At long last, that’s a wrap
The New York Senate race has already been projected, while we haven’t gotten a projection yet in the governor’s race. It’s interesting, though, after everything that was made about how close the governor’s race could be, the Republican in that race — Lee Zeldin — is running only 4 points head of Chuck Schumer’s Republican challenger, with 23 percent of the expected vote in. Curious to see how long it takes to project the governor’s race since the Senate race, again, has already been called.
Democrats are hoping to avoid disaster in Rhode Island’s 2nd District. Biden would have carried the district handily in 2020, but Rep. Jim Langevin’s retirement created a chance for Republican Allan Fung to pull off an upset. Fung is the popular former mayor of the district’s largest city and a former gubernatorial nominee, but Seth Magaziner has pulled ahead with 89 percent counted: He leads 51-47 percent.
As Zoha just mentioned, there are several 2018 “blue wave” freshman who are in close races today. Three of them are women — Axne, Wild, and Luria. We are watching to see how they do, as well as other women running in toss-ups.
How are women faring in ‘Toss-Up’ races?
Results for female candidates in races where both parties had less than a 60 percent chance of winning, according to the Deluxe version of FiveThirtyEight’s final preelection forecast, as of 9:53 p.m. Eastern
| race | candidate | party | Percent reporting | vote margin | Winner? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AK-1 | Mary S. Peltola i | D | 0% | — | |
| AK-1 | Sarah Palin | R | 0 | — | |
| IA-3 | Cindy Axne i | D | 51 | D+13.5 | |
| MI-3 | Hillary Scholten | D | 7 | R+20.0 | |
| NV Senate | Catherine Cortez Masto i | D | 0 | — | |
| NV-1 | Dina Titus i | D | 0 | — | |
| OR-5 | Jamie McLeod-Skinner | D | 0 | — | |
| OR-5 | Lori Chavez-DeRemer | R | 0 | — | |
| PA-7 | Susan Wild i | D | 31 | D+32.3 | |
| PA-7 | Lisa Scheller | R | 31 | D+32.3 | |
| TX-15 | Michelle Vallejo | D | 61 | R+5.6 | |
| TX-15 | Monica De La Cruz | R | 61 | R+5.6 | |
| TX-34 | Mayra Flores i | R | 58 | D+10.4 | |
| VA-2 | Elaine G. Luria i | D | 92 | R+10.0 | |
| VA-2 | Jen A. Kiggans | R | 92 | R+10.0 |
I’m watching three House districts in Illinois: the 6th, 14th and 17th Districts. Two of those districts — the 6th and 14th — have Democratic incumbents who were first elected in 2018, while the 17th is an open seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos. Right now, the incumbents in the 6th (Sean Casten) and 14th (Lauren Underwood) are comfortably in the lead with about 35 percent of the vote reporting. In the very swingy 17th District, only 5 percent of the vote is in, and the Republican, Esther Joy King, is leading by a lot — but it’s still early, of course.
In the race for the North Carolina Supreme Court’s open seat, 63 percent of precincts have reported, and Republican candidate Richard Dietz is ahead of Democrat Lucy Inman, 52 percent to 48 percent. In the race for the 5th seat, with 67 percent of precincts reported, Republican Trey Allen — an attorney who has never worked as a judge — is leading the Democrat, incumbent Justice Sam Ervin, who has sat on the court since 2015, 52 percent to 48 percent.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, Barnes is leading Johnson 54 percent to 46 percent with the same share of the vote reporting. As expected, Evers is running a bit ahead of Barnes — a 13-point lead vs. an 8-point lead — so it’s possible Wisconsin will see a split decision tonight.
With 20 percent of the expected vote reporting in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, Evers leads Michels 56 percent to 43 percent. However, most of the votes currently are coming from the Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee, so expect Michels (the Republican) to gain ground.
Given what Monica said about Axne in Iowa and what Jacob said about Malinowski in New Jersey, it’s worth flagging again that these are two of the most vulnerable 2018 “blue wave” freshmen currently up for reelection. According to our forecast, five Democratic House members seeking their third consecutive term tonight have less than a 50 percent chance of winning: Axne and Malinowski are joined by Elaine Luria in Virginia’s 2nd District, Susan Wild in Pennsylvania’s 7th and Max Rose in New York’s 2nd. We’re still waiting on projections for all of these races, although Virginia’s 2nd has 91 percent reporting. Luria currently has 45 percent of those votes.
That quick call for Bennet — and Hassan’s strong results in New Hampshire so far — really mitigate against “red tsunami” scenarios. Democrats may have a fairly bad night, but they’re unlikely to have a catastrophic one.
Yep, so far, so good (or bad, depending on your perspective), Maya. The states we were expecting to count fast, like Florida and North Carolina, have done so, and even states like Georgia have given us a lot of votes early on (though the pace there has slowed somewhat since they dropped all their absentees). Other states, like New Hampshire and Maine, have been much slower, and we’re expecting Nevada and Arizona to follow in their footsteps shortly.
We’ve got results pouring (or, in some cases, trickling) in from across much of the country. After the pace at which states counted became a major storyline in 2020, does this cycle’s vote-counting appear to be tracking with expectations?
One county I have my eye on here in Pennsylvania is Greene County, in the southwest corner of the state — excuse me, commonwealth. Greene was the county in which the Democrats’ 2016 Senate candidate outran Hillary Clinton by the largest margin — and so potentially a county where Fetterman may be able to appeal to ancestral Democrats who have drifted toward the GOP in the Trump era. So far, though, Shapiro is running better than Fetterman in Greene — though he’s not running particularly well, winning just 31 percent of the county’s voters, with around 90 percent of the expected vote in.
And in the Ohio Senate race, as Nathaniel and I predicted earlier: Vance has now overtaken Ryan. With 50 percent of the expected vote reporting, Vance has 51 percent to Ryan’s 49 percent.
ABC News also projects that Maryland incumbents Steny Hoyer and John Sarbanes will keep their House seats (nobody was holding their breath on those) and that Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen has won reelection. I checked in on how the vote to legalize marijuana is going, too, and with 30 percent of the expected vote reporting, 65 percent of Marylanders want to legalize recreational marijuana, while 35 percent do not.
In Oklahoma’s race for governor we have a projection! ABC News projects incumbent Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt will win reelection
We have 22 percent of the expected vote in from Pennsylvania, and the expected gap between the Senate and governor races is showing up. Shapiro leads Mastriano 60 percent to 38 percent in the governor’s race, while Fetterman leads Oz 55 percent to 42 percent in the Senate contest, so there’s about a 9-point gap between the margins in those matchups. As we get more Election Day votes, Shapiro and Fetterman will see their leads shrink because those will be Republican-leaning. However, we know Shapiro is a clear favorite to win, while the Senate race is a toss-up, so the closer the Senate race is to the governor’s race, the better it is for Fetterman; the farther apart, the better for Oz.
ABC News projects that Republican Kevin Stitt will win the governor race in Oklahoma.
ABC News projects that Democrat Wes Moore will be the next governor of Maryland. This is not a surprising result — according to our forecast, he was very likely to win — but it’s noteworthy because he will replace a Republican and become the first Black governor of the state. It’s the second governorship to change parties so far tonight:
Which governorships have changed hands so far
Races that ABC News has projected for the party that does not currently hold the governorship, as of 9:37 p.m. Eastern
| state | incumbent party | name | party | current lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MA | R | Maura Healey | D | D+10.8 |
| MD | R | Wes Moore | D | D+28.1 |
Why wasn’t this one a surprise? The current Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, was term-limited and couldn’t run for reelection, and GOP primary voters chose Dan Cox, a far-right state delegate, to run this year. Cox attended the Jan. 6 rally, although he says he didn’t participate in the attack on the Capitol, and Democrats have been working hard to paint him as an extremist. Combine that with the fact that Maryland is a very blue state, and you can see why Moore came into tonight heavily favored.
Well, as predicted, the three congressional races we’re keeping an eye on along Texas’s southern border are … competitive! In the 15th District, Republican Monica De La Cruz has a pretty significant lead over Democrat Michelle Vallejo: 71 percent to 28 percent (with roughly 19 percent of the expected vote in.) The 34th District looks like it could be another pick-up opportunity for Republicans this year. Currently, the race here is still very, very close, but Democrat Vicente Gonzalez leads Republican Mayra Flores by only about 3 percentage points: 50 percent to 47 percent (with 36 percent of the expected vote in). The only race that looks like it won’t be as competitive for Democrats is the 28th District, where Rep. Henry Cuellar leads Cassy Garcia, 58 percent to 42 percent (with roughly 50 percent of the expected vote in.)
ABC News projects that Democrat Michael Bennet will win the Senate race in Colorado.
We’ve got some votes coming in from New Jersey, where Democrats are trying to hold onto several seats they picked up in the 2018 midterms. The most vulnerable is Tom Malinowski in the 7th District. He current leads Tom Kean, Jr., 65 percent to 35 percent, with 20 percent reporting — but expect that margin to come down significantly. Malinowski’s less vulnerable colleagues in the 3rd (Andy Kim) and 5th Districts (Josh Gottheimer) are both leading current vote count by close to 50 points, which will also come down as the night progresses.
Kathy Hochul has a big lead in the New York governor’s race so far, though it’s mostly votes from New York City. And the borough-by-borough splits are kind of crazy. Lee Zeldin leads by 34 points in Staten Island, but trails at least by 30 points in every other borough.
ABC doesn’t track the Kansas attorney-general race, but the state’s data is reporting that, with 13 percent of the vote counted, Democrat Chris Mann is in the lead, with 60 percent of the vote, versus Republican Kris Kobach, with 40 percent.
We’re getting results from North Dakota: ABC News projects that incumbent Sen. John Hoeven will win reelection, while incumbent Rep. Kelly Armstrong is also slated to hold onto the state’s at-large House seat.
Results are starting to trickle in in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. It’s one of the 10 districts most likely to decide control of the House, and Democratic incumbent Cindy Axne is ahead of her Republican challenger, Zach Nunn, 60 percent to 40 percent, with 35 percent of the expected vote in.
ABC News has projected that Republican Gov. Phil Scott will win reelection in Vermont. While Vermont is a deep-blue state, Scott has proved to be one of the most popular governors in the country. He’s also been the rare Republican to rebuke and even reject Trump, which likely also has something to do with his continued success.
The other thought I have is that, if the race is going fairly close to expectations, I tend to doubt we’re going to know who wins the Senate tonight.
We have 33 percent of the vote reporting in Kentucky’s anti-abortion ballot measure, and things are looking a lot tighter. The “no” vote (which is to say, the abortion-rights side) has 51 percent, and the “yes” vote (the anti-abortion rights side) has 49 percent. This could be very close.
For context: According to polling by Civiqs, a majority (54 percent) of Kentucky voters think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 43 percent think it should be legal in all or most cases — so in a different year, this might have been a much easier lift for the anti-abortion side. But only 13 percent of Kentucky voters think abortion should be illegal in all cases, which is pretty much the state’s status quo. And some of the people who think abortion should be illegal in most cases may be unhappy about that.
It’s still early in the vote counting in Pennsylvania, where about 17 percent of 2018’s total gubernatorial vote is in — and where many of the ballots counted have been cast by mail.
Definitely, Nathaniel. Ryan had a slight lead earlier in the night as the bulk of early and absentee ballots were counted, but now it’s eroded as Election Day ballots start to get tallied.
My current impression of the night is that … it might actually be a decent one for the polls? We aren’t seeing too many crazy, out-of-bounds outcomes so far. There are a lot of uncertain races, and there’s a fair bit of regional variation, and Democrats clearly have a Florida problem. But nothing too wild yet.
Ohio is a state where we can expect a “red shift” over the course of the night as Election Day votes are counted, so I bet Vance is about to take the lead.
The race for Senate in Ohio is still neck and neck. With 45 percent of the expected vote reporting, Republican J.D. Vance is at 50 percent and Democrat Tim Ryan is … also at 50 percent. Like I said, neck and neck.
The GOP line in our House balance-of-power chart is creeping toward that majority line, with a current count of 180 for Republicans and 120 for Democrats.
Monica, re: Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s win: Sanders is one of a number of candidates that raised doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election results. So far, three candidates who either denied or questioned the elections have won, and one has lost.
How election deniers are doing tonight
Gubernatorial and secretary of state candidates who have either denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election and their results, as of 9:20 p.m. Eastern
| CANDIDATE | OFFICE | Position on 2020 election | % REPORTING | MARGIN | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Dunleavy | AK Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 0% | — | — |
| Kay Ivey | AL Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 3 | +23.3 | ✓ Won |
| Wes Allen | AL SoS | ❓ Raised doubts | 1 | +12.1 | — |
| Sarah Huckabee Sanders | AR Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 16 | +8.8 | ✓ Won |
| Kari Lake | AZ Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Mark Finchem | AZ SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Dominic Rapini | CT SoS | ❓ Raised doubts | 0 | -4.6 | — |
| Brad Little | ID Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Darren Bailey | IL Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 14 | -24.6 | — |
| Derek Schmidt | KS Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 35 | -21.9 | — |
| Geoff Diehl | MA Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 3 | -23.4 | ✗ Lost |
| Dan Cox | MD Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 10 | -36.6 | — |
| Paul R. LePage | ME Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 7 | -6.7 | — |
| Kristina Karamo | MI SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 6 | -24.6 | — |
| Tudor M. Dixon | MI Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 11 | -7.7 | — |
| Kim Crockett | MN SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Audrey Trujillo | NM SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Joe Lombardo | NV Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 0 | — | — |
| Jim Marchant | NV SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Douglas V. Mastriano | PA Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 15 | -39.3 | — |
| Henry McMaster | SC Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 36 | +14.8 | ✓ Won |
| Kristi Noem | SD Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 3 | +30.6 | — |
| Monae Johnson | SD SoS | ❓ Raised doubts | 2 | +30.8 | — |
| Greg Abbott | TX Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 52 | +3.1 | — |
| H. Brooke Paige | VT SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | — | — |
| Tim Michels | WI Gov. | ❓ Raised doubts | 0 | +21.9 | — |
In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly is still ahead in the polls, with 60 percent to Republican challenger Derek Schmidt’s 38 percent. At this point, 35 percent of the vote is reporting.
More (largely unsurprising) Senate calls bring our Senate balance-of-power chart to 39 seats for the GOP and 38 for the Democratic Party.
We at FiveThirtyEight aren’t reporting electoral data from exit polls like many other outlets are, but there’s a good reason for this: They’re not reliable, especially at this stage of the night. The way exit polls work is that they are weighted to the final election results — and obviously, we don’t know what those are yet. Therefore, when you see “John Fetterman won X percent of Hispanic voters” tonight, you aren’t seeing a definitive, unimpeachable statistic; you’re just seeing an estimate. Read into them at your own peril.
Polls are now closed in Arizona! It’s an exciting state to watch tonight, with a lot going on. One marquee race is for governor, between Republican Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor and major proponent of Trump’s stolen election claims, and Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state. It’s been a neck-and-neck race through most of the campaign, though Lake has taken a late lead — our forecast gave her 68-in-100 odds of winning tonight.
Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, isn’t performing as strongly against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Despite both Lake and Masters aligning themselves with Trump and getting the former president’s endorsement, Kelly has proven to be a stronger opponent than Hobbs — his incumbency and willingness to criticize his own party seem to have earned him some good will. But that race, too, has tightened in the last few weeks: Our forecast gave Kelly a 66-in-100 chance of winning tonight.
But it doesn’t stop at the top of the ticket! In Arizona’s 2nd District – an expansive district in the northeast corner of the state that was redrawn in redistricting to become much redder — Democratic incumbent Rep. Tom O’Halleran is hoping to fend off a challenge from Republican Eli Crane, a former Navy Seal who was endorsed by Trump and repeated the former president’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. When we froze the Deluxe version of our forecast, Crane had a 66-in-100 chance of winning.
Last but certainly not least, Arizona’s secretary of state and attorney general races are worth watching tonight. For secretary of state, state lawmaker Republican Mark Finchem faces Democrat Adrian Fontes, former recorder for Maricopa County. Finchem, an adamant election denier who even attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, has directed a lot of his election fraud claims at Fontes himself. And the Republican candidate for attorney general, Abe Hamadeh, also has said the 2020 election was fraudulent. He’s facing Democrat Kris Mayes in the race for the state’s top attorney.
I was super interested to see American Public Media’s data on absentee and mail-in ballots in Minnesota. In 2020, 1.9 million accepted ballots came in through these channels. This year, that’s down to 658,000. You can really see the effect of the pandemic in this one.
My eyes will be glued to Michigan’s Proposal 3, which would create a state constitutional right to “reproductive freedom” if it passes. Of all the abortion-related constitutional amendments on the ballot this year, this is by far the most consequential since abortion’s legality is in limbo in Michigan. A 1931 abortion ban has been suspended by several judges while litigation plays out, but if the amendment fails, it could theoretically still go into effect depending on how the legal battles turn out. On the other hand, if the amendment passes, abortion will remain legal in Michigan.
Right now, with 6 percent of the expected vote reporting, the “yes” vote is leading with 62 percent, while the “no” vote has 38 percent. But of course, lots of votes still to come in.
With about 9 percent of the vote counted in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is leading Republican Tudor Dixon, 56 percent to 42 percent. Half of the Republican primary field was disqualified because of widespread petition-signature fraud, leaving the party with an untested nominee. Dixon is a former conservative commentator. But in the closing weeks of the race, it looked like Dixon was holding her own despite a massive fundraising disadvantage.
Virginia’s three competitive races look to be shaping up somewhat in line with their partisan leans. In the Democratic-leaning 10th District, Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton leads Republican Hung Cao by 6 points, 53 percent to 47 percent, and ABC News just projected that Wexton will win. In the purple 7th District that we discussed earlier, Vega leads incumbent Spanberger by about 3 points, 51.3 percent to 48.5 percent. But Spanberger has been running ahead of our benchmarks in counties where we have just about all votes, and most of the outstanding vote will come from strongly Democratic parts of Prince William County. So if that area doesn’t have much lower turnout than other parts of the district, Spanberger should be in a position to catch or even surpass her GOP opponent. A big part of that is due to roughly 30,000 mail and early votes left to be reported, according to the Virginia Public Access Project — ballots that will likely be pretty Democratic-leaning. But the GOP does have a potential gain in the slightly red-leaning 2nd District, where Republican Jen Kiggans leads Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria by 10 points, 55 percent to 45 percent. Luria will close the gap thanks to mail and early votes that still need to be reported, but she’s running slightly behind where we think she needs to be to run even with Kiggans.
ABC News is now projecting that Democrat Maura Healey will win the governor’s race in Massachusetts, flipping the seat from red to blue. Healey will also make history as the first openly lesbian governor in U.S. history.
ABC News has projected that Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders will win the governor’s race in Arkansas. She will become the state’s first woman governor.
Polls in Minnesota just closed, so let’s take a quick look at the big races in that state.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is highly favored to win tonight against his challenger, Republican Scott Jensen. Jensen wants to make Minnesota the 10th state to eliminate personal income taxes, using the state’s $9 billion surplus to fund that move in the short term. Economists say this plan would require very large cuts to services like education, which makes up 40 percent of the state budget. Jensen has also focused heavily on Walz’s policies during COVID-19 and his response to the 2020 protests in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd. Despite being a doctor, Jensen has encouraged his patients to question medical expertise in favor of googling answers for themselves, joining a lawsuit to prevent Minnesota children from getting COVID-19 vaccinations, according to reporting at the Minnesota Reformer.
Minnesota’s 2nd District has been deemed the state’s “spendiest” by Minnesota Public Radio, and it was the 24th spendiest in the country as of Nov. 2. Why? Basically because it can be. Incumbent Angie Craig flipped the district blue in 2018, narrowly beat Marine Corps veteran Tyler Kistner in 2020, and now the two are facing off again over a district that has been redrawn but retains the same D+1 lean. Kistner has framed Craig as being complicit in advancing Biden’s agenda — and whether that line of attack works probably depends on how you feel about Biden. Craig is favored to win.
The attorney general race, between incumbent Keith Ellison and corporate lawyer Jim Schultz, has been largely characterized by Schultz, as local news channel KARE11 put it, misleading people about what the job entails. Schultz rhetoric has framed Ellison as ignoring the state’s rising crime rate and not engaging in enough criminal prosecutions. However, that’s not a primary role of the attorney general in Minnesota. Criminal prosecutions are typically handled by county prosecutors and local law enforcement. It’s in keeping with state law and tradition that Ellison has really focused more on other issues, like consumer protection, wage theft, and gun control. Not a lot of polling here, but one recent one suggested the race is VERY tight — and also that 39 percent of Minnesotans don’t know who Schultz is. That suggests the extent to which Schultz is succeeding might be more about dissatisfaction with Ellison.
Minnesota’s secretary of state race also has tons of money being dumped at it — $2.5 million by one group for TV ads alone. It’s a battle between incumbent Democrat Steve Simon and Republican challenger Kim Crockett, who’s a 2020 election denier. Crockett has also released ads with anti-Semitic imagery and made statements about Somali immigrants that got her temporarily suspended from her job as vice president of a conservative think tank. She does, however, have the support of gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, who has threatened to imprison Simon for election fraud in the 2020 election in several of his public appearances. Nevertheless, Simon had been leading in the polls that we had.
Dan, noted re: Oz being the first Muslim Senator. He’s not one to showcase his religious background all too much. And, perhaps even more importantly, the Muslim-American community, even in Pennsylvania, hasn’t really leaned into associating with him, per earlier reporting from ABC.