Democrats win key Pennsylvania races; Republicans take Ohio Senate seat in the midterms

An election that Republicans had hyped as a red wave is turning out to be anything but, with Democrats over-performing the expectations of many in House and Senate races.

Here are five takeaways from the 2022 election results so far, including President Joe Biden’s low job approval ratings and the pain of inflation didn’t have the impact Republicans had hoped for.

Read the full story here.

Voters in Michigan passed a ballot proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution, NBC News projects.

Proposal 3 not only will legalize abortions, but also protect those performing or receiving abortions from being charged.

Michigan voters passed a ballot measure to expand voting access in the state, NBC News projects.

Proposal 2 changes voting policies in Michigan, including requiring nine days of early voting, authorizing absentee ballot drop boxes and allowing voters without photo ID to sign an affidavit verifying their identity.

WASHINGTON — A deeply divided American electorate delivered a Congress so evenly split that partisan control remained unknown Wednesday morning — and may for some time — after Republican hopes for a major “red wave” dissipated.

Hours after polls closed, dozens of critical House and Senate races remained too close to call. It could be weeks before control of the Senate is settled if the Georgia contest between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is forced into a runoff in December.

It’s a far cry from the decisive early victory Republicans expected to sweep them into power on Capitol Hill, based on recent polls and historical trends. The GOP in anticipation had already drawn up plans to investigate and potentially even impeach President Joe Biden.

Flawed candidates and concerns about abortion rights ended up proving major obstacles to Republicans, who were banking on riding dissatisfaction about the economy and Biden’s low approval ratings into power. 

Read the full story here.

Sen. Mark Kelly. D-Ariz., told supporters in Tucson he is feeling confident despite not knowing the outcome of his race against Republican Blake Masters.

“I know it’s been a long night. And I’ll tell you what, folks, I am feeling confident tonight,” he said. “Now, at the same time, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have the final results for a little while.”

He also thanked his wife, Gabby Giffords, whose congressional career was cut short in 2011 by an assassination attempt. The crowd chanted her name as Kelly called her his best friend and inspiration.

“With everything life has thrown at us, we have always had each other’s backs,” he said. “You’re my best friend, the person who taught me the most about public service, and none of this would be possible without you.”

Shortly before 2 a.m. ET, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy appeared at his “Take Back the House” victory party and vowed that Republicans would be in the majority soon as races continued to be called through the night.

“When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told a cheering crowd of dozens of young GOP staffers at the Westin hotel in Washington, D.C.

While Republicans failed to knock out a number of vulnerable Democratic incumbents Tuesday night, McCarthy celebrated GOP pickups across the country, from New York and Virginia to Florida. He took particular pleasure in noting that Republicans had ousted Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the head of the Democratic campaign arm known as the DCCC. 

“We defeated the Democrat campaign chairman, which will be the first time in over 40 years a DCCC chair lost his re-election,” said McCarthy, who was joined onstage by Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee.

McCarthy is the favorite to be speaker of the House next year, although a narrow GOP majority could complicate his path to obtaining the speaker’s gavel.

Maintaining access to abortion care was one of the main issues Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer featured in her re-election campaign, and it appears to have resonated with many voters, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Forty-five percent of Michigan voters said abortion was the main issue that determined how they voted. Of those voters, 78% said they shared Whitmer’s position of keeping abortion legal in most cases.

Tudor Dixon, Whitmer's Republican challenger, on the other hand, emphasized concerns about inflation and crime in her ads. While Michigan voters were more likely to say they trusted Dixon to handle crime (56%) than Whitmer (39%), only 6% said crime was a key issue in their decisions.

Both campaigns painted the other candidate's views as too extreme. However, voters were significantly more likely to say they were concerned only about Dixon’s views being too extreme (49%) than that they were concerned only about Whitmer’s views (34%).

J.D. Vance’s victory in Ohio’s Senate race appears to have much to do with the state's political landscape. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, Ohio midterms voters identified as Republicans over Democrats by an 11-point margin. By comparison, in the last midterm election, the Ohio electorate tilted Republican by 5 percentage points.

Ohio’s independent midterms voters broke for Democrat Tim Ryan in the Senate race by a narrow 3-point margin. If the state were less politically lopsided, Vance would have had tougher time defeating Ryan.

Former President Trump endorsed Vance, but Trump's favorability rating in Ohio (43%) is only slightly higher than it is nationally (39%). Only about 1 in 5 Ohio midterms voters said supporting Trump was a reason for their votes.

Asked which candidate quality mattered most, a majority of Vance voters (56%) cited his sharing their values. Ryan voters were more likely to cite honesty and integrity (41%).

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The early energy of election night has dwindled at the Republican watch party outside Phoenix as it becomes clear official results will not be announced anytime soon.

The slow count, due in part to mail-in voting and reports of glitches at some polling sites, has been the main focus of the few GOP candidates who spoke Tuesday evening.

“We have become the laughingstock when it comes to our elections, and it’s time we clean them up,” said Abe Hamadeh, a Republican running for attorney general.

“This is going to be a long fight,” he added. “Once every single vote is counted, I assure you we will be victorious.”

“Between being Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis tonight, you want to be Ron DeSantis,” former President Donald Trump’s onetime acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said early Wednesday on CBS, noting that numerous Trump-backed candidates, including Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, have underperformed or lost in the 2022 races.

“DeSantis wins tonight, and Trump is not doing very well,” Mulvaney said. Trump has been teasing a potential 2024 presidential announcement in recent days.

The campaign of Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, a Democrat, said that the race is too close to call and that it doesn’t expect a result Tuesday night.

“We always knew this race would be incredibly close,” Maddy McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Barnes campaign, said in a statement. “No matter what anyone says, we are committed to making sure every vote is counted. We will wait and see what the Wisconsin voters have decided after all their voices are heard.”

At the time of the statement, Barnes trailed Republican Sen. Ron Johnson by less than a percentage point with 93% of the vote in. NBC News has not called the race.

While a majority of House incumbents have fended off their challengers in races called by NBC News, several lost their re-election bids. Here are the ones who won't be returning to Capitol Hill when the new Congress is sworn in next year.

• Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, who built a national profile as a member of the House Jan. 6 committee, was defeated by GOP challenger Jen Kiggans in Virginia.
• Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, a U.S. diplomat during the Obama administration who was first elected to Congress in 2018, was ousted by Republican Thomas Kean Jr. in New Jersey.
• Republican Rep. Mayra Flores, who won a special election this year, lost to Democrat Vicente Gonzalez in Texas.
• Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, who faced difficult odds after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fought to have his district redrawn to favor Republicans, lost his race to Republican fellow incumbent Neal Dunn.
• Longtime GOP Rep. Steve Chabot lost to Democrat Greg Landsman in Ohio.

Dozens of House races had not been called by NBC News at 2:10 a.m. ET.

As the returns continued to come in late Tuesday and early Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement saying: “While many races remain too close to call, it is clear that House Democratic Members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations across the country.

“As states continue to tabulate the final results, every vote must be counted as cast,” she continued. “Many thanks to our grassroots volunteers for enabling every voter to have their say in our Democracy.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., re-emerged before a crowd of his supporters early Wednesday and indicated he believes a runoff is possible in his contest against Republican Herschel Walker.

“We know that when they’re finished counting the votes for today’s election, we’re going to have received more votes than my opponent. We know that,” Warnock said.

NBC News considers the race too close to call. If neither candidate tops 50%, the race moves to a runoff.

“At this late hour, you may be a little tired,” Warnock said.

A woman in the crowd yelled in response: “Fired up, ready to go!”

Warnock continued, “Whether it’s later tonight or tomorrow or four weeks from now, we will hear from the people of Georgia.”

At a watch party for Arizona Republicans, Rep. Andy Biggs mocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the violent attack on her husband after an assailant broke into their San Francisco home last week.

"I can’t wait to get back to Washington, D.C. with some new Arizona congressmen," Biggs said. "And we’re going to show Nancy Pelosi the door very shortly. Don’t let it hit you on the backside, Nancy!"

Biggs continued, "Nancy is losing the gavel, but she is finding the hammer," he said, drawing cheers. "Too soon? Is that too soon?"

The Arizona Republican is running for re-election to represent his state's 5th Congressional District. He previously chaired the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

The suspect who broke into the Pelosi home attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer. A number of prominent Republicans have mocked the assault or have spread conspiracy theories about it.

South Dakota voters rejected a ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana use for adults, NBC News projects.

The measure would have legalized the use, possession, and distribution of marijuana by adults 21 and older.

Maryland and Missouri voted to legalize recreational marijuana while North Dakota and Arkansas rejected legalization efforts.

Missouri has passed a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana, NBC News Projects.

The measure removes existing state prohibitions on marijuana and legalizes the purchase, possession, consumption, use, delivery, manufacture, and sale of marijuana for personal use for anyone 21 and older. It also allows individuals with certain marijuana-related offenses to be released from prison, parole, or probation and have their records expunged. 

Maryland voted to legalize recreational marijuana while North Dakota, South Dakota and Arkansas rejected legalization efforts.

Midterms voters in 2022 were less representative of the U.S. population along the lines of race, income and age than the electorate in 2020 was, the NBC News Exit Poll found. The pattern is similar to the historical patterns of midterm elections, when voter turnout is typically lower and less diverse than in presidential contests.

White voters made up 73% of the midterm electorate, 6 percentage points higher than in the 2020 presidential election. Voters with household incomes of $100,000 or more were 37% of the electorate in 2022, compared to just 26% in 2020. Americans ages 65 and over were 28% of voters 2022, or 6 points higher than in 2020.

Overall, 60% of Latino voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections, while 39% voted for Republican candidates, the NBC News Exit Poll found. But there was a 13 percentage point gender gap in Democratic support: 66% of Latina women voted for Democratic candidates, compared with 53% of Latino men.

Those two groups of voters are motivated by a distinct set of issues, the poll found.

One-third of Latina women voting in this year’s elections said abortion was the most important issue shaping their votes, whereas only 20% of Latino men said the same. In addition, Latina women were almost twice as likely as Latino men to list immigration as the most important issue shaping their votes.

Crime and inflation, on the other hand, were much larger factors in how Latino men voted.

McALLEN, Texas — Republican Monica De La Cruz is the winner in Texas’ 15th Congressional District race, NBC News projects, defeating Democrat Michelle Vallejo in an open South Texas district that had once been solidly blue.

Her win means Republicans flipped a traditionally Democratic seat in the predominantly Latino Rio Grande Valley. Cruz is the first Hispanic woman elected to represent the district.

“Praise God!” De La Cruz said amid cheers at the Radisson Hotel McAllen, where about 200 to 300 supporters had gathered, anxiously waiting for results.

“My win is not just a win for Republicans. It is a win for all South Texas,” De La Cruz said.

Read the full story here.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defeated Republican challenger Tudor Dixon on Tuesday, securing her bid for re-election and keeping a Democrat atop the critical swing state, NBC News projects.

Whitmer, who gained a national following during the early days of the pandemic and is viewed as a future contender for higher office, had been seen as a top target for Republicans.

Polls tightened over the closing weeks. But Whitmer held on, boosted by tens of millions of dollars in ad spending that Dixon, a former right-wing commentator endorsed by former President Donald Trump, never matched.

Read the full story here.

John Fetterman drew support from several core Democratic constituencies on his way to winning the Senate race in Pennsylvania, the NBC News Exit Poll found. He won 90% of Black voters, 70% of voters under age 30 and 67% of Latino voters.

Fetterman also did very well among voters citing abortion as the issue mattering more to their votes. Abortion proved to be a key focus in Pennsylvania, as more voters cited it as important to their vote than any other issue.

Republican Mehmet Oz fell short in convincing Pennsylvania voters that he had lived in the state long enough to serve it effectively in the Senate, with 56% saying he had not, compared with 42% who felt he had, the exit poll found. Oz moved to Pennsylvania in 2020 after having lived in New Jersey for several decades.

Pennsylvanians were more confident in Fetterman’s ability to serve the state effectively, despite his health challenges. Fetterman is recovering from a stroke he suffered in May. Half of Pennsylvania voters said Fetterman is in good enough health to represent the state effectively, compared with 47% who said he is not.  

Pennsylvania voters were also slightly more likely to find Oz’s views more extreme than Fetterman’s.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer stopped short of declaring victory but hinted she’s on the verge of another four years in Lansing.

The upbeat incumbent thanked supporters for staying awake and enthusiastic past 1 a.m. ET.

“I thank you for being here until the wee hours of the morning, and I don’t know if you want to come back for a little press conference in the morning,” Whitmer said. “But we will be ready to talk about what the future of this state is for the next four years.”

GOP challenger Tudor Dixon urged her supporters not to lose hope: “We expect counting to continue into tomorrow in our major counties. This race has a long way to go.”

Shortly after Whitmer spoke, she was leading Dixon 52.1% to 46.2%, with 71% of the vote counted.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has won re-election to a second term, NBC News projects, narrowly defeating Republican businessman Tim Michels.

The race between Evers, who was elected in 2018, and Michels, a co-owner of a successful family pipeline construction company, had long been expected to be one of the closest contests in the country, and it will have major implications in the state for the future of abortion rights and elections. 

On those issues, as well as others, like education, guns and criminal justice, the candidates offered starkly different policies throughout the race.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has been elected to a third term, NBC News projects, beating independent candidate Evan McMullin.

Lee, 51, had been expected to win, although the race had become increasingly competitive in recent weeks. Utah votes entirely by mail.

McMullin, 46, is a former CIA operative who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016. He had the backing of the state Democratic Party.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Lee in the days leading up to the election. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, on the other hand, remained neutral.

“I just placed a call to Senator Lee and acknowledged that he’s won re-election,” McMullin told supporters at his Election Night headquarters in Taylorsville. “I truly hope that he upholds his oath to the Constitution in his upcoming term.”

Democrat Anthony Brown, a lawyer who has been a House member since 2017, has won his race for attorney general of Maryland, NBC News projects. He makes history by being elected as the state’s first Black attorney general.

Brown defeated Republican Michael Peroutka, who reportedly had ties in the past to the nationalist group the League of the South.

Democrat Wiley Nickel defeated Republican candidate Bo Hines in North Carolina's open 13th Congressional District, NBC News projects.

Wiley, 46, a state senator, and Hines, 27, a former college football player backed by former President Donald Trump, were vying to replace Republican Ted Budd in the House. Budd won his race for the Senate on Tuesday, NBC News projects; he'll replace retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

Wiley’s win flips the swing district seat to Democrats.

Voters in Arkansas and North Dakota have rejected ballot measures that would have legalized marijuana use for adults, NBC News projects. 

Maryland, Missouri and South Dakota also have referendums allowing voters to decide whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

Maryland has passed a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana, NBC News projects. 

Voters decided to amend the state constitution to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults 21 and older, starting in July.

Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota also have referendums allowing voters to decide whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

Alaska's races for the Senate and the Governor's Mansion are too early to call.

In the Senate race, incumbent Republican Murkowski faces Democrat Patricia Chesbro.

The gubernatorial fight pits incumbent Republican Mike Dunleavy against Democrat Les Gara.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake took the stage for the first time tonight at the Arizona Republican watch party outside Phoenix, adding fuel to claims of incompetence and corruption following glitches with vote-tabulation machines in Maricopa County earlier in the day.

“We have another stark reminder that we have incompetent people running the show in Arizona,” she said, referring to her opponent, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

Lake’s legal team joined a coalition of Republicans who filed an emergency motion earlier in the day to extend voting hours to 10 p.m. A judge blocked the motion, saying there was no evidence that anyone was “precluded the right to vote.”

Across the state, no widespread fraud was reported.

Still, Lake joined a chorus of Republicans claiming “cheaters and crooks” were behind issues at polling stations Tuesday.

“God did not put us in this fight because it was going to be easy,” she said, adding: “When corruption has risen to the level that it’s at right now, it takes tough, strong people.”

Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., has lost his re-election bid to Republican Thomas Kean Jr., NBC News projects.

Malinowski, a U.S. diplomat during the Obama administration, was elected to Congress in 2018.

Kean, a former state senator whose father was governor, had made three unsuccessful runs for Congress — including in 2020, when he nearly beat Malinowski.

Connecticut voters approved a ballot measure that will allow for early voting, NBC News projects.

The passage allows the General Assembly to pass legislation establishing in-person voting before the day of an election.

A Republican congresswoman expressed deep frustration with GOP voters early Wednesday after she conceded defeat in her Texas race.

"The RED WAVE did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS IF YOU DID NOT DO YOUR PART!" Rep. Mayra Flores tweeted. Flores lost to Rep. Vicente Gonzales, NBC News projects, in what was considered one of the key toss-up races.

NEWTOWN, Pa. — John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, has won Pennsylvania’s high-voltage race for an open Senate seat, defeating celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, bringing an end to one of the nastiest and most expensive campaigns of the year as both parties treated it as a potential tipping point for control of the chamber.

Fetterman will succeed Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who opted against seeking re-election.

The race was shaped largely by two factors: Fetterman’s stroke days before he won the Democratic primary in May and the unrelenting barrage of outside money, including tens of millions of dollars Oz’s GOP allies spent to brand Fetterman as soft on crime. 

Read the full story here.

Gov. Greg Abbott stirred national controversy over his policy of transporting migrants from the Texas border to blue cities in the Northeast. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, more voters casting ballots in the race for governor said thts was a good policy (50%) than a bad policy (43%). 

But when asked which issue was most important to them, Texas voters prioritized inflation and abortion over immigration.

Overall, 55% of voters said they approved of the job Abbott was doing as governor, boosting him to re-election. More Texas voters said they trusted Abbott to handle border security than Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

Democrat Stacey Abrams has called Gov. Brian Kemp to concede the Georgia governor’s race, according to a spokesman for Kemp.

After Kemp narrowly beat Abrams in 2018, she initially would not concede the race and accused him of voter suppression tactics.

Although NBC News cannot project control of the House, the Decision Desk has released its estimate for the House as a whole, which reflects the most probable outcome for partisan control. NBC News estimates that the Republicans will win 219 seats, with a margin of error of 13 seats.

A party needs 218 seats to control the chamber.

To arrive at the House Estimate, the NBC News Decision Desk calculates the probability of a Democratic, Republican or third-party victory in each of the 435 House races based on pre-election research. On election night, election analysts examine all the available vote data in real time, adjusting the probabilities for each House race accordingly. Based on those probabilities, NBC News’ Decision Desk then calculates the most probable outcome for control of the chamber and provides a margin of error plus or minus the number of seats either party could still win.

The Decision Desk will project partisan control of the House based on this estimate when we are at a minimum 99.5% confident in the outcome.

A judge in Nevada rejected a request late Tuesday by Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for polls in Clark County to remain open for an additional two hours.

Some precincts in the county ran out of printer paper to print ballots earlier in the day. Polls were originally scheduled to close at 7 p.m. local time and will remain closed.

Cortez Masto and the DSCC asked for polls to remain open until 9 p.m. They cited other jurisdictions across the country where polls remained open late because of issues at some precincts, including in Connecticut, Virginia and New Hampshire.

Arizona’s voters expressed high confidence in the state’s election count and the legitimacy of President Biden’s 2020 win, overwhelmingly rejecting the questions raised by the state’s GOP candidates about the integrity of the election process, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Republican candidates Kari Lake (governor), Blake Masters (Senate) and Mark Finchem (secretary of state) have all publicly raised questions about Biden’s 2020 win and cast doubt on the integrity of the voting process. But voters disagreed: By 63% to 35%, Arizonans said Biden legitimately won the presidency. And 73% said they were confident that elections in Arizona are being conducted fairly and accurately; 26% were not confident.

NBC News characterized all three races — for governor, for the Senate and for secretary of state — as too early to call when polls closed in Arizona.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, has won re-election to a second term, NBC News projects.

Walz, a former House member, defeated Republican challenger Scott Jensen, a physician and former member of the state Senate.

Election deniers have lost their races for secretary of state in the battleground states of Michigan and Minnesota, NBC News projects.

In Michigan, Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson has defeated Republican Kristina Karamo. In Minnesota, Democratic incumbent Steve Simon has defeated Republican Kim Crockett.

Karamo has repeatedly cast doubt on the result of the 2020 race and has dabbled in discredited conspiracy theories surrounding it.

Karamo, 36, a part-time educator at a Detroit-area community college, worked as a Detroit poll challenger in 2020. In that role, Karamo claimed she witnessed fraudulent absentee ballot-counting, later testifying before a Michigan Senate committee investigating election fraud allegations (the panel found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in the state’s election). Karamo has also said she believes that Donald Trump won Michigan in 2020 (Joe Biden won the state by more than 154,000 votes) and that left-wing anarchists planned the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Meanwhile, Crockett has called the 2020 election results in Minnesota illegitimate and said the 2020 election was “rigged” in fundraising materials for her campaign.

Democrat Vicente Gonzalez is the winner of Texas’ 34th Congressional District race, defeating Republican Rep. Mayra Flores.

The win is critical for Democrats who faced tougher-than-expected competition from Republicans in the traditionally Democratic and heavily Latino South Texas region.

With 85% of the votes in, Gonzalez had 52.7% and Flores had 44.2%, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.

Retirement and redistricting meant the race pitted the two sitting members of Congress against each other.

Read the full story here.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar is the winner in Texas’ 28th Congressional District, NBC News projects, returning to Congress for a 10th term.

With 77% of the vote reporting, Cuellar had 56.9% and Republican Cassy Garcia had 43.1%, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.

Garcia was one of three Republican Latinas running in South Texas congressional races hoping to cut into the region’s Latino support for Democrats.

Cuellar, a centrist Democrat, has long been further to the right of his party, but he has said he reflects his district, which is heavily Hispanic but more conservative on issues of abortion, the border and guns.

Read the full story here.

Republican Harriet Hageman won her election to represent Wyoming’s sole congressional district, NBC News projects.

Hageman will succeed Rep. Liz Cheney, who lost the GOP primary in August. The district is solidly Republican, and Hageman was backed by former President Donald Trump.

Cheney, a staunch critic, has made it clear that she will work to ensure the former president does not win the White House again.

While most midterm voters cited inflation as their top issue, the story was very different for young voters — particularly young women, the NBC News Exit Poll found. Fifty-five percent of female voters under age 30 cited abortion as their top issue. Abortion was also the top issue for men under 30, although to a lesser degree.

Asked specifically about the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, two-thirds of young female voters said they were angry about it, compared to 43% of young male voters.

The issue is translating into strong Democratic support for House candidates among young adults, although there is a notable gender gap. Female voters under age 30 are breaking for Democratic House candidates by over 40 percentage points, the exit poll found. Men in the age group are breaking for Democratic House candidates by just about 11 points.

The share of midterms voters who were under age 30 (12%) appears to be similar to the shares in 2014 and 2018 (13% both years).

NEWTOWN, Pa. — Trailing Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman in the crucial Pennsylvania race, Republican Mehmet Oz said Tuesday night that he still thinks he will emerge victorious.

"When all the ballots are counted, we believe we will win this race," Oz told supporters at his election night party. "We have been closing the gap all night, and we have a lot more ballots to go."

Oz trailed Fetterman by 1.1 percentage points at midnight ET with about 84% of expected votes in. The race is too early to call, according to NBC News.

Democrat Becca Balint is the winner of Vermont’s at-large Congressional District race, NBC News projected. She is the first woman and the first LGBTQ person elected to Congress from the state.

With 72% of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Balint had 61.5%, while her Republican opponent, Liam Madden, had 28.8%.

Balint’s win against Madden, an Iraq War veteran, was widely expected. Vermont has not sent a Republican to Congress since it re-elected former Sen. Jim Jeffords in 2000.

Read the full story here.

ATLANTA — As returns show a close race for the Senate in Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock spoke to his crowd of supporters here late Tuesday and voiced cautious optimism.

“We always knew that the race would be close. And so that’s where we are. So y’all just hang in there. I’m feeling good," he said.

NBC News rates the race between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker as "too close to call."

“I’m comin’ back tonight,” Warnock said. “We got more to say.

“I’m gonna try to defy Baptist preacher gravity and not talk too much."

Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the Democratic secretary of state in New Mexico, has defeated Republican challenger Audrey Trujillo, an outspoken election denier, NBC News projects.

Trujillo had called Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election a "coup" and has compared the U.S. system of voting to those in "any other communist country like Venezuela or any of these other states where our elections are being manipulated," according to The New York Times.

Trujillo is a member of the pro-Trump America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group (led by Republican Nevada secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant) of candidates for secretary of state and other offices that wield power over elections who have all falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Michigan voters approved a ballot measure to establish a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom, NBC News projects, making the state the first to render an abortion ban permanently unenforceable since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

The passage of Proposal 3 invalidates a 1931 state law that bans abortion without exception for rape or incest. 

While a judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the law in August and a state court declared it unconstitutional a month later, abortion advocates worried the decision could be appealed. 

Codifying abortion rights in the state constitution prevents the decision from being overturned, said Nicole Wells Stallworth, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. It would also stop future administrations from being able to implement harsh restrictions, she added.

Voters in California and Vermont have also approved referendums to codify abortion rights in their state constitutions.

LAS VEGAS — Clark County elections officials don’t expect to process two significant tranches of ballots Tuesday night, increasing the likelihood that the outcome of one of the most closely watched Senate races won’t be known before the sun rises Wednesday.

Ballots left in drop boxes on Election Day and those that arrived by mail Tuesday won’t be counted immediately, the secretary of state’s office said.

Because of the delay and because state law allows mailed ballots to arrive days later, Republican and Democratic party officials said they don’t expect to know who has won the Senate and governor’s races Tuesday night.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday night that the election results are not showing a red wave but that he still believes the GOP could gain control of the Senate.

"Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure," Graham said Tuesday night on NBC News. "I think we’re going to be at 51, 52, when it’s all said and done, in the Senate."

NBC News has not projected which party will control the House or the Senate.

Graham said that gaining control of both houses of Congress would be a very good night for the GOP but that “a wave would have been, like, New Hampshire and Colorado.”

In North Carolina, broad economic pessimism and President Biden’s unpopularity helped buoy Republican Ted Budd to victory in the Senate race. Results from the NBC News Exit Poll show that most North Carolina voters rated national economic conditions as not good or poor. And a majority of voters said that, in the last year, inflation had caused their households at least moderate financial hardship.

Roughly one-third of North Carolina voters said inflation was the most important issue to their votes — and Budd was the clear favorite among those voters, 75% of whom voted for him, compared with 23% for Democrat Cheri Beasley.

There was also a sizable gender gap in vote preference in the Senate race, the exit poll found. While Beasley was the modest favorite among women, nearly 6 in 10 men cast their ballots for Budd. Budd also enjoyed continued support from Republicans' reliable constituencies: white voters, voters over 65 and those without college degrees.

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur has won a tough re-election battle in Ohio, NBC News projects, positioning her to become the longest-serving woman in congressional history when her new term begins.

Kaptur defeated Republican J.R. Majewski, a right-wing candidate whose prospects plummeted after The Associated Press reported that he had misrepresented his military service.

National Republicans had high hopes of picking up the Toledo-area seat after redistricting folded in territory more favorable to the GOP. They targeted Kaptur, first elected in 1982, as a career politician with few accomplishments and an unshakeable loyalty to President Joe Biden. 

Read the full story here.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has won re-election to the House, NBC News projects.

McCarthy, 57, is likely poised to become the speaker of the House if Republicans win the majority.

He remains the significant favorite to be speaker in a GOP-controlled Congress, having the loyalty of incumbents and battleground candidates. There is no guarantee, however, because the ultra-conservative wing of the party could demand concessions or a candidate of its own.

The House Republican Conference is likely to hold a closed-door vote this month, and a formal vote on the House floor for speaker will be held when the new Congress convenes in January.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has won re-election against Republican businesswoman Jo Rae Perkins, NBC News projects, while the race for governor is too close to call.

Wyden, who was first elected to the Senate in 1996, is the chairman of the Finance Committee.

The too-close-to-call governor's race includes Democrat Tina Kotek, Republican Christine Drazan and a third candidate, Betsy Johnson.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has won re-election in Texas, NBC News projects, defeating Democratic newcomer Rochelle Garza in a highly competitive race.

With 74% of the votes counted, Paxton had 54.4%, while Garza had 42.9%, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.

Paxton has been attorney general since 2015.

The race was among the tightest in the state, with Garza within 2 to 7 percentage points of Paxton weeks before Election Day, polls showed.

Read the full story here.

California voters have rejected two proposals to legalize sports betting, NBC News projects.

One measure would have allowed in-person sports betting at casinos and horse racing tracks, while the other would have allowed online and mobile sports wagering outside tribal lands.

Both measures failed widely. 

Democrat Robert Garcia is the winner in California’s 42nd Congressional District, beating Republican John Briscoe, NBC News projected. 

With 22% of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Garcia had 71%, while Briscoe had 29%.

After his victory Tuesday night, Garcia tweeted a photograph of him and his mother, writing “Mom, we did it!”

Garcia, who is gay and immigrated to the U.S. from Peru at age 5, is the first LGBTQ immigrant elected to Congress. 

Garcia, 44, is the mayor of Long Beach. Elected in 2014 at 36, he became the city’s youngest mayor, as well as the first LGBTQ and first Latino person to hold the office. 

He was the president of the Long Beach Young Republicans club at California State University, Long Beach. In a 2017 interview, he said his past affiliation with the GOP was a result of his family’s affection for Ronald Reagan: Members of Garcia’s family were among the millions of immigrants who applied for citizenship after Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

“My worldview and politics haven’t changed much. But with immigrants rights and the war, and me being gay, we all realized that we were more progressive,” Garcia said at the time, adding that many of his family members had also switched parties over the years.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fended off a challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke with a strong showing from several core Republican groups, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Abbott strived to paint his opponent’s views as too extreme. Results from the exit poll show that many voters agreed, with 52% saying O'Rourke's views were too extreme.

Fifty-five percent of Texas voters said they approve of the job Abbott is doing as governor, while 45% disapprove, the poll found. And more voters say they trust Abbott over O’Rourke to handle gun policy and border security.

Many of the groups that boosted Abbott to victory in 2018 also supported him by strong margins in Tuesday’s election — white men, voters without college degrees and conservative voters.

All six members of the so-called squad have won re-election to their House seats, NBC News projects.

The four original members of the group — Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — were later joined by Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo.

The group has pushed progressive policies, most of which are in line with those promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., like the Green New Deal.

California voters passed a ballot initiative to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in their state constitution — including the right to have an abortion and use contraceptives, NBC News projects.  

The approval of Proposition 1 was expected in the heavily Democratic state, which strengthened abortion protections hours after the fall of Roe v. Wade. 

Already under California law, abortion is legal before viability, usually defined as around 24 weeks of pregnancy or when a doctor determines that a fetus could live outside the uterus without extreme medical measures.

The state passed additional legislation after the Supreme Court decision to protect residents from civil liability for providing, aiding or receiving abortion care.

Vermont voters passed a similar referendum.

In two separate ballot measures, Nebraska voters approved increasing the minimum wage and requiring valid photo identification to cast a ballot in any election, NBC News projects.

The state minimum wage will rise from $9 per hour to $10.50 per hour on Jan. 1. It will continue to increase each year until it hits $15 per hour in 2026.

Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids has won re-election in Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, NBC News projects.

Davids defeated Amanda Adkins, a Republican, in a rematch after Davids won the seat in 2020.

LGBTQ voters are once again solidly in the Democratic column in this year’s midterm elections, the NBC News Exit Poll found. Democrats won the support of 84% of self-identified LGBTQ voters, compared to just 15% who supported Republicans.

The Democratic advantage is similar to that in other recent midterm elections.

LGBTQ voters are maintaining their traditionally strong support for Democrats as liberals and conservatives wage battles nationwide over shifting social values on gender identity and sexuality. The NBC News Exit Poll found LGBTQ voters strongly support the changes in society's values on gender and sexual orientation: 63% said these changes are for the better; just 18% said things are changing for the worse. 

That is at odds with the opinions of voters who did not identify as LGBTQ, 53% of whom said values on sexuality and gender are changing for the worse.

Iowa has voted overwhelmingly to add the right to own and bear firearms to the state constitution, NBC News projects.

The ballot measure affirms it is a fundamental individual right and requires strict scrutiny for any alleged violations brought before a court.

It is the only ballot referendum nationwide that supports gun rights.

Meanwhile, Oregon voters will determine whether to pass restrictions on gun controls that would require permits to acquire firearms and ban high-capacity magazines.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a member of Senate Democratic leadership, has won a sixth term, NBC News projects.

Murray had 57.5% of the vote just before 11:30 p.m. ET, with 53% of the vote tabulated.

She defeated Republican Tiffany Smiley.

The Senate race in Pennsylvania is too early to call, but Democrat John Fetterman is leading, NBC News says.

Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, ran against Republican Mehmet Oz in one of the most competitive races of the 2022 cycle.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom won re-election Tuesday, NBC News projects.

Newsom defeated Republican challenger Brian Dahle, a state senator who represents a district in the northeastern part of the state.

Newsom easily defeated a recall effort last year in an election that included conservative radio host Larry Elder as an opponent. The recall was prompted in part by criticism of California’s restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Newsom and opponents of the recall called the move a right-wing power grab.

Newsom has attracted some attention this year with ads targeting the Republican governors of Texas and Florida over immigration and abortion rights. That has fueled speculation about plans for a possible 2024 presidential run, which Newsom has denied, including recently to CBS News.

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Ted Budd defeated Democrat Cheri Beasley in North Carolina’s competitive Senate race Tuesday, NBC News projects, keeping a Republican in the seat that will be vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Burr. 

The race flew largely under the radar, with more colorful candidates in other states capturing headlines, even as polls showed the contest neck and neck. Both parties spent heavily, although North Carolina Democrats accused the national party of abandoning Beasley in a tight election.

Helped along by an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, who called Budd “rock solid” at a September rally in Wilmington, Budd remained favored going into Election Day. He had previously defeated former Gov. Pat McCrory in a contentious Republican primary.

Read the full story here.

Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has won re-election, NBC News projects.

Raffensperger had been to defeat Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen.

Raffensperger was thrust into the national spotlight last year after it was reported that he had an hourlong phone call on Jan. 2, in which then-President Donald Trump pressured him to “find” 11,780 votes for him in the state to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

Raffensperger survived a Trump-backed primary challenge in the 2022 cycle.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., leaned heavily on independents, moderates and voters who support abortion rights to defeat GOP challenger Don Bolduc, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Independent voters — who made up about 4 in 10 New Hampshire voters this year — swung by double digits for Hassan, 54% to 43%. She performed even better among moderate voters, beating Bolduc by 63% to 36%.

Hassan swept New Hampshire voters who believe in legal abortion, getting 68% of their votes. The state’s electorate is strongly in favor of abortion rights: 33% of voters said abortion should be legal in all cases, while 35% more said it should be legal in most cases, the exit poll found.

The state’s youngest voters were firmly in the Democratic column in the Senate race: Hassan swept those ages 18 to 29 by 74% to 23%.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Despite glitches at polling sites throughout Arizona’s most populous county, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor, defended her office’s handling of Election Day.

“I have every confidence that the counties administering this election conducted a free and fair election, and their results will be accurate,” she said in a statement. “But they will take time, so we need to prepare for a long evening and a few more days of counting.”

Earlier in the day, technicians in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, were dispatched to fix machines that were not printing ballots properly. Republican candidates blamed Hobbs, with her opponent, Kari Lake, saying it was an example of her “incompetence.”

“I hope it wasn’t malice,” Lake told reporters earlier in the day.

Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., has lost her re-election bid against Republican challenger Jen Kiggans, an important pickup for the GOP in its quest to capture control of the House.

Luria, who has become a national figure while serving on the House Jan. 6 committee, faced a difficult re-election bid after new boundaries made her district somewhat more Republican-friendly.

The Senate and governor races in Oregon are too early to call, according to NBC News, after polls closed at 11 p.m. ET.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is seeking another term against GOP challenger Jo Rae Perkins.

In the governor's race, former state House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, faces Republican Christine Drazan and non-affiliated Betsy Johnson, who are both trying to break Democrats' decadeslong grip on the governorship.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has won a second term, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin.

Hochul, 64, has been governor since August 2021, following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo. Hochul had been his lieutenant governor, and she also served in Congress from 2011 to 2013.

The gubernatorial race had tightened significantly in recent weeks.

Zeldin, 42, has served in the House since 2015, representing New York's 1st Congressional District, which covers the eastern half of Long Island. Former President Donald Trump endorsed him in mid-October.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp wins re-election, NBC News projects, fending off a challenge from Stacey Abrams.

Because Kemp, who defeated Abrams in 2018, is expected to win more than 50% of the vote, there will not be a runoff.

The race had been seen as one of the marquee governor matchups in the country, with the candidates taking starkly different positions on voting rights, crime, gun laws, abortion and other issues.

In recent weeks, however, Kemp had pulled away in the polls, leading Abrams in most surveys by upward of 6 percentage points.

Kemp won decisively even though he was a constant target of attacks from former President Donald Trump.

Read the full story here.

Although Florida voters re-elected Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state is divided over whether he should run for president in 2024, with slightly more voters opposing a run than favoring it, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Overall, 45% of Florida voters said they wanted DeSantis to seek the presidency in two years, compared with 53% who disagreed. Nearly 1 in 4 voters who supported his bid for a second term as governor said they did not want to see him run for president in 2024.

Compared to two other candidates who have signaled their interest in running in 2024, DeSantis fares relatively well. Only 1 in 3 Florida voters said they wanted to see former President Trump run again in 2024, and slightly fewer Florida voters said they wanted to see President Biden run for re-election.

Wisconsin's Senate race between GOP Sen. Ron Johnson and Democrat Mandela Barnes is too close to call, NBC News projects.

Barnes is the state's lieutenant governor, and the race is one of the most competitive of the general election cycle.

NBC News has also projected that the governor's race is too close to call.

Voters in Vermont overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that explicitly protects reproductive liberty, including abortions, in their state constitution, NBC News projects.

The passage of Proposal 5 was expected in the state, where abortion is legal with no major limits, such as waiting periods, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization.

Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, signed a law that preserves the right to abortion in 2019.

California and Michigan have similar propositions on the ballot.

Democratic state Rep. Delia Ramirez is the winner in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Justin Burau.

Her win made Ramirez the first Latina elected to Congress from Illinois.

“We just made history tonight,” Ramirez said Tuesday in front of a crowd of supporters. “We broke a glass ceiling.”

Read the full story here.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won 57% of the Latino vote, a big swath of the electorate, in his re-election, according to NBC News exit polls.

Although his largest support came from Cuban American voters, who supported him by 68%, the number is consistent with what he received in 2018 (67%).

Where DeSantis gained was among non-Cuban voters. He won 55% of the Puerto Rican vote, a group that voted for him by 34% in 2018. Among “other Latinos,” voters who trace their ancestry to Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, DeSantis won 50% of the vote.

The other statewide Republican candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, also won a large percentage of the Hispanic vote — 55%.

About 67% of Cubans and 53% of Puerto Ricans voted for Rubio. The results build on Republican gains since 2020, when Trump won 47% of Latino voters in Florida.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author who was a searing Donald Trump critic before converting into one of his most loyal allies, has defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio’s Senate race, NBC News projects.

Vance will succeed fellow Republican Rob Portman, who did not seek re-election. Unlike Portman, Vance has advanced unsubstantiated theories that a second term was stolen from Trump at the ballot box in 2020.

The race became an unexpected and expensive battleground in the fight for partisan control of the Senate. Portman’s prior success and Trump’s two comfortable Ohio victories made Ryan, 49, a heavy underdog. But the Democrat tailored his campaign to independents and moderate Republicans, presenting himself as a champion of the working-class.

Read the full story here.

The race for governor in Kansas between Democratic incumbent Laura Kelly and Republican challenger Derek Schmidt is too close to call, according to NBC News.

Kelly is the only Democratic governor running for re-election in a state won by Donald Trump in 2020. She has focused her campaign against Schmidt, the state’s three-term attorney general, almost exclusively on the economy, tax cuts, education and her desire to work with Republicans.

That approach marked a notable departure from the one taken by Democrats in more purple states, who focused heavily on abortion — an issue they’d hoped would energize their base in November following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.

It also came despite the fact that it was Kansas — where voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have removed language enshrining reproductive rights in their state — that signaled the issue had the potential to drive Democratic turnout following the high court ruling.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, will win re-election for an eighth term, NBC News projects.

Grassley is projected to defeat Democrat Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral.

Grassley, 89, has served in the Senate since 1981 and is the second-oldest sitting senator after Dianne Feinstein of California.

WASHINGTON — New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan won re-election Tuesday, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Don Bolduc and keeping a critical seat in Democratic hands.

While the race attracted less attention than some others, Hassan won her Senate seat six years ago in one of the closest races in the country, and Democrats had grown increasingly nervous in recent weeks as Bolduc seemed to gain strength in polls.

Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general backed by former President Donald Trump in the waning days of the campaign, has advanced false conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines and the 2020 presidential election. After winning the nomination, however, he waffled on 2020, saying the election had not been stolen. 

Read the full story here.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., narrowly held onto her seat Tuesday, defeating Republican Yesli Vega in a contest both parties saw as an early bellwether in the battle for the House.

NBC News has not yet projected the outcome in a second closely watched Virginia race, where Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria was battling Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans.

But the political survival of Spanberger, a prominent player among the small band of moderate Blue Dog Democrats, counted as a welcome burst of good news for Democrats relatively early on election night.

Read the full story here.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has won her re-election race, NBC News projects.

She faced a competitive race for a second term against Republican Mark Ronchetti, a former meteorologist who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2020.

The race had tightened in the days leading up to Election Day. President Joe Biden campaigned for Lujan Grisham last week. She has served as the state's governor since 2019 and previously served in the House from 2013 to 2019.

Republican Eric Schmitt has won Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat, NBC News projects.

Schmitt, the state’s attorney general, defeated Democratic challenger Trudy Busch Valentine.

The seat opened up after Republican Sen. Roy Blunt announced his retirement.

The Texas Supreme Court has directed election officials in Harris County, Texas — which includes Houston and surrounding suburbs — to separate out ballots that were cast during an extra hour of voting that had been granted by a lower court.

The Supreme Court’s order was the latest twist in a day of voting challenges and confusion in the nation’s third-largest county. Both the NAACP and the Harris County Republican Party raised concerns about widespread reports of broken voting machines, paper ballot shortages, closed polling locations and long lines.

Based on those issues, a district court judge ordered the county to keep polls open an extra hour. But then, after those votes had been cast, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition with the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s order. 

It’s not clear how many votes were cast during the extra hour of voting.

As firearm deaths rise across the United States, 56% of midterm voters said they support stricter gun control measures, the NBC News Exit Poll found. That includes 76% of those casting ballots for Democratic candidates for House as well as about a quarter of Republican voters.

Gun ownership also influences views on gun control measures: 76% of those who do not own a gun favor stricter gun policies, compared to 42% of voters who do own guns.

In June, Biden signed landmark legislation aimed at preventing gun violence. The bill was a rare moment of bipartisanship — and included provisions for “red flag” laws and enhanced background checks in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 

The Senate race in Ohio is too early to call, NBC News says, but Republican candidate J.D. Vance is leading. Polls closed at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Vance campaigned with Trump on Monday night. Vance faces Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in a competitive race to fill the seat that has been held by retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger is the projected winner in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, NBC News projects, defeating Republican challenger Yesli Vega in a highly competitive and expensive race.

The seat was seen by Republicans as a prime pickup opportunity as the party hoped to cash in on President Joe Biden's poor approval ratings in this deeply divided district.

While it doesn’t preclude a GOP-controlled House when all the votes across the country are counted, it signals that Democrats are holding their own in some challenging territory.

Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated far-right Republican Doug Mastriano in the Pennsylvania governor’s race on Tuesday, NBC News projected, providing Democrats with a significant victory in a contest where oversight of the 2024 election and abortion rights took center stage.

Shapiro, the state attorney general, framed his opponent as an extremist and sought to make his campaign about protecting Pennsylvanians’ freedom to vote, to access abortion care and to unionize. Mastriano, a state senator who led the charge to try to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, generated a core of grassroots GOP supporters during the primary but was unable to broaden his coalition.

Read the full story here.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has won re-election, defeating Republican challenger Darren Bailey, NBC News projects.

Pritzker was first elected in 2018.

Bailey is a state senator from southern Illinois who has previously called Chicago a "hellhole."

He also drew scrutiny for remarks — later clarifying and apologizing — for saying that people should “ move on” and celebrate Independence Day after a gunman opened fire this year at a parade in Highland Park, killing seven people and wounding others.

Democrat Andrea Campbell is the winner of the Massachusetts attorney general’s race, NBC News projects, defeating James McMahon.

Early results showed Campbell leading McMahon by about 60% to 40%, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.

Her win makes her the first Black woman to serve as Massachusetts’ top law enforcement officer.

Campbell, a former Boston city councilwoman, made equity a focus of her campaign, saying she would look at every issue through that lens, NBC Boston reported.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has won re-election to a third term, NBC News projects, soundly defeating a challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke.

At one point, early in the cycle, pundits had regarded the contest as one of the more interesting matchups in the country, with O’Rourke brandishing much of the same gusto he employed four years earlier, when he nearly knocked out a different Texas conservative, Sen. Ted Cruz.

In May, O’Rourke crashed an Abbott news conference the day after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 children and two teachers dead, approaching the stage to blame Abbott’s pro-gun policies before police escorted him out. Over the summer, he launched a 5,600-mile “Drive for Texas.”

But this time around, O’Rourke’s campaign never caught on. 

Read the full story here.

Democrat Letitia James won a second term as New York's attorney general, defeating Republican challenger Michael Henry, NBC News projects.

James has been in the national spotlight with high-profile legal battles against former President Donald Trump. In September, her office filed a sweeping lawsuit against Trump, his three eldest children and the Trump Organization stemming from her civil probe into the company’s business practices.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — An energetic crowd packed into a Scottsdale resort this evening, optimistic that the four Donald Trump-endorsed candidates will sweep their races despite earlier polls showing them to be highly competitive.

"This is the election of our lifetime," Kelli Ward, the Arizona Republican Party chair, told the crowd to cheers and applause.

Tucson voter Felix Moreira said he has supported Kari Lake for governor since day one. Drawn to her brashness, Moreira said he trusts her to protect Arizona from crime and illegal immigration.

"Just look around — we don't want to turn into Venezuela," he said.

Joe Generoso, who lives in a retirement community in Maricopa County, said he has attended every Donald Trump rally in Arizona over the years. He believes the 2020 election was rigged against Trump and is worried about this year's results after reports of problems at dozens of voting locations throughout the county.

"I'm not saying we're going to get violent, but we're not going to take it," he said. "We have to stop Democrats."

Georgia's Senate race is too close to call about three hours after polls closed at 7 p.m. ET, according to NBC News.

The race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker is among the most competitive in the country, and it could determine which party controls the Senate in the next Congress.

A runoff election would be held in December if no candidate gets at least 50% of the vote.

The contest between Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican challenger Tim Michels is too close to call.

Evers defeated former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2018.

Ron DeSantis won re-election as Florida's Republican governor with strong support from white men, Cuban voters, rural voters and voters age 45 and over, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

DeSantis' level of support among Cuban voters is consistent with what he received in 2018. Where DeSantis appears to have gained support is among other Latino voters.

In 2018, the NBC News Exit Poll found that about 34% of Puerto Rican voters supported DeSantis, along with 34% of other Latino voters, which includes voters who trace their ancestry to Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and other Latin American countries.

This year, the exit poll found that about 55% of Puerto Rican voters supported DeSantis and 50% of other Latino voters supported him.

Inflation appeared to be a major issue motivating DeSantis’ supporters. DeSantis voters were more than twice as likely as voters for Democrat Charlie Crist to say that inflation was the issue that mattered most to them. In comparison, Crist voters were about six times as likely as DeSantis voters to say that abortion was the issue that mattered most to them in deciding how they would vote.

The Senate race in New Hampshire is too early to call, but incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan is leading, NBC News projects.

Hassan faces Republican challenger Donald Bolduc. Libertarian Party candidate Jeremy Kauffman is also on the ballot.

The Pennsylvania governor’s race was too early to call two hours after polls closed at 8 p.m. ET, but Democrat Josh Shapiro is leading.

Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, ran for governor against Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who was backed by former President Donald Trump and who has repeatedly cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Shapiro was favored to win, although it had become competitive in the weeks approaching the election.

The Utah Senate race is too early to call, according to NBC News, after polls closed in the state at 8 p.m. MT.

Republican incumbent Mike Lee is running for re-election against independent candidate Evan McMullin, who had the backing of the state Democratic Party. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, remained neutral in the race, while former President Donald Trump recently endorsed Lee.

The Senate and governor’s races in Nevada are too early to call, according to NBC News.

Polls closed at 10 p.m. ET.

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is seeking re-election against Republican challenger Adam Laxalt.

In the governor's race, Gov. Steve Sisolak is trying to fend off Republican Joe Lombardo, who became sheriff of Clark County in 2014, as he seeks a second term.

The race for North Carolina's open Senate seat is too close to call.

Ted Budd, the Republican candidate, narrowly leads Democrat Cheri Beasley.

The seat opened up after Richard Burr, a Republican who has served since 2005, announced his retirement from Congress.

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been re-elected to a second term, NBC News projects.

Noem is projected to handily defeat Democratic challenger Jamie Smith.

At the White House, President Joe Biden is calling Democrats who have won their general elections, two advisers to the president said.

Biden has phoned Gov.-elect Maura Healy of Massachusetts, Sen.-elect Peter Welch of Vermont and Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, among others. NBC News has projected all three will win.

Allies of the president say they are encouraged by what they are seeing in some races, including that voters are citing abortion as a motivating factor in early exit polling.

An adviser says that many races are still toss-ups but that right now “we’re not seeing a blowout.” Another Biden adviser says there’s “no clear red wave yet.”

The race for governor in New York is too early to call, nearly an hour after polls closed at 9 p.m. ET, but NBC News projects that Gov. Kathy Hochul is leading.

Hochul is running for re-election against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin in a race that tightened significantly in recent weeks.

Voters in Pennsylvania expressed greater trust in Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro than Republican candidate Doug Mastriano to handle state elections, the NBC News Exit Poll found. Mastriano has denied the results of the 2020 election and has said he believes the state Legislature has the power to appoint an alternate slate of presidential electors if lawmakers doubt the outcome of an election.

About half of Pennsylvania’s midterms voters said they trusted only Shapiro to handle state elections, compared with 35% trusting only Mastriano. About 6% of Pennsylvania voters trusted both with the state’s elections, and another 6% trusted neither candidate.

Almost three-quarters of Pennsylvania voters said they are either somewhat or very confident that elections in their state are being conducted fairly and accurately. Twenty-seven percent said they are not very confident or not at all confident.

In Pennsylvania, the governor gets to appoint the secretary of state, who will administer the 2024 election.

Another major issue was abortion. Mastriano supports outlawing abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life. Shapiro, by contrast, emphasized abortion rights on the campaign trail. Pennsylvania voters were much more likely to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases (62%) than to say it should be illegal in most or all cases (42%), the exit poll found.

Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont voters are deciding whether to repeal language in their states’ constitutions that permits enslavement or involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes.

Each state varies slightly in how it plans to get rid of the problematic wording. In Tennessee and Louisiana, where the language has existed since 1796 and 1974, respectively, phrases would be added prohibiting the practices, with Louisiana adding that the section “does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.” In Vermont, the only state that has permitted slavery for fines or even debts since 1793, a similar statement denouncing such practices “in any form” would be added.

Another condition would be invoked in Oregon, where such practices have been prohibited with exceptions for criminal punishment since 1857. Oregon Measure 112 would allow courts, parole or probation agencies to order alternatives to incarceration, like counseling or community service. 

Over 150 years since the U.S. outlawed slavery, states are still pushing to remove gaps in language that would allow for the practice — with Colorado, Nebraska and Utah having approved similar initiatives to remove wording since 2018.

Despite advocates’ efforts, many states still have exception clauses that allow slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment.

Cory Mills, a Republican former Army combat soldier, won an open Florida seat in the House that was previously held by Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy, NBC News projects.

Mills defeated Democrat Karen Green. He had nearly 60% of the vote, with 85% of the vote counted, according to NBC News projections.

Rep. Al Lawson, D-Fla., has lost his race to GOP Rep. Neal Dunn, NBC News projects, making him the first incumbent to lose in the 2022 general election.

Lawson went head to head with Dunn, a fellow incumbent, in a district that was redrawn to heavily favor Republicans.

Lawson has represented Floridians for four decades in his time in Congress and both chambers of the Florida Legislature. He faced difficult odds this election cycle after Gov. Ron DeSantis fought to have his district redrawn, which he argued in a lawsuit diminished Black voter representation.

Lawson, who is Black, was ultimately unsuccessful in his lawsuit.

Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet won re-election Tuesday, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Joe O’Dea in a competitive race.

Bennet, 57, a former chief of staff to his Senate colleague John Hickenlooper, is seen as a moderate, although he has championed marijuana reform and environmental issues. In the Senate since 2009, Bennet ran for president in 2020, joining a crowded Democratic field that included Hickenlooper, but he dropped out after the New Hampshire primary.

Read the full story here.

With the 2024 presidential contest two years off, most midterm voters agree on one thing: They would rather not see President Biden run for re-election. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, 68% of voters prefer that Biden not run again, compared with about 29% who would like to see him run.

Among all midterm voters self-identifying as Democrats, 57% wanted Biden to run again. But there was some significant opposition among core Democratic constituencies: Two-thirds of midterms voters under age 30 said they did not want to see Biden run again. The same was true for 56% of Latino midterm voters. Black voters were one of the few groups in which a majority (56%) wanted to see Biden run for president again.

Only a quarter of independent midterms voters said they wanted to see Biden run in 2024.

Overall, Biden's favorability rating among 2022 midterms voters was not appreciably different from former President Trump’s. Asked about their views on Trump and Biden, 37% of midterms voters expressed favorable views of only Trump, while 39% expressed favorable views of only Biden. Just 1% of midterms voters held favorable views of both the current and former presidents.

Democrat Maura Healey's projected win as governor of Massachusetts marks two historic firsts: She is the first out lesbian to be elected governor, and her victory with running mate Kim Driscoll means women will serve as both governor and lieutenant governor of a state for the first time, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Arkansas is poised to join Massachusetts in the historic first, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders projected to win the governor's race. The lieutenant governor is elected separately in Arkansas; the CAWP noted that both of the major-party candidates — Kelly Krout, a Democrat, and Leslie Rutledge, a Republican — are women.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Jakki Padilla, 25, a freshman majoring in journalism and photography at Santa Ana College, said she was motivated to vote to protect her right to abortion and reproductive health. She was casting a vote for Proposition 1, which would add the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the state Constitution.

“It’s been very regressive that we even have to vote on it. It should just be ensured already,” said Padilla, who helped bring her peers from her journalism class to vote at the school’s polling site inside the Johnson Student Center.

Kate Bustamante, 21, one of Padilla’s classmates, said she was motivated to also vote for Prop 1.

“I’ve got to do it for the people who can’t,” said Bustamante, the daughter of immigrants. As a young adult, she “never imagined” that her friends, family and other young people would be interested in voting, but she’s seen more excitement ahead of the midterms.

Abortion ranked as the second-most important issue, after the economy, for Latino voters for nine straight weeks, according to a tracking poll by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has been re-elected in the race to represent the state's 9th Congressional District, NBC News projects.

The contest was not considered competitive.

Jeffries, 52, has served as the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus since 2019.

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were to step down as Democratic leader in the event of a GOP majority, Jeffries is considered a top contender for a higher position in House leadership.

Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton is the projected winner in Virginia's 10th Congressional District, NBC News projects, defeating Republican challenger Hung Cao.

Although Wexton was favored, the competitive race was seen as a bellwether for a potential red wave and huge Republican gains in the House. While her victory does not preclude the GOP winning control of the House, a Wexton loss would have indicated serious problems for Democrats.

Wes Moore has won Maryland's governor race, flipping the seat from Republican to Democratic, NBC News projects. He will become the state's first Black governor.

Moore, an author and former nonprofit executive, defeated Republican Dan Cox, a state delegate and 2020 election denier who was backed by former President Donald Trump.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was White House press secretary in the Trump administration, will be the next governor of Arkansas, NBC News projects.

Sanders, the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, defeated Democrat Chris Jones. She was the heavy favorite in the deep-red state.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., has won re-election, NBC News projects.

Nadler, 75, was expected to win in the newly redrawn 12th Congressional District, a heavily Democratic area that merged Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Upper East Side into one district.

Nadler won a bitter primary fight against longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Nadler is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but he may become the ranking member if Republicans win control of the chamber. He played a key role in former President Donald Trump's first impeachment.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Ryan denied an emergency request from the Republican National Committee on Tuesday to extend voting hours after the county experienced tabulation issues at about 20% of polling locations.

The motion sought to keep polling places open three extra hours. The ruling came just as polls closed in Arizona.

"Hearing concludes. Court rules against the TRO request, despite the admitted problems with voting in Maricopa County, and multiple factual declarations from voters affected by bad instructions and malfunctioning equipment at over 25% of polling places in Maricopa County," attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon, who represented the RNC, tweeted after the hearing ended.

The county spent hours Tuesday trying to fix what was initially described as a “hiccup” with tabulation machines. The machines were not misreading ballots but, rather, were not accepting ballots at all. Voters could still cast ballots and drop them in a secure box to be counted later.

Maricopa, the fourth-largest county in the country and home to Phoenix and Tempe, is widely considered the key to Arizona elections. Ryan has been a judge in Arizona since 2005, when he was appointed by Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is the winner in Florida’s 27th District, NBC News projects. With 81% of the votes counted, Salazar won with 57.4%, compared with 42.6% for her challenger, Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo.

The race was being watched by some who saw potential for Taddeo, who is Colombian American, to unseat Salazar, a Cuban American former journalist.

Like elsewhere in Florida, Republicans won by large margins.

For three decades, the district was held by a Republican and the first Latina elected to Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Democrat Donna Shalala won in 2018, and two years later Salazar flipped it back to the Republicans.

The 2022 midterm election campaign took place amid debates over the status of transgender athletes in organized sports and the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom. By a wide margin, voters said society’s values on these issues were changing in a negative way, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Half of voters said society's values on gender identity and sexual orientation were changing for the worse, while 26% said they were changing for the better.

There’s a deep generational divide on this question. Older Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the changes, but those under 30 say values are changing for the better, the poll found. The gap grows even wider among voters under 25, who approve of the direction of change on sexuality and gender by 54% to 23%.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has won re-election, NBC News projects.

Ocasio-Cortez, 33, a prominent progressive, had the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a solid Democratic-leaning district that covers part of the Bronx, Queens and Rikers Island.

She has served in the House since 2019 and is a member of "the squad," which includes five other progressive Democrats.

The contest between Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger Lee Zeldin is too early to call, NBC News projects.

Hochul took office as New York's first female governor in 2021 after Andrew Cuomo resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations. She led in the polls for much of the midterm cycle, but Zeldin recently narrowed the gap.

It is too early to call the Senate and gubernatorial races in Wisconsin, according to NBC News.

Polls closed in Wisconsin at 9 p.m. ET.

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is seeking a third term but will have to defeat Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is hoping to fend off Republican challenger Tim Michels. Evers was elected governor in 2018.

Republican Anna Paulina Luna is the winner of Florida’s 13th Congressional District, NBC News projects, defeating Democrat Eric Lynn.

With 93% of the votes in, Luna garnered 53.4% of the votes, compared to Lynn's 44.8%, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.

Her win represents a gain for Republicans in the House and makes her Florida’s first Mexican American woman elected to Congress.

“Today we made history,” Luna, an Air Force veteran and nonprofit advocate, said on Twitter. “My name is Anna Paulina Luna and I am going to be the next representative for FL-13!”

Florida has had 12 Latino members of Congress: 10 of Cuban descent, one of Puerto Rican descent and one of Ecuadorian descent.

The race for governor in Texas is too early to call, according to NBC News, but Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leads. 

Abbott is seeking re-election for a third term and facing Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a former presidential candidate who lost a close Senate race in 2018.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has won re-election to the Senate, defeating Republican challenger Joe Pinion, NBC News projects.

Schumer, 71, will start his fifth term in the Senate next year, though his fate as majority leader remains uncertain, as Republicans could win control of the upper chamber in the midterms.

After polls closed at 9 p.m. ET in Arizona, the state's Senate and governor races were too early to call, according to NBC News.

Both contests are considered toss-ups.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is running for re-election against Republican Blake Masters, who served as chief operating officer for Peter Thiel's investment firm and ran the Silicon Valley titan's foundation. Kelly is seeking a full Senate term after winning a close special election in 2020 to serve the remaining two years of the late Sen. John McCain's term.

In the governor's race, Trump-backed Kari Lake is competing against Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is Arizona's secretary of state. Lake is a former local TV news anchor and election denier who has not committed to accepting the results of the 2022 elections.

Republican Katie Britt has defeated Democrat Will Boyd to win the U.S. Senate race in Alabama, NBC News projects.

Britt was chief of staff for Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican who last year announced he would not seek re-election.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Britt in June. Trump endorsed Britt after rescinding his previous endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks, who entered the Senate race and then lost to Britt in a primary runoff.

A woman has represented Alabama in the Senate in the past, but Britt is the first to be elected.

The first, Dixie Bibb Graves, was appointed to the seat by her husband, Alabama Gov. Bibb Graves, to fill a vacancy in 1937. She served until 1938.

Many voters in Pennsylvania have concerns about the two candidates running for Senate, according to the NBC News Exit Poll.

More than half of Pennsylvania voters said Republican Mehmet Oz has not lived in the state long enough to represent Pennsylvania effectively, while 42% disagreed, the poll found. Oz moved to Pennsylvania in 2020, after living in New Jersey for several decades.

A lower but still sizable share of voters were concerned about the health of Oz’s Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. Fetterman is recovering from a stroke in May. Forty-seven percent of Pennsylvania voters said that Fetterman is not in good enough health to represent the state effectively, while 50% said he is healthy enough, the poll found.

One in 10 Pennsylvania voters said they believed these issues could prevent both of the candidates from representing the state effectively.