Republicans were leading the race for the House of Representatives on Wednesday, but Democrats had some cause for optimism after a midterms “red wave” failed to materialise and the battle for the Senate, centered on Nevada and Georgia, remained neck and neck.
Americans went to the polls on Tuesday to determine control of the US Congress for the next two years, and election forecasts had favored Republicans in the final days of campaigning. The president’s party typically loses seats in the midterms, and Joe Biden’s low approval rating, combined with concerns about the state of the US economy, had lowered Democrats’ expectations.
But some key races were tilting toward Democrats in the final hours of Tuesday night, and the party took one of the biggest prizes of the night, a ferociously contested Senate race in Pennsylvania between Mehmet Oz, a Donald Trump-backed Republican, and the Democrat John Fetterman.
Fetterman, who had been battling to assure voters he was fit for office after having a stroke, flipped the Republican seat in Pennsylvania into Democratic control. “We held the line,” a teary Fetterman said, declaring victory in a speech to supporters on Wednesday morning.
In an early sign that the party was poised to stave off staggering losses in the House, Democrats won two of three House races in Virginia and tempered Republicans’ boasts of an election day blowout. Jennifer Wexton and Abigail Spanberger fended off Republican challengers, though Elaine Luria – a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection – conceded to her opponent, the Republican Jen Kiggans.
With many races still too close to call, control of Congress – and the future of Biden’s agenda – hung in the balance. Outcomes of some closely contested elections are not expected for several days, or even weeks. But the early results already returned one certainty: the election was not unfolding as Republicans had hoped.
“Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told MSNBC as results filtered in on Tuesday night.
In a statement, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said it was “clear that House Democratic members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations across the country”.
Republicans were still favored to regain control of the House, in part thanks to a favorable redistricting season after the 2020 census. The party has flipped at least three seats in Florida, where state legislators redrew the congressional map to give Republicans a significant advantage. And in usually blue New York, the congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democrats’ House campaign arm, charged with protecting the party’s narrow majority this cycle, appeared unlikely to win re-election in his newly drawn district.
“It is clear that we are gonna take the House back,” Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader who hopes to replace Pelosi as speaker if his party wins control of the chamber, told supporters in Washington.
The fight for the Senate, currently split 50-50, was extremely tight, with several races too close to call in the early hours of Wednesday. The Georgia senator Raphael Warnock was running neck and neck with the Republican Herschel Walker, elevating the possibility of a runoff next month if neither candidate can capture 50% of the vote. In the west, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and her Republican opponent Adam Laxalt, who in the early hours of the morning was more than two points ahead, both said they did not expect results in their tightly contested race until later in the week. In Arizona, the Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly led the Republican Blake Masters.
JD Vance, the Trump-backed author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, defeated the Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in an unexpectedly close contest for Ohio’s open Senate seat, while the Republican Ted Budd beat back a spirited challenge from the Democrat Cheri Beasley for an open Senate seat in North Carolina.
Meanwhile, Trump spent election day sharing unfounded claims about ballots on Truth Social and calling on followers to “protest”, while the former president was accused by some of being responsible for the apparent lack of a red wave.
Fox News, traditionally a Trump ally, published a story claiming he was “blasted across [the] media spectrum”, and claims that he was the night’s “biggest loser”.
The successes of the Democratic senators Michael Bennet of Colorado and Maggie Hassan, who were considered endangered in the event of a Republican blowout, gave the party hopes of maintaining control of the upper chamber.
The final results, which will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Biden’s first term as president and could further constrain his legislative agenda, may take weeks in some closely fought Senate races. Delayed results are likely to fuel legal challenges and conspiracy theories about vote-rigging, particularly if the remaining seats determine control of the Senate.
There were hiccups at some battleground states at polling places on Tuesday, escalating fears that election deniers would use the isolated incidents to raise baseless doubts about the legitimacy of the results. Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House of Representatives seats were on the ballot, giving Republicans an opportunity to drastically change the makeup of Congress. Opinion polls had suggested that support for Democrats had fallen in recent weeks amid growing voter concern about high inflation and crime, two issues on which Republicans are seen as stronger.
According to AP VoteCast, half of voters say inflation factored significantly in their midterm decisions, a potentially ominous sign for Democratic prospects. But in more encouraging news for Democrats, a similarly large share of voters – 44% – said their primary concern was the future of democracy, a theme that Biden and his party members emphasized in their final days of campaigning.
The president said American democracy was on the line in the midterms in the face of numerous challenges, from gerrymandering and voter suppression to Trump’s false claims about vote-rigging.
“Our lifetimes are going to be shaped by what happens the next year to three years,” Biden said at a final campaign rally in Maryland on Monday. “It’s going to shape what the next couple decades look like.”
Many Democratic candidates have also focused strongly on protecting abortion rights in the wake of the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade earlier this year.
The outcome of state elections for governors and judges was expected to have important implications for abortion access in several states.
In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared victory over her Republican challenger, Tudor Dixon, an anti-choice Trump loyalist, in a race that centered on abortion access.
Meanwhile in Florida, the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, cruised to victory, amid mounting speculation about his 2024 presidential ambitions. His landslide victory included a vote from the former president, a resident of Florida who has sharpened his criticism against DeSantis as he prepares to launch another White House bid.
In Georgia, Stacey Abrams, a Democratic star, conceded to Governor Brian Kemp, concluding a bitter rematch of their 2018 showdown. Another Democratic hopeful, Beto O’Rourke, fell short in his effort to unseat Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, who soundly won a third term.
Two gubernatorial races provided reason for optimism among Democrats. The party flipped seats in Massachusetts and Maryland, Democratic strongholds with a history of electing Republicans statewide. Democrats’ candidates in those states will make history, as Wes Moore will become Maryland’s first Black governor and Maura Healey will be the first openly lesbian governor in American history.
In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul easily defeated a challenge from the Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, who hoped to pull off an upset in the liberal state by tapping into voters’ concern over crime. Hochul, who ascended to the role after the resignation of Andrew Cuomo, became the first woman elected governor in New York’s history.
In Vermont, the Democrat Becca Balint became the first woman and first openly gay person to represent the state in Congress, while the Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s second press secretary and daughter of the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, was elected as the first female governor of Arkansas. And in Florida, the 25-year-old Democrat Max Frost became the first Gen-Zer elected to Congress.
Anger at the supreme court’s decision on abortion appeared to drive many people to the polls who might not normally vote in the midterms, particularly women.
In Michigan, voters appeared on track to protect abortion access, while voters in Vermont and California elected to guarantee the right to abortion in their constitution. Meanwhile in Maryland, voters overwhelmingly approved legalizing cannabis.
If the Republicans take control of the House, they have threatened to launch a series of investigations into Biden and his administration in an attempt to embarrass him in the run-up to the next presidential election.
The Guardian senior reporter Sam Levine contributed to this report
