| | For subscribers | November 8, 2022 | |
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 | | Audience members at an event for Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Henderson, Nev., on Monday. Ms. Cortez Masto is one of the Democratic Party's most vulnerable senators.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times |
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Good afternoon. The big day has finally arrived; you can follow the latest news here. On Politics will be back in the morning with takeaways from election night. In the meantime, my colleagues Jonathan and Reid have a preview of the key races: |
One of the most consequential and unpredictable midterm campaigns is concluding today as voters determine control of the House, Senate, 36 governorships and an array of critical state positions, from secretaries of state to supreme court justices. |
The outcome could shape the future of representative democracy in America: either handing power to Republican candidates, many of whom ardently and wrongly denied the results of the last presidential election, or delivering a rebuke to former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters. |
Here's what we're watching for in Senate, House and governors' races. |
With the chamber now divided 50-50 and Vice President Kamala Harris casting tiebreaking votes, Republicans need to pick up just one seat for control. |
New Hampshire is an early indicator. |
Senator Maggie Hassan's re-election in New Hampshire seemed all but assured when the state's Republican primary voters selected Don Bolduc, a retired general, as their standard-bearer. |
Mr. Bolduc, a political neophyte, had made denying the outcome of the 2020 election a centerpiece of his campaign. But then he clumsily pulled a 180-degree turn the day after the primary and said President Biden had, in fact, won fair and square, which threatened to alienate his base as well as swing voters. |
But as the national environment turned against Democrats, Mr. Bolduc has remained steadfast. Republican Party officials seemed to abandon him, only to rush back in to the Granite State as polls tightened. A Bolduc win would signal a very long night ahead for Senate Democrats. |
 | | Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate candidate in New Hampshire, is in a tight race against the incumbent, Senator Maggie Hassan.John Tully for The New York Times |
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A Democratic win in North Carolina could lift the party's hopes. |
The sleeper race has been in North Carolina, where Cheri Beasley, a Democrat and former State Supreme Court chief justice, has been in a statistical polling tie for months with Representative Ted Budd, a conservative Republican. |
If Ms. Beasley pulls an upset, the Republicans will be the ones starting off behind the eight ball. And it would be substantially more difficult if Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Democrat, also knocked off J.D. Vance, the Republican, in that state's contest. |
Expect a long night for everyone. |
Pennsylvania might be in the Eastern time zone and provide early results, but there is a good chance we will not know who wins the tight Senate race between Mehmet Oz, the Republican celebrity doctor, and John Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant governor, until the early morning hours of Wednesday, if even then. |
As in 2020, Pennsylvania election officials are not allowed to count mail-in ballots until Election Day. As it did two years ago, that rule could yield a "red mirage" — same-day voting heavily favoring Dr. Oz — followed by a blue swell, with the subsequent tabulation of early votes aiding Mr. Fetterman's fortunes. |
Watch the West for high drama. |
No state exemplifies the seesaw battle for control of the Senate quite like Arizona. The state's popular incumbent Democrat, Senator Mark Kelly, seemed to be cruising toward re-election. But in the last few weeks, his very conservative opponent, Blake Masters, has caught up in the polls. |
In neighboring Nevada, the race to unseat the most endangered Democratic incumbent, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, appears on a knife's edge. Farther north, two more Democratic incumbents, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and Patty Murray of Washington, are still favored to win, but if there really is a red wave, both are at risk. |
Georgia on everyone's mind — for a month? |
In the end, control of the Senate might not be decided at all this week. That is because Georgia law requires the victor to win 50 percent of the vote on Election Day. If no one gets it, there will be a runoff on Dec. 6. |
Enter the incumbent senator, Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his resilient Republican challenger, the former football star Herschel Walker, who has fended off accusations from former girlfriends that the staunchly anti-abortion candidate had paid for their abortions. Polling has been all over the map, but virtually no reputable survey has either one of them capturing over 50 percent of the vote. |
Two years ago, in a special election, neither Mr. Warnock nor the Republican incumbent he was challenging, Kelly Loeffler, hit that threshold. Now, as then, a runoff in Georgia could determine control of the Senate. |
Republicans need a net gain of just five seats to take control of the House of Representatives, putting them on enviable terrain. But how big any Republican majority might be is still uncertain. |
The harbingers of Democratic doom. |
As On Politics wrote in last night's field guide to following election night, Virginia might be the canary in the coal mine with its early results. Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat, saw her district redrawn to favor Republicans. If she loses, it will not be much of a signal. If she wins, Democrats can feel confident. |
But Representative Abigail Spanberger's district became more Democratic through redistricting, and yet she is in a brutal fight for re-election. If she loses, Republican gains might exceed 20 seats. |
Looking beyond the Old Dominion, watch New England. In New Hampshire, Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former press aide in the Trump White House, has run an unapologetically Trumpian campaign. If she defeats Representative Chris Pappas, she would represent a Gen Z nightmare for the Democrats. |
But could Democrats stand their ground? |
The signs that the vaunted red wave will be more of a ripple could come on the early side. But if Democratic incumbents in Republican districts, such as Jared Golden of Maine, Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, survive, they will show the staying power of the president's party. In Northeast Ohio, if Emilia Sykes can hold on to a redrawn district, it would further ease Democratic concerns. |
A far-right problem for Republican leadership? |
Democrats have warned over and over that the far right of the G.O.P. presents a clear and present danger to American democracy. But in their quest to maintain control of the House, Democrats cheered on — and in some cases financed — outlandish candidates, convinced they could defeat them in November. |
November is here, and that risky bet is looking riskier than ever. In North Carolina, watch the open seat in the state's northeast, where Sandy Smith, who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is hoping to take the seat of the retiring Democratic representative G.K. Butterfield. |
In Western Michigan, the House Democrats' official campaign arm helped a former Trump administration official who has peddled conspiracy theories, John Gibbs, defeat Representative Peter Meijer in the Republican primary. Democrats still think they can take the seat around Grand Rapids, but polling suggests it will be close. |
And in Northwest Ohio, the Democratic representative Marcy Kaptur is hoping to become the longest-serving female member of Congress. But to do it, she will have to defeat J.R. Majewski, who has dabbled in QAnon conspiracies, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and has made violent imagery a mainstay of his campaign. |
Voters will elect governors in 36 states on Tuesday, including in a handful of races that will determine the fate of voting access and abortion rights. |
The contests with the highest stakes are in key presidential battlegrounds: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These races feature Republicans who question or deny the results of the 2020 election, running against Democrats who are incumbents or have defended their states' voting procedures. |
Battleground-state battles |
WISCONSIN Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is locked in what polling shows to be a dead heat with Tim Michels, a Republican construction magnate. Mr. Evers has painted himself as the last man holding up Wisconsin's democracy against Republicans who have sought to replace the state's bipartisan election commission with an agency fully under G.O.P. control. |
ARIZONA Kari Lake, a Republican former local TV anchor, offers what may be the purest example of Trumpism in any candidate for governor this year. She faces Katie Hobbs, the current Democratic secretary of state, who gained national attention for defending Arizona's election systems after the 2020 election. |
 | | Kari Lake, the Republican running for governor in Arizona against Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, at a rally in Chandler, Ariz.Rebecca Noble for The New York Times |
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MICHIGAN Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has built an image as the protector of abortion rights in Michigan. She faces Tudor Dixon, a conservative media figure endorsed by Mr. Trump and funded by the billionaire DeVos family. |
NEVADA No state has swung in recent years alongside national political waves the way Nevada has. Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, won in 2018. Now he faces a stiff challenge from Joseph Lombardo, the Republican sheriff of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. |
PENNSYLVANIA Josh Shapiro, the state's Democratic attorney general, is a well-funded candidate with a big polling lead over Doug Mastriano, an election-denying Christian nationalist Republican who has failed to raise substantial money. |
GEORGIA Mr. Kemp, who defeated a Trump-inspired primary challenger in May, has a healthy polling lead over Ms. Abrams, who has failed to win over moderate Republican voters who have powered other Georgia Democrats to recent victories. |
NEW YORK Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ascended to office last year when Andrew Cuomo resigned, is vying to fend off a challenge from Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican from Long Island. |
OREGON No Republican has been elected Oregon's governor for 40 years, but that could change with Christine Drazan, a G.O.P. former state legislator who is polling neck-and-neck with Ms. Kotek, a Democratic former State House speaker. Democrats fear that a centrist independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, will siphon votes away from Ms. Kotek. |
KANSAS Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, is trying to win a second term in deep-red Kansas. She faces Derek Schmidt, the Republican state attorney general. |
NEW MEXICO Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is seeking a second term against a challenge by Mark Ronchetti, a Republican former local television meteorologist who lost a 2020 campaign for the Senate. |
MAINE Former Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, is seeking a political comeback with his challenge against Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat seeking a second term. |
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