded his race to Republican Mike Lawler in New York's 17th. (However, Edison Research has not yet projected a winner.) After redistricting, Maloney famously switched districts to run in New York's 17th instead of his old district, the 18th, because the 17th was a tad bluer — forcing fellow Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones out in the process. But it doesn't look like the move paid off.

Curtis, with Pennsylvania's 17th being called for Deluzio, Democrats have won most of FiveThirtyEight's forecasted toss-ups so far. But we're still waiting on results for about seven toss-up races.

ABC News reports that Democrats are projected to hold onto their House seats in New Hampshire’s 1st District and Pennsylvania’s 17th District.

In New Hampshire, incumbent Chris Pappas beat out his Republican challenger, Karoline Leavitt, 54 to 46 percent. This tracks with FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe model, which gave the Pappas a slight edge.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Democrat Chris Deluzio beat out Republican Jeremy Shaffer, 52 to 48 percent, which our forecast had a dead head. The seat was left open after Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb opted to pursue a failed Senate bid earlier in the cycle.

In Alaska’s House race, which uses ranked-choice voting, Democrat Mary Peltola is leading with 47 percent of the vote and 71 percent of the total expected vote reporting. Republican Sarah Palin stands at 27 percent and Republican Nick Begich is at 24 percent.

Right now, things are looking optimistic for Peltola given how her last race turned out. Just a few months ago the same three candidates ran in a special election that also used ranked-choice voting. In that race, Begich came in third and was eliminated after the first round because of ranked-choice voting. Of Begich’s 53,810 votes in August, 29 percent went to Peltola, giving her just enough second-round votes to win. If Begich’s voters vote a similar way this time, Peltola would win early. But it might not need to come to that if Peltola gets a majority with only first-choice votes.

With 98 percent reporting, ABC News reports that Kansas’ Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is projected to win a tight race against Republican Derek Schmidt, 49 to 48 percent. FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe forecast gave Kelly a 62-in-100 chance of winning her election.

ABC News projects that Republican George Santos will beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman and win New York's 3rd District in an upset that will flip a House seat. It was an open race after incumbent Democrat Tom Suozzi forewent the seat for an unsuccessful bid in the state's gubernatorial primary against Hochul this cycle.

ABC News projects that Democrat Laura Kelly will win the governor race in Kansas.

South Dakota voted yesterday to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act via a ballot measure. If I'm counting correctly, that leaves eleven states — mostly in the South, and many where sizable Black populations stand to benefit — which have not adopted to expand their Medicaid programs under the ACA (as changed by the Supreme Court to make the expansion optional).

In Georgia's governor race, Gov. Brian Kemp ended up beating Stacey Abrams by outperforming his benchmarks in almost all counties across the whole state:

But in the state's Senate race, which is careening towards a runoff, it's more of a wash — nothing really separates Warnock and Walker:

I think this alludes to the fact that Georgia voters were excited to vote for Kemp, but didn't feel the same about Walker — and I wonder how these Senate results would look in a run-off without Kemp also on the ballot.

In comparison to Fetterman, DeSantis has had similar results in Florida on the opposite side of the aisle. He's outperformed Trump's 2020 vote across the entire state, even winning Miami-Dade County with a whopping R+11 margin — which would mark the first time Miami-Dade voted red in a major election since the 2010 Senate race.

Amelia, here's where the balance of power is in the Senate as of now. As Geoffrey said earlier this morning, the current projections suggest Democrats are now slight favorites to maintain their narrow edge in the Senate.

Fetterman's win in Pennsylvania is thanks to his overperformance statewide — he's beating his benchmarks in almost every county.

You're right, Dan -- the ability to confirm federal judges is nothing to sneeze at! If Democrats are able to hold onto the Senate, they'll have another two years to appoint judges to the federal bench, whereas if Republicans take over, those efforts will grind to a halt. (See: The last two years of Obama's presidency.) Under Trump, the federal judiciary got a lot more Republican, so two more years would help Biden make up for some of that, although he's unlikely to cancel out Trump's impact entirely.

I want to return to something I posted last night — the ultimate impact of this election could hinge a lot on yet-to-be-decided U.S. Senate races. Accounting for the Senate seats' longer terms (6 years as opposed to the House's 2-year term) and the fact that there are fewer of them (100 seats versus the House's 435 seats), a rough benchmark is that a seat in the Senate is worth 13 times a seat in the U.S. House. And that's before thinking about actions that only the Senate can do — including confirming judicial nominees and cabinet officials. So if some of the outstanding Senate races break in favor of the GOP, the long-term legacy of this election may be different than how it feels 12 hours into the counting.

Our colleague Nathaniel Rakich — who better be sleeping right now — just published a roundup of the projected and undecided gubernatorial races, and it seems, so far, like a mixed bag for each party. Only two gubernatorial seats changed hands from one party to the other — Democrats took both Maryland and Massachusetts — but there are five seats still up in the air that could still reshape the narrative. Have a read!

Amelia, the possibility that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives could flip to Democrats is nothing short of stunning. Ben Forstate, a Democratic data guru who knows as much as anyone, put it this way on Twitter:

In part, the state's redistricting, overseen by a Democratic-leaning Supreme Court, produced maps that gave the Democrats a shot. But I don't think many people here in Pennsylvania thought the State House would prove more competitive in 2022 than 2020. (Note that only some of the state Senate seats are up this cycle, which is why we're talking about the House rather than the Senate.)

Jumping back to a previous thread of discussion, Dan, how surprising is it that the Pennsylvania House might flip? And what does it mean for politics in the state if it does happen?

I've been keeping tabs on which races were most important for abortion access -- and so far, Democrats are sweeping them. In addition to Michigan's ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, Democrats won full control of the Michigan state government for the first time since 1984. Democrat Josh Shapiro won the Pennsylvania governor's race -- providing a backstop against any attempts at an abortion ban there, assuming Republicans hold onto the legislature -- and Democrat Tony Evers won the Wisconsin governor's race, similarly preventing state Republicans from passing an abortion ban to replace the nineteenth-century version that's currently on the books in the state. Republicans were within striking distance of a supermajority in the North Carolina legislature but that didn't pan out either, which means the Democratic governor will be able to keep blocking any attempted abortion bans.

All of those results mean that abortion access will remain secure in several key states for the time being. North Carolina is especially important because it had one of the largest upticks in the number of abortions post-Dobbs, suggesting that it is becoming a destination for people in southern states where abortion is now outlawed.

Against this backdrop, it will be interesting to see how Republicans move forward in states where stricter abortion bans have been discussed but not yet passed. In the next legislative session, we could see a fight between anti-abortion purists -- who want to ban abortion wherever Republicans have power -- and slightly more pragmatic Republicans who may be looking at last night's results and thinking that abortion bans may not be the savviest political move. We already saw a preview of this in South Carolina earlier this year. I suspect we'll see similar fights in the coming months.

We're still waiting on a number of important House races in New York -- here's a quick rundown of where they stand. These will help determine whether Democrats lose control of the House. Overall, this isn't a great picture for Democrats. The state's map is much more competitive than Democrats wanted -- their aggressive gerrymander got tossed by a court and replaced by a more balanced plan -- but still, all of these races seemed like they were in play for either party and right now, Republicans have the edge in many of them. If Republicans do end up winning the seats where they're ahead, it may bolster efforts by Republicans like Rep. Elise Stefanik to shore up the GOP in upstate New York, making the blue state more competitive.

District 1: With 95 percent of the expected vote reporting, Republican Nicholas LaLota has a comfortable lead over Democrat Bridget Fleming. This Long Island seat was vacated by Lee Zeldin, who lost his race for governor last night. LaLota, the Republican, is a Navy veteran who currently works as the chief of staff for the Suffolk County Legislature. Fleming, a former prosecutor and current state legislator. Fleming substantially outraised LaLota, and the seat was redrawn to be favorable for Democrats during redistricting, but it's still a Republican-leaning seat, so seeing LaLota in the lead here isn't too surprising.

Districts 3 and 4: With just under 90 percent of the vote reporting in NY-3 and just over 93 percent of the vote reporting in NY-4, both Republican candidates are leading. In New York's 3rd, that's George Santos, and in the 4th, that's Anthony D'Esposito. One of my favorite quotes from this midterm cycle came from a local news story about the 3rd: "I like some of the things these are saying, I like some of the things those are saying, but basically I hate them both," one voter said. American politics in a nutshell?

District 17: This is a big one. Democratic incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney looks like he really might lose his seat. With 98 percent of the expected vote reporting, his Republican opponent, Michael Lawler, has 51 percent of the vote and Maloney has 49 percent. This would be a dramatic loss for the Democrats, since Maloney is the chair of the DCCC and successfully fended off a progressive primary challenger earlier this year.

District 18: It's neck-and-neck between Democrat Pat Ryan and Republican Colin Schmitt with 97 percent of the vote reporting, although Ryan has the edge. Ryan, if you'll recall, won a special election in the 19th District in August, one of the early signals that Democrats might be heading for a better-than-average midterm.

District 19: With 99 percent of the vote reporting, Republican Marc Molinaro has 51 percent of the vote and Democrat Josh Riley has 49 percent of the vote. Fun fact: Molinaro is truly a career politician. He was elected mayor of the town of Tivoli at the age of 19, and he’s been running for office basically ever since.

District 22: We have 94 percent of the vote reporting here, and Republican Brandon Williams has the edge over Democrat Francis Conole, with 51 percent of the vote. This is a very swingy district without an incumbent in the race, so no surprise that it's close!

WIth 80% of the vote reporting in Nevada's Senate race, Republican Adam Laxalt holds a very narrow lead over Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto: 50% to 47%. With Fetterman winning in Pennsylvania, Republicans would need to win two of the three most endangered Democratic Senate seats to win the chamber — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

Totally agree, Zoha. Republicans were net winners from redistricting and were positioned for a net gain of three to four seats these midterms thanks to the new lines alone. This made the margins already razor-thin for Democrats trying to defend the House, so losing incumbencies for reasons other than redistricting makes their path to maintain control of the House particularly tough.

Agreed, Ryan. I'll also point out that we're still waiting on the projected results for some vulnerable Democrat incumbents — particularly those elected during the "2018 blue wave" midterms — whose losses would really foil the party's last hopes for any hold on the House: That includes Wild in Pennsylvania's 7th and Axne in Iowa's 3rd. They're two of the five 2018 blue wavers who had less than a 50 percent chance of winning according to our final forecast. The other three — Luria in Virginia's 2nd, Malinowski in New Jersey's 7th and Rose in New York's 11th — have already been projected to lose.

So far, seven House districts have flipped, with a net gain of five seats for the Republicans in those races:

Redistricting has played a big role in which House districts have flipped parties so far during these midterms. In our redistricting tracker, we monitored which party gained the most ground in each state's new map and found that the most outsized gains for Republicans were in five states — Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Maryland and Tennessee. Republicans have already flipped three districts in those states — Tennessee's 5th, Florida's 7th and Florida's 13th. There are a few potential flip opportunities left for the GOP in those states, too — particularly Maryland's 6th, Arizona's 2nd and Arizona's 6th.

Democrats have flipped only one House seat so far (somewhat of a surprise flip in Ohio's 1st), and none in the five states where they gained the most ground in redistricting: Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Oregon. There are precious few opportunities left for Democrats to flip seats in these states — they have a chance to beat Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell in New Mexico's 2nd, and to win the newly drawn Oregon 6th. For Democrats, Oregon's 5th District is also at risk of flipping to the GOP, which would wash out a potential gain if the party can pull off a win in Oregon's 6th.

Republicans need to net 5 seats to win control of the House and there's a lot of time left for more districts to swing, so the chamber isn't won quite yet.

To add another voice agreeing with Amelia, here, abortion-linked races went towards the abortion rights side even in some states where the win was absolutely not a sure thing. Montana Supreme Court Justice Ingrid Gustafson had become a lightning rod for this issue, with tons of money pouring into her campaign from abortion rights groups. Her race isn't decided yet, but with 67 percent reporting she's in the lead at 54 percent of the vote ... and the state is also on track to narrowly reject a "born alive" resolution that falsely implies infants are surviving abortion attempts only to be killed by doctors. Doctors also worried the resolution would force them to provide invasive care to pre-term infants with no hope of survival. Political scientists in the state had looked to both of these races as signifiers for the way abortion rights can matter a lot, even to people who otherwise reliably vote Republican.

On a potential gender gap -- I just want to underscore that although we'll have to see how the results shake out, it's possible that this was an issue that motivated some men as well as women. In general, views of abortion are pretty similar among both men and women and because it's become such a partisan issue, I've been expecting some Democratic men to be motivated by it as well. That doesn't mean we won't see a gender gap in the national results and key races -- we likely will, simply because women are more likely to vote Democratic than men. But women are a big group and we'll be digging below the surface to look at what happened among key groups (like young women) and in key states, which will likely tell a more helpful story than the topline gender gap alone.

On Amelia's point, election night narratives are often shaped by maps—we look at what's happening in indicative jurisdictions like the Rio Grande Valley and extrapolate. But women and men are way less geographically segregated than, say, many ethnic or racial groups, so any gender patterns won't be immediately apparent when looking at maps.

Kris Kobach, the former Kansas Secretary of State who ran the Trump Administration's failed Voter Fraud Commission, lost a lawsuit over a voter citizenship law in Kansas (which ultimately cost the state $1.9 million), and then lost races in the state for governor and senate, may have gotten his groove back last night. WIBW TV has not yet called this race and his opponent, Democrat Chris Mann, had not yet conceded as of 2:00 am. But Kobach is ahead by a bit more than 22,000 votes and declared victory last night. He says he will focus on the state's fentanyl crisis and what he described as organized gangs of shoplifters in big box stores.

Your morning crew is still getting caught up -- but for those who also went to bed at a (semi) reasonable hour last night, we'll be keeping you updated as results come in and offering some thoughts about the results so far. My big takeaway is that despite fading in the polls during the lead-up to the election, abortion did in fact seem to matter quite a lot to voters in key states like Michigan. In that state, according to the exit polls (which are not exact), almost half of voters said that abortion was a top issue driving their vote, much higher than the national results. And in Michigan, of course, voters decisively voted to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution. We're still waiting on a final call on Kentucky's anti-abortion ballot measure, but with 82 percent of the expected vote reporting, the abortion-rights side is leading -- but just barely -- with 51 percent of the vote.

Here's an interesting pre-election thread by fellow Pennsylvanian Lara Putnam on voter registration patterns here in the Commonwealth—and the genuine turning point Dobbs represented.

Overnight, Democrats won control of both the Michigan state Senate and Michigan state House. It is the first time Democrats have won the state Senate since 1984. Since Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also won reelection, Democrats will now have full control of Michigan state government.

Good morning readers — it’s a bit after 7 a.m. and the FiveThirtyEight morning crew is back online! We’ll be bringing you new election updates as they come in this morning.