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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Jonathan Yerushalmy, Maanvi Singh, Gloria Oladipo, Chris Stein, Lauren Aratani and Martin Belam

Biden hails Democratic victories even as Congress control remains in limbo – as it happened

Donald Trump Kari Lake Republican Katie Hobbs John Fetterman Doug Mastriano Joe Biden Josh Shapiro Ron DeSantis Arizona

As counting continues across the country, we’re going to pause our live blog, but will be back if there’s any major updates to alert you of.

As things stand, control of the Senate remains very much in play. Georgia will now face a runoff election in December after neither candidate reached a majority.

Arizona’s Democratic candidate Mark Kelly is ahead on the current count, but there remain thousands of votes still to tally. In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt is just a few thousand votes of his Democratic rival.

Control of the House is still up in air. Republicans need just over 10 more seats to secure a narrow win. Victory in the lower house could come down to a handful of competitive races where counting remains ongoing.

You can read a full report on the day’s events here.

Follow the latest from the US midterms with our new blog here.

Updated

Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County have updated the public on a printer issue that affected some ballots on Tuesday. They’ve reassured voters that all ballots affected will be counted securely and accurately.

The issue impacted an estimated 17,000 ballots (or less than 7% of votes) according to officials. Some ballots could not be read by the tabulators because the printers did not produce dark enough marks on them.

Voters had ways to cast their ballot, including dropping their completed ballot into secure boxes.

Those ballots will be verified as legit and then tabulated at MCTEC. That process is already underway.

You can read the full explanation here:

Counting continues in Arizona’s closely fought Senate race. The result there could prove be pivotal in deciding which party controls the upper house.

Democrat Mark Kelly currently leads Republican Blake Masters by around 90 thousand votes, but there remain thousands still to be counted.

Many of those that remain to be tallied are in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix and its sprawling suburbs. President Joe Biden narrowly carried Maricopa County in 2020.

Pima County, the state’s second largest by population and home to the city of Tucson, also has a number of outstanding votes still to be counted.

Two of the three Democratic candidates endorsed by Republican Liz Cheney won their races on Tuesday.

Cheney, the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, is a stringent conservative but has emerged as perhaps the leading anti-Trump Republican.

She rose to national prominence as vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, seeking to establish Trump’s guilt regarding the US Capitol attack, but in August lost her primary in Wyoming to a Trump-backed challenger.

Cheney backed incumbent Democrat Elissa Slotkin in Michigan’s 7th District, as well as Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s 7th District. Both candidates were victorious.

However her endorsement of Democrat Tim Ryan in his Ohio US Senate race against JD Vance failed to come off. The Republican, Vance, won the race in Ohio by a wider margin than predicted by many opinion polls.

Voters in four states have approved ballot measures that will change their state constitutions to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime.

The measures could curtail the use of prison labor in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.

The four approved initiatives won’t force immediate changes in the states’ prisons, but they may invite legal challenges over the practice of coercing prisoners to work under threat of sanctions or loss of privileges if they refuse the work.

In Louisiana, a badly worded question on the ballot pushed lawmakers trying to get rid of forced prisoner labour to actually go against their own measure. They told voters to reject it because the measure on the ballot included ambiguous language that did not prohibit involuntary servitude in the criminal justice system.

Louisiana is one of a handful of states that sentences convicted felons to hard labor.

Updated

Midterms 2022: Biden cheers results with key races still unclear

It’s still unclear which party will control the House and Senate, but Joe Biden expressed optimism today, relishing Democrats’ unexpected show of strength in the midterm races that have been decided so far. It may take days or weeks before we know the balance of power.

Here’s what we’ve learned today so far:

  • Joe Biden said it was “a good day” for democracy after Democrats defied history and outperformed expectations in the midterms.

  • Control of the Senate will be decided in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. The former two races remain too close to call; the latter race will go to a runoff election.

  • Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney’s job was to win seats for the Democrats in the House of Representatives, but he lost his own bid for re-election instead.

  • Republican senator Ron Johnson won another term in Wisconsin, dashing Democrats’ hopes of picking up the seat and padding their majority in the chamber.

  • Voters in Kentucky said no to a ballot measure that would have set the stage for abortion to be criminalized.

  • Across the US, voters have rejected some of the most vehement election deniers, though key races featuring Trump-backed election conspiracy theorists remain undecided.

Updated

Republican Tom Kean Jr has unseated Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski in New Jersey’s most contested race.

This was a vindication for Kean after he narrowly lost to Malinowski two years ago, in a slightly different district.

“While we did as well or better than in 2020 in the communities I have represented these last four years, and I expect the results to tighten further as all votes are counted, the new district proved too much of a hurdle to overcome,” Malinowski said. “I’m gratified that across the country, Americans chose moderation over Maga, while passing referenda protecting a woman’s right to choose.”

Kean has a long, long political lineage in New Jersey. His father was governor, and co-chair of the 9/11 commission. His grandfather was a congressman, and his great-grandfather a senator. His great-great-great-great-grandfather was a delegate in the Continental Congress.

Updated

Democrat Jahana Hayes has won re-election, fending off challenger George Logan in a race that Republicans had heavily targeted.

Hayes became the first Black woman to represent Connecticut in Congress when she was elected in 2018. This year, she focused on reproductive rights issues and her record of bringing money into her district.

Republicans poured in millions, hoping to flip the seat as part of what they anticipated would be a red wave.

Updated

In a newly formed Colorado district, Democrat Yadira Caraveo has picked up a closely contested seat, besting Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer.

Caraveo will be the first Latina to represent Colorado in congress, with Kirkmeyer conceding Wednesday night.

The district, which includes the northern suburbs of Denver, was ranked a toss-up. Nearly 40% of residents in the district are Latino.

Caraveo is a state legislator and pediatrician. She emphasized economic and cost of living issues in her campaign, as well as reproductive rights.

Read more:

Updated

Progressives had a lot to smile about as they woke up on Wednesday morning, after many of their preferred candidates won crucial races in the US midterm elections.

House progressives held on in closely fought races and appeared poised to expand their ranks, even as control of the lower chamber remained up for grabs on Wednesday. Dozens of progressive members of Congress secured re-election, including embattled incumbents like Angie Craig, whose Minnesota district was considered a toss-up.

As sitting lawmakers fended off Republican challenges, progressive House candidates like Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Greg Casar of Texas won their first congressional races. Lee’s victory was a particular point of pride for progressives, given that she previously won a hard-fought primary after the pro-Israel group Aipac spent millions trying to defeat her.

“The loser of the night is Aipac who revealed they were totally willing to sabotage Democratic chances of keeping the majority, set $4m on fire in an attempt to beat Summer Lee, and still lost,” Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible Project, said on Twitter.

Some new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are set to make history as they prepare to join the House. The Florida Democrat Maxwell Frost, who organized with the American Civil Liberties Union and has called for universal healthcare on the campaign trail, will become the first Gen Z member of Congress. Becca Balint, who was endorsed by the progressive senator Bernie Sanders, will be the first woman and the first out LGBTQ+ politician to represent Vermont in Congress.

Read more:

Updated

The Guardian’s Sam Levin and Lois Beckett in Los Angeles report:

A billionaire real estate developer and a Democratic congresswoman are still locked in a tight race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, in a record-breaking campaign where political spending topped $120m.

On Wednesday morning, the margin of votes between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass was still too close to call, with the candidates virtually tied, the Associated Press reported.

Caruso was ahead by 12,000 votes on Wednesday morning local time, with nearly 80% of expected votes remaining to be counted.

Bass told supporters at her election party that the vote counting could take days, but added: “We will win, because we are going to build a new Los Angeles.” Caruso told his crowd: “We don’t know the outcome yet, but I’m happy to say that we’re starting out strong.”

In another closely watched LA race, the incumbent county sheriff, Alex Villanueva, was trailing his opponent, the former police chief of the city of Long Beach Robert Luna. Villanueva, a Democrat who took a hard turn to the right since his election in 2018, has been derided by some as the “Donald Trump of LA” due to a steady stream of controversies surrounding obstruction, abuse and misconduct cases.

Both nominally Democrats, Bass and Caruso come from starkly different backgrounds and their down-to-the-wire contest comes at a particularly fraught time for Los Angeles.

The region’s homelessness crisis has become a humanitarian catastrophe, with LA county recording 69,000 unhoused people in this year’s annual estimate, considered an undercount, including more than 48,000 living outside.

During the campaign, Caruso made it clear he would like to roll back some criminal justice reforms in order to impose tougher penalties for theft, and suggested he would be willing to arrest unhoused people who were unwilling to move into shelters.

Updated

Joe Biden has spoken with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, the White House said.

Republicans are inching toward a majority in the House, but the balance of power in the chamber remains unclear. Still, McCarthy, a Republican from California, has already announced his bid for House speaker.

In a letter to Republican colleagues, McCarthy expressed confidence that Republicans would take the House. “I am running to serve as Speaker of the People’s House and humbly ask for your support,” he wrote.

Democrats still have a chance of keeping control of the House, though Biden confirmed earlier today that he would be speaking with McCarthy.

Updated

In Colorado, far-right firebrand Lauren Boebert is virtually tied with her centrist Democratic challenger Adam Frisch, with only a few dozen votes separating them.

Once the remaining votes, including military and overseas votes are counted, an automatic recount will be triggered as the margin of victory is less than 0.5% of the winner’s total votes.

Boebert has made a name for herself targeting fellow representative Ilhan Omar with Islamophobic comments, carrying a gun at the Capitol, heckling Joe Biden and promoting baseless QAnon conspiracy theories.

Updated

Which party will control the Senate? It boils down to three races.

The question of whether Democrats or Republicans will control the Senate will be answered in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

The race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia will be decided in a runoff on 6 December.

In Nevada, Democrat Chatherine Cortez Masto is trailing republican Adam Laxalt, but still has a chance of winning as more votes are tallied.

And in Arizona, it may be a while before it becomes clear whether Democrat Mark Kelly will maintain his lead over Republican Blake Masters, though things are looking promising for the former.

Democrats can keep control of the chamber by winning just two races and having vice-president Kamala Harris as a tie-breaking vote.

Updated

‘Votes still being counted’ in Nevada’s tight Senate race

Dani Anguiano in Las Vegas, Nevada, reports:

The outcome of the Senate race in Nevada, home to one of the closest contests in the country, may not be known for several days as election workers continue to process mail-in ballots.

The fate of the Senate could hinge on the race in Nevada where incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina senator, is fighting to keep her seat against Republican Adam Laxalt, a former attorney general in the state who aided in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Cortez Masto had an early lead on Tuesday night, but by Monday morning Laxalt was ahead with 49.9% of the vote to the senator’s 47.2% with 63.6% reporting, according to the Associated Press. Both candidates have urged patience as residents wait to hear the outcome of the race and several other close elections.

“The votes are still being counted. We know this will take time and we won’t have more election results for several days,” Cortez Masto said at an election night gathering. “I am confident in the campaign that we have built to win.”

Laxalt, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, said he was confident the results would favor him, telling supporters Tuesday night: “We are exactly where we want to be in this race.”

“When we win this race, I’m gonna support our police and fight to make our streets safe again. I will not rest until we’ve secured our southern border,” he said. “We’re in for a long night and even a few days into this week as all the votes are tabulated. We’re confident that the numbers are there and we’re gonna win this race and take back Nevada and take back America.”

Updated

Republicans inch toward House majority, but key California races are still unclear

The path to a House majority snakes through California, the most populous US state with the biggest House delegation.

Although the state overall is solidly blue, several House districts here are competitive, especially after redistricting. Some of the races we’re closely watching:

- Representative David Valadao, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach former Trump, started off with a lead but most votes have yet to be tallied in a hard fought race against Democrat Rudy Salas. This was the second-most expensive House race in the country.

- In the central valley, Republican farmer John Duarte and Democratic assemblyman Adam Gray are running neck and neck.

- Republican congressman Mike Garcia is leading ahead of Democratic assemblywoman Christy Smith, with less than half the votes tallied.

- In southern California, Democratic star Katie Porter is narrowly leading Republican Scott Baugh, in a fierce race.

- And in a race that has been marked by especially vitriolic campaigning, Republican representative Michelle Steel has a sizable lead over Democrat Jay Chen, with less than half the votes tallied in a new, largely Asian American district.

Updated

Democrat Cindy Axne has conceded her Iowa House seat to Republican Zach Nunn, in a closely watched contest.

The results in Iowa’s third district inches Republicans closer to control of the House. Two-term congresswoman Axne was the only Democrat in the state’s delegation.

She was elected to office in 2018, and in 2020 she was one of only seven Democrats to win a district that backed Donald Trump. This year, she was running in a slightly redder district.

Nunn has served eight years in the state legislature. He has expressed support for a total abortion ban.


A senior Trump adviser, Jason Miller, said earlier he was “advising the president to hold off” announcing his 2024 presidential run “until after the Georgia race”.

Donald Trump has trailed an announcement of his third run for the Republican presidential nomination, possibly as soon as 15 November. But such thinking was reportedly based on expectations of Republican midterms success which Trump could claim on his own.

The GOP’s disappointing performance on Tuesday – the Georgia race is the runoff a month from now between Herschel Walker, Trump’s anointed Senate candidate, and the incumbent Raphael Warnock – may have put a dent in such thinking.

So might the contrastingly impressive win enjoyed by Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is Trump’s clear chief rival for the presidential nod, should he choose to run.

Trump has continued to target DeSantis with criticism, posting earlier on his own platform, Truth Social, that he got more votes in Florida in 2020 than the governor did this year and shouldn’t that be mentioned now?

As it happens, another possible contender in 2024, Mike Pence, has today released a lengthy extract from his new memoir, dealing with January 6.

Pence describes Trump’s behaviour towards him in some detail. He also, bizarrely, seems to blame the anti-Trump Lincoln Project for enraging Trump with a political ad, thereby fueling the anger that incited the Capitol attack.

Rick Wilson, a Lincoln Project co-founder, tells the Guardian: “It’s no secret that the Lincoln Project has lived rent-free in Donald Trump’s head since 2019. Mike Pence telling this story is one more powerful testimony to just how our ‘audience of one’ strategy unfailingly disrupts Trump world.”

Wilson also said: “Seriously, I cannot get over Mike Pence blaming the Lincoln Project for January 6. Cannot.”

On Twitter, Wilson linked to the ad.

More on the Pence book here:

Democrats in Pennsylvania are celebrating after declaring that they have won the state house.

While some votes are still being counted, Pennsylvania Democrats announced during a press conference on Wednesday that they had the 102 seats necessary to flip the state house, a feat that hasn’t occurred since 2010, reports CBS News.

Pennsylvania Democrats have had a victorious Tuesday election night, winning all three of the most competitive congressional races in the state and the contentious race for US senator between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, reports AP.

The state’s delegation in the House will now be broken down 9-to-8, Democratic-to-Republican, AP further reports.

Nevada Republicans have criticized Biden for prematurely declaring victory for Democrats in three reelection races in the state during his press conference.

From Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Gary Martin:

Some stats on Biden’s press conference from CNN’s Mark Knoller:

As WBNA player Brittney Griner is moved to a Russian penal colony on Wednesday, Biden spoke about his intention to bring her home during his press conference.

Such colonies are known for abusive treatment of inmates, overcrowding, and harsh conditions, reports the New York Times.

Read the latest on her case here.

Biden’s press conference is now over!

Final question of the conference was about the state of a potential alliance between China and Russia.

Biden replied that he doesn’t see it as a particular alliance, adding:

Biden was also asked about a potential match-off between Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination and who would be the tougher opponent.

Biden answered:

Updated

When asked about the two-thirds of Americans that don’t want him to run for reelection, Biden responded that those people do not factor in his decision.


“Watch me,” Biden added.

Updated

On the topic of Ukraine, Biden was asked about if aid will continue if Republicans win the House.

Republicans, including McCarthy, have pushed back against aid that has been given to the country during its war with Russia.

Biden said:

Biden was asked about any concerns with national security as it pertains to Elon Musk’s connections to foreign countries like Saudi Arabia.

Biden said: “I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and, or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at, whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate. I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that it’s worth being looked at.”

Biden added: “But that’s all I’ll say.”

When asked how, Biden said, “There’s a lot of ways.”

As the press conference continues, Biden mentions that it can’t last too long as he needs to speak with Republican leadership soon.

Biden was also questioned by April Ryan at the Grio about his plans to fight inflation.

While giving points about what he plans to do, Biden added:

Biden also pivoted his response to covering the ways his administration is tackling drug prices, adding that both Black and white communities deal with costs like medical expenses.

Updated

Biden said again that he will make a final decision with regards to his election “early next year”, adding that it is a decision that involves his family.

Biden: 'Our intention is to run again'

Biden said again that he plans on running for re-election, adding that First lady Jill Biden remains a key factor in his decision.

“Our intention is to run again,” said Biden when asked about how the midterm results impact his reelection stance.

Updated

Biden commented on the state of MAGA, especially on the heels of a possible announcement from Donald Trump about a 2024 presidential run.

While calling Republicans decent people, Biden said, “I think we’re not going to break the fever for the Mega-MAGA Republicans,” but added that he believes they are a minority of the Republican party.

Updated

Biden also called House results a “moving target”, mentioning again how close results about the House will be and emphasizing that there is still a possibility that Democrats keep control.

Updated

Biden was asked about comments from Republican leader Kevin McCarthy that Republicans will take control of the House.

Biden said that Democrats still have a possibility of keeping control of the House, mentioning that the result will be “close”.

Biden also mentioned that he will be speaking with McCarthy “later today”.

Biden was also asked about Russia’s announcement that they are withdrawing from Kherson.

Here’s part of Biden’s response:

First question of the press conference comes from Zeke Miller at the Associated Press.

The question was about what Biden will do to appeal to those who think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

“Nothing,” said Biden, who defended his priorities and plans during his first term.

“I’m not going to change the direction,” said Biden. “I fully understand the legitimate concern that what I am saying is wrong,” Biden continued.

Biden again mentioned his commitment to fighting climate change, a worry that many Democrats had given concerns about which party would control Congress. Biden spoke on the importance of collaboration with regards to the issue.

“I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues and the American people made clear I think that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well,” said Biden.

Updated

Biden gave a shout-out to youth voters, who turned out in large numbers to boost Democrats and progressives in midterm elections across the country.

Biden gave a special nod to Maxwell Frost, a 25-year old in Florida who is the first member of Generation Z to make it to Congress.

Read the Guardian’s interview with Frost here.

Biden: 'The giant red wave – it didn't happen'

At the beginning of his remarks, Biden took a cautious victory lap following Tuesday’s midterm election results, celebrating gains Democrats made after a predicted Republican victory.

“While the press and the pundits were predicting a giant red wave – it didn’t happen,” said Biden, adding that many results in key races are still being tallied.

Updated

Biden has just started speaking on Tuesday’s election results.

Stay tuned for his remarks!

Updated

Democratic US representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania has won her reelection bid, reported AP.

Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., laughs as she speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 17, 2019.
Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., laughs as she speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 17, 2019. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

The incumbent congresswoman will be returning to Congress for a third term following a win over Republican Lisa Scheller, who runs a manufacturing business.

Updated

Biden speaks on Democrats' midterm surprise

Joe Biden will soon begin speaking about the results of yesterday’s midterm elections, where Democratic candidates showed unexpected strength in a number of key races.

Several of the president’s allies in the House and Senate managed to win reelection, while the Democrats also picked up a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. However, several crucial races still have not been determined, and Republicans could yet win a majority in one or both chambers of Congress.

The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo will cover Biden’s speech on this blog as it happens. You can also watch it live at the video embedded above.

Updated

The Guardian’s Gabrielle Canon reports that environmental activists are pleased with the outcome of many races that were decided last night:

Election results are still rolling in, but on Wednesday morning environmental organizations gathered online for a press conference to celebrate what they characterized as a “big green wave” that swept across the country.

“The climate community stepped like they never have before,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, adding the turnout hit historic levels and the “vast majority of climate champions won”.

Building on the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — the $369bn bill that passed in August securing key investments and provisions to combat the climate crisis — this election was seen as an important step toward ensuring the historic legislation was properly implemented and supported at the state level. The organizations — which included League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power, EDF Action, NextGen America, NRDC Action Fund, and Sierra Club — poured $135 million dollars into campaigns and coordinated to influence tight races in battleground areas across the country.

One of the key areas the environmental movement engaged during this election cycle was by encouraging young voters to participate. “Young people inherit the greatest benefits of action and the greatest consequences of inaction,” said Christina Tzintzún Ramirez, President of NextGen America.

The organization set up shop on 245 college campuses and connected with young people on social media, utilizing online influencers, millions of texts and phone calls — and even signed on to dating apps. “Young voters helped stop the red wave and the red tsunami,” Tzintzún Ramirez said, noting that their organizing efforts helped bring out 9.6 million young voters to the polls, including in key areas like Pennsylvania and Arizona.

The groups also funded more candidates of color and invested more in Spanish-language campaign materials than they ever had before. So far, they said, the efforts appear to be paying off. David Kieve, the President of EDF Action, the advocacy arm of the Environmental Defense Fund, added that there was still much to do. “We are proud of the progress our government has made,” he said, “and we have a new chapter and a new day.”

Nevada is the other state where Democratic incumbents are trying to hang on to both a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion, but comments from a top voting official in its most-populous county indicate the wait for results could be lengthy.

Here’s what Clark County registrar Joe Gloria told reporters at a press conference:

The most crucial race in Nevada is Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s bid for reelection. She’s currently trailing her Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, and a victory for him could mean control of the chamber comes down to the results of the run-off election in Georgia’s Senate race next month.

The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh has the latest from Arizona, where its crucial Senate race still has not been decided:

In Arizona, Democratic senator Mark Kelly has maintained a lead over far-right Republican challenger Blake Masters. The race is one of three key races that could determine which party controls the Senate.

Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of former representative Gabby Giffords, was elected to office in a 2020 special election that delivered both of Arizona’s senate seats to Democrats for the first time in 70 years. This year, he has a sizable edge among early votes cast in Maricopa and Pima counties, but is likely to see his lead narrow as more votes are tallied. Once a Republican bastion, Arizona has recently become a closely-watched swing state where close races can take weeks to tabulate. State law gives officials until 28 November to tally ballots.

Currently Kelly is leading 51% to 46%, with many mail-in votes still uncounted. While Democrats tend to have an advantage among mail-ins in general, in Arizona, where the majority of voters cast mail ballots – it’s hard to predict much about how those will break down.

Masters, a venture capitalist who was endorsed by Donald Trump, struggled throughout his campaign as he waffled between professing far-right ideologies and dialing back his most extreme views. But he could ultimately benefit from voters’ enthusiasm for Kari Lake, the state’s Republican candidate for governor – who is currently trailing her Democratic rival by a smaller margin.

Voters were expected to weigh economic concerns above most other issues. Phoenix, fastest growing US cities, also has the highest inflation rate in the country. Kelly tried to distance himself from Joe Biden, whom 6 in 10 Arizona voters blame for inflation, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,200 voters in Arizona.

Updated

In about 45 minutes, Joe Biden will speak at the White House and take questions from reporters.

Expect the president to strike an optimistic note after his Democrats did better than expected in several crucial races nationwide, though it’s still possible they will lose their majorities in the House, Senate or both.

Ahead of his appearance, the White House released this video of him congratulating winners last night:

The Republican party’s US House whip on Wednesday officially launched his bid to become the chamber’s majority leader having cruised to re-election after Tuesday’s midterms.

Steve Scalise, who decisively repelled two challengers to win a ninth terms as the representative for Louisiana’s first congressional district, had long been tapped as a favorite to serve as the House’s majority party leader if Republicans retook the numerical advantage in the chamber after the midterms.

But his announcement both confirmed he would indeed seek that position and signaled his confidence that the Republicans would win the House majority, even if some unexpected victories from vulnerable Democratic incumbents fueled liberal hopes that their party could retain the chamber or at least minimize conservative gains much more than initially projected.

Scalise’s stated intent to become the House majority leader also seemingly poured cold water on the idea that he may pursue the chamber’s speakership if Republican gains are so underwhelming that they deny that position to their current party leader on the floor, Kevin McCarthy of California.

“It’s time for us to focus on delivering for the American people who have trusted us,” Scalise’s announcement Wednesday said. “I will work relentlessly to usher our vision through the House and show the country how conservative ideas can solve the problems that families are facing.”

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana addresses constituents as he celebrates his reelection in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie on Tuesday, 8 November 2022.
House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana addresses constituents as he celebrates his reelection in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie on Tuesday, 8 November 2022. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Hailing from the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson, Scalise’s move for the majority party leader spot comes a little more than five years after he survived being shot in an assassination attempt that unfolded during an attack on a congressional baseball game practice in 2017.

He would be the highest-ranking congressmember for Louisiana in 50 years, when New Orleans Democrat Hale Boggs ruled as the US House majority party leader before he and his plane disappeared over Alaska during a trip in 1972.

With many key races still undecided as of Wednesday afternoon, neither party had officially clinched control of either congressional chamber.

Updated

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders is cheering several like-minded lawmakers who will be heading to the House next year:

Wondering what Donald Trump makes of all this?

The New York Times reports that the former president is furious about the loss of Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Trump is also hearing from some parties who want him to delay his widely expected announcement next week of another bid for the White House:

Neither Raphael Warnock nor Herschel Walker won the 50% support necessary to decide the race for Georgia’s Senate seat, necessitating a run-off election under the state’s election law.

Top voting official Gabriel Sterling said early this morning that the polls will be held on December 6:

While not all Senate races have been called, there’s a possibility that the outcome of the run-off in Georgia will determine whether Democrats are able to hold the the chamber for another two years, or cede control to the Republicans.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is: just last year, Warnock’s victory in a special election for Georgia’s Senate seat was crucial to establishing the Democrats’ current 50-50 majority in the chamber.

Georgia's crucial Senate race heads to run-off

Georgia will hold a run-off election to decide the tight race between incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the Associated Press confirms.

Election Day unfolded without major or widespread voting snags, yet former US president Donald Trump and some other Republicans are twisting minor voting problems in the midterm elections into conspiracy theories and false claims – as they make more efforts to sow doubt about Democratic victories.

This continues moves underway since 2020 to undermine Americans’ confidence in voting, the Associated Press reports.

Despite the lack of major voting snags on Tuesday, some GOP candidates sought to distort the severity of the few hitches that occurred, such as voting machines temporarily malfunctioning in Arizona’s largest county and some Detroit voters wrongly being told they had already cast ballots.

The most concerning thing is the way those isolated incidents are being used to spread mis- and disinformation and lies around the election in an attempt to undermine people’s confidence and faith in the election,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for the nonpartisan group Common Cause.

In 2020, conspiracies about a rigged election were fueled by bogus reports of suitcases stuffed with fraudulent ballots at a Georgia vote-counting operation and '‘ballot mules” loading up drop boxes with fraudulent ballots.

The GOP has kept up the rhetoric since then and laid the groundwork for contesting this year’s midterm elections. More than 100 lawsuits were filed across the country before Election Day, targeting mail-in voting rules, voting machine security and access for partisan poll watchers.

Why is this man called Bill Gates? Is it a conspiracy? Nope: chief of Maricopa election board of supervisors, who happens to be called Bill Gates, speaks about voting machine malfunctions at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on November 08, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Why is this man called Bill Gates? Is it a conspiracy? Nope: chief of Maricopa election board of supervisors, who happens to be called Bill Gates, speaks about voting machine malfunctions at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on November 08, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Republicans need to flip two seats in the US Senate to gain control of the upper chamber of Congress and shut down not just Joe Biden’s legislative agenda but major acts such as confirming federal judges and, if it came to it, judges for the US Supreme Court.

Going into last night they needed one flip, but after John Fetterman beat Dr Oz to win the open seat in Pennsylvania, which had been held by retiring Republican Patrick Toomey, that rose to two.

Right now, with all eyes on Georgia and Nevada – and indeed Arizona – a quick note about Alaska.

Readers who like to pick ‘n’ mix may have noticed that the Guardian and the New York Times currently have the Senate decided 48 to 48, Democrats vs Republicans in the 100-seat chamber, but CNN on screen and online is showing the GOP at 49 seats.

That’s down to Alaska, where ranked choice voting is used. There isn’t a winner projected yet by the Associated Press, on which the Guardian relies, but the AP acknowledges the race is tight and is now between two Republicans, incumbent Lisa Murkowski and Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka.

US Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican seeking reelection, attends a sign-waving event on a busy Anchorage corner on Election Day.
US Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican seeking reelection, attends a sign-waving event on a busy Anchorage corner on Election Day. Photograph: Mark Thiessen/AP

AP itself notes: “Exactly who’ll win Alaska’s US Senate contest isn’t clear, but it will be a Republican.”

So the GOP do have 49 Senate seats nailed down, but we’ll wait for AP to name a winner in Alaska before we recalculate our AP-driven special live results tracker.

What about the P-word? Mary Peltola is ahead of Sarah Palin in the Alaska House race.

These two.

Facing losses? Former Governor of Alaska and Republican candidate for Congress, Sarah Palin, right, stands with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka on November 6.
Facing losses? Former Governor of Alaska and Republican candidate for Congress, Sarah Palin, right, stands with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka on November 6. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Updated

Democrat Laura Kelly has won re-election to the governorship of Kansas, in a race projected by various outlets a little earlier but just called by The Associated Press, the news agency whose election results calculations the Guardian relies on as definitive.

Kelly secured her second term in Kansas, which leans heavily Republican but where the electorate resoundingly backed abortion rights in a pivotal referendum in August, following the Trumpist US Supreme Court’s historic overturning of Roe v Wade in June.

She has narrowly defeated the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Derek Schmidt.

NBC was among the outlets to call the race a few hours ago.

Updated

Midterms 2022: key races still not called

Democrats appear to have stemmed losses they were expected to suffer in Tuesday’s midterm elections at the hands of voters who polls indicated were fed up with high inflation and rising crime. While the results of several key races remain to be determined, Joe Biden’s allies in the House and Senate are relishing the unexpected strength their candidates have shown. Nonetheless, the GOP still has a path to take control of both the House and Senate, but we may be looking at a wait of several days, if not weeks, for the full balance of power to be determined.

Here’s what we’ve learned today so far:

  • Joe Biden will speak and take questions from reporters at 4 pm eastern time, in what may amount to something of a victory lap.

  • Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney’s job was to win seats for the Democrats in the House of Representatives, but he lost his own bid for re-election instead.

  • Republican senator Ron Johnson won another term in Wisconsin, dashing Democrats’ hopes of picking up the seat and padding their majority in the chamber.

  • Voters in Kentucky said no to a ballot measure that would have set the stage for abortion to be criminalized.

  • Georgia’s crucial Senate race may be going to a runoff election, but the Associated Press has not called it yet.

Updated

From Detroit, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the victories Democrats won in statehouses, particularly in some of battleground states along the the Great Lakes:

Some of Democrats’ most consequential victories on Tuesday were in state legislative chambers, where they put forward an unexpectedly strong performance.

In Michigan, Democrats took control of both chambers of the legislature for the first time since 1983. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, was also re-elected to a second term, giving Democrats complete control of state government in one of America’s most politically competitive states.

Democrats also took control of both chambers of the legislature in Minnesota and held onto control in Maine. They appeared poised to flip the Pennsylvania House.

Democrats also blocked Republicans from gaining a supermajority in Wisconsin and North Carolina, ensuring that Democratic governors in both states still have a veto. In Arizona, votes were still being counted, but Republicans could lose control of the state senate.

Long overlooked in comparison to statewide and federal races, state control of state legislatures is increasingly consequential. Donald Trump tried to learn on GOP state legislative majorities in key battlegrounds like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona to try and overturn the 2020 election. State legislatures are also the bodies responsible for setting laws around consequential issues like voting and abortion access, as well as education and gun laws.

Republicans did earn a few key wins in state races, though. In North Carolina, they flipped partisan control of the state supreme court. And in Ohio, they won a seat being vacated by a retiring GOP member who has been a swing vote. Those majorities could allow Republicans in those states to pass more aggressively gerrymandered maps as well as anti-abortion laws.

Updated

Republican senator Johnson wins re-election in Wisconsin

Voters in Wisconsin have re-elected Republican Ron Johnson to the Senate, the Associated Press reports, beating back a challenge from Democrat Mandela Barnes.

Johnson was considered the most vulnerable GOP incumbent in the Senate to face voters this year. His victory narrows Democrats’ path to preserving their slim majority in Congress’s upper chamber.

Updated

Two major networks believe Georgia’s tight Senate race will go to a runoff.

Winning the state could prove crucial to determining which party controls the chamber. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock appears to be leading his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, but neither man has yet cleared the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off election. The Associated Press has not called the race.

However, CNN believes the match-up will have to go before voters again:

As does NBC News:

Updated

The Biden administration is relishing Democrats’ apparently strong performance last night.

On Twitter, White House officials are pointing out a clip filmed when Biden appeared before the New York Times’ editorial board to seek its endorsement during the primaries that preceded the 2020 presidential election.

“I ain’t dead! And I’m not going to die!” Biden, then a candidate vying against several other Democrats for the party’s nomination, declares in the video:

Biden announces post-midterms press conference

Joe Biden will make a speech and take questions at 4 pm eastern time today, the White House announced.

The Democratic president is expected to celebrate his House and Senate allies’ better-than-expected performance in last night’s midterms, where partial results indicate voters have given Republicans only tepid support, and rejected several of their most extreme candidates.

The Associated Press has called Republican Michael Lawler’s victory over Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney in New York City’s exurbs.

Lawler’s win not only costs Democrats a seat in the House, but also represents the jarring loss of a lawmaker who was tasked with coordinating the campaign to keep control of Congress’ lower chamber.

Nancy Pelosi - who won reelection last night but will lose her position as House speaker if Democrats fail to gain a majority in the chamber - released a statement on Maloney’s loss.

“Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney has been an outstanding leader of the DCCC. It is a credit to his vision, his strategic thinking and his leadership that our Members and candidates had the mobilization, message and money to run excellent races and win in tough districts. Republicans may have gained a Pyrrhic victory with this race because it has clearly come at the expense of other possible Republican wins,” she said.

Let the blame game begin! Republicans were hoping yesterday’s elections would generate a “red wave” that decisively put Democrats into the minority in one or both houses of Congress.

While they appear set to win the House and still have a path to controlling the Senate, the GOP’s performance thus far does not indicate they are on the cusp of hefty majorities in either. Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn offered some thoughts as to why in an interview on Fox Business:

JR Majewski was once viewed as one of the more worrying of Republican candidates standing this year.

He participated in the January 6 insurrection and was a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, but saw his campaign falter after reports emerged that he exaggerated his military service.

This morning, he announced he had conceded his race for a House seat representing northern Ohio to longtime Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur:

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney confirms he has conceded his race for another term in Congress.

He nonetheless predicted better-than-expected performance for House Democrats, while acknowledging they may still lose control of the chamber, Punchbowl News reports:

Democratic House representative Elissa Slotkin hoped voters’ desire to protect abortion access would help her as she faced a tough reelection contest in Michigan, and the strategy has paid off.

Slotkin won in her swing district, with her Republican opponent conceding earlier this morning:

Abortion was literally on the ballot in Michigan, where voters last night approved a measure to scrap a ban on the procedure. On the campaign trail, Slotkin counted on those same voters giving her their support for another term in Congress.

Updated

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Republican senator Ron Johnson has declared victory in his races against Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.

Here’s the statement released by the conservative lawmaker:

Johnson was considered the most vulnerable GOP senator up for reelection this year, and Democrats hoped Barnes would claim his seat. The Associated Press has not yet called the race.

Rightwing firebrand Lauren Boebert may have lost re-election in her western Colorado House district.

Decision Desk HQ reports that the Republican is trailing her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch:

The Associated Press has not called the race yet. Boebert has promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, as well as supported the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Updated

The man charged with winning Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives may have lost his own re-election.

CBS News reports that congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has conceded to his Republican opponent Mike Lawler:

The Associated Press has not called the race yet. Polls in the run-up to election day showed Maloney trailing Lawler in the district representing New York City’s northern exurbs.

Updated

A note about Nevada, where Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto is fighting to keep her seat against Republican Adam Laxalt:

The state mostly votes by mail, and here’s where the balance of outstanding ballots stands as of early this morning, per The Nevada Independent:

Which way the uncounted ballots break will be crucial for determining whether Cortez Masto wins another term, or is ousted by Laxalt.

Here’s a rundown of where the outstanding Senate battlegrounds stand, courtesy of CNN:

Let’s game it out for a second: if all these races break in the direction they’re currently trending, Democrats will have lost a Senate seat in Nevada, but are able to offset it with their win in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman will replace an outgoing Republican.

The big outstanding state will be Georgia. While Democrat Raphael Warnock is currently leading there, the state will hold a run-off election if neither he nor Republican Herschel Walker clear the 50% margin of support.

If this all sounds familiar, it should: Georgia was the state where surprise victories in Senate races gave Democrats control of the chamber after a runoff election on January 5, 2021 – one day before Donald Trump’s supporters staged an insurrection at the US Capitol.

John Fetterman’s communications director announced that Mehmet Oz, his Republican opponent in the Pennsylvania Senate race, conceded in a phone call this morning:

Fox News has more details about how Donald Trump reacted to the GOP’s poorer-than-expected-performance last night:

The former president played a major role in influencing the Republican nominees in races this year, and hoped that a big win in the midterms would set the stage for the announcement of his next presidential campaign. Count him among the Republicans for whom things did not go as planned last night.

Today is turning out to be a bit of a sobering day for Republicans. CNN’s Jim Acosta is reporting insight from Donald Trump’s team that the former president is “livid” and “screaming at everyone” after the election results last night, according to an anonymous adviser. The adviser said that Trump will likely still make his likely presidential announcement next week as “it’s too humiliating to delay”.

Meanwhile, House Republicans, who still have a chance of getting the majority, are reeling from the election results. Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman said that several House Republicans who were prepped to send out emails today asking for leadership position votes have held off.

Updated

With their rejection of an anti-abortion ballot measure in yesterday’s election, voters in Kentucky joined the majority of voters in at least three other states where abortion was on the ticket.

Michigan, California and Vermont all saw the passing of ballot measures that codifies the right to abortion in their state constitution. For Michigan, this means an anti-abortion law passed in 1931 will not go into effect.

Voters in Montana were asked to decide on a law that would declare an embryo or fetus a legal person with rights to medical care, essentially criminalizing abortion. The measure seems close to being rejected, though the results of the measure have not been called.

In a statement, Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that the election showed “an unmistakable repudiation” of the overturning of Roe v Wade.

“From Kentucky to Michigan to Vermont to California, Americans want their right to abortion protected,” she said.

Updated

Kentucky voters reject anti-abortion ballot measure

The AP is calling a ballot measure in Kentucky that would have denied constitutional protections for abortion in the state. About 53% of voters rejected the measure, which would have changed the state constitution to say it does not protect the right to abortion or funding for abortion care.

Kentucky, which has a Republican-controlled general assembly, has a near-total ban on abortion in effect. The ban will still be in effect even with the rejection of the ballot measure, but its failure to change the state constitution means the state’s supreme court can decide whether the state’s constitution includes a right to abortion. The court is expected to hear arguments for a lawsuit against the state’s abortion ban later this month.

Updated

The New York Post, in its front page this morning, crowned Florida Ron DeSantis as “DeFuture” – perhaps a blow to Donald Trump, who once considered the newspaper his favorite.

Updated

Miranda Bryant writes:

Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, said he expects the state’s Senate race to go to a runoff.

Having looked at the figures, he told CNN that he expects the midterms race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, who are locked in a neck and neck race with 49.4% and 48.5% of the vote respectively, to be too close to call.

Georgia requires a majority to win statewide office, which means if neither candidate passes the 50% threshhold there will be a runoff on 6 December.

With the Senate race so close, this could mean a long wait for control of the chamber to be decided.

Duncan also said that the midterms marked a “pivot point” for the Republican party and that former president Donald Trump is “turning from a movement to a distraction”.

Updated

In their newsletter this morning, Punchbowl News paints the scene of how House Republicans were taking the election results in DC as they were coming in:

To give a sense of how much of a shock this was to the Washington political establishment, consider this – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s team and allies were spread across two downtown hotels, ready to celebrate victory and their new majority. The DCCC had no public event or party scheduled.

But McCarthy’s Election Night bash ended up as more of a ghost town than celebratory party. For hours, dozens of GOP staffers milled around an open bar, nervously sipping drinks while watching Fox News. Next door in the ballroom, a stage emblazoned with “TAKE BACK THE HOUSE” remained empty.

When McCarthy finally emerged just before 2 a.m., he said “it is clear that we are going to take the House back.” McCarthy led off by hailing GOP gains in New York and prematurely claimed that the party had unseated DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney in the 17th District. That race hasn’t been called yet, although Maloney is trailing GOP challenger Mike Lawler by several thousand votes.

This is Lauren Aratani taking over for Martin Belam. It’s just after 7am here in New York, and Americans are waking up to some surprising midterm election results as ballots were counted overnight. The red wave that was predicted by many did not come to fruition, with Democrats winning some key races in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas.

Control of the House and Senate are still up in the air, but what seems to be clear is that the election was a disappointment for Trumpism. On Fox News last night, Marc Thiessen said that results were “an absolute disaster for the Republican party” as it embraced Maga.

Matt Lewis, a columnist for the Daily Beast, noted that the red wave seems to be more of a ripple, and that it was “a pretty good election night for normal Republicans, when compared to the more extreme MAGA Trumpy Republicans”.

What this means for the future of Trumpism – or the man himself, who is slated to make an announcement next Tuesday – is still unclear. Perhaps some Republicans are quickly getting the hint: JD Vance, who won a Senate seat in Ohio last night and who Trump stumped over the weekend, did not mention the former president in his victory speech.

Updated

Mike Allen at Axios has described the midterms as “Trump’s awful night”. In today’s Axios AM email, Allen writes:

Former president Trump is facing waves of blame after key Republican candidates lost in midterms. Regardless of the reality with Republican primary voters, Republican elites – and other anti-Trump Republicans – sense blood in the water. There’s an increased likelihood of a larger, more boisterous primary field competing against Trump in 2024.

Many of former president Trump’s handpicked candidates were defeated or struggled in otherwise winnable races — a lineup of underachievers.

Trump’s planned rally at Mar-a-Lago next Tuesday, where he’s expected to announce a 2024 presidential campaign, now won’t come after a Republican landslide. Instead, it will follow an election where Democrats have a solid chance to hold or even expand their hold on the Senate — and where Republicans fell way short of their expectations for a sizeable red wave.

Trump constrained his party’s coalition in states where he showed up. Trump’s promotion of candidates outside the political mainstream – or celebrities without political experience – proved to be costly for Republicans.

Updated

Some historic firsts were made in the midterms. Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been elected as governor of Arkansas, making her the first women to govern the state.

Arkansas governor-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during her election night party.
Arkansas governor-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during her election night party. Photograph: Will Newton/AP

Democrat Becca Balint became the first woman and the first out gay person to represent the state of Vermont in Congress. Vermont has the distinction of being the last state to send a woman to Congress.

And at just 25, Maxwell Frost has taken Val Demings’ seat in the House, to become the first person to represent Gen Z up at the Capitol.

Maxwell Frost, middle, poses with supporters during a victory party in Orlando.
Maxwell Frost, middle, poses with supporters during a victory party in Orlando. Photograph: Stephen M Dowell/AP

My colleagues Joan E Greve and Sam Levin have a fuller look at some of the people who made history yesterday here: First Gen Z member elected as midterms could usher in a more diverse Congress

Updated

Here is how my colleague Nicola Slawson has summed up the elections for today’s edition of our First Thing newsletter, which should be hitting in-boxes around the world soon:

Democrats have reason for cautious optimism this morning, as some of their endangered candidates appear likely to emerge victorious in the midterm elections, but Republicans still enjoy a narrow advantage in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. The Senate is too close to call, with the race in Nevada coming down to the wire and Georgia likely to go to a runoff in December.

Election forecasts had favored Republicans in the final days of campaigning. The president’s party typically loses seats in the midterms, and Joe Biden’s low approval rating, combined with concerns about the state of the US economy, had lowered Democrats’ expectations.

But some key races were tilting toward Democrats, including one of the biggest prizes of the night: a ferociously contested Senate race in Pennsylvania between Mehmet Oz, a Republican backed by Donald Trump, and the Democrat John Fetterman, who has been battling to assure voters he is fit for office after suffering a stroke.

“We held the line,” a teary Fetterman said, declaring victory in a speech to supporters early this morning.

Who will win control of Congress? With many races still too close to call, control of Congress – and the future of Biden’s agenda – still hangs in the balance. Outcomes of some closely contested elections are not expected for several days, or even weeks. But the early results already returned one certainty: the election is not unfolding as Republicans had hoped.

You can read more here: First Thing: ‘Red wave’ fails to materialise as Democrats beat expectations in the midterms

Niall Stanage at The Hill reminds us that however the House eventually breaks, any Republican majority is going to be narrow at best. He writes:

As of 3:30am ET, there was still no projection from any major news organization that Republicans would take the House at all. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy evinced confidence in that outcome, telling his audience, “When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority.”

He may be proven right in due course. But the mere fact that it is still in doubt points to how disappointing a night this was for the Republicans.

Just as importantly, even a narrow Republican majority would pose serious challenges for McCarthy, even if he is confirmed as Speaker. In that scenario, the most hardline members of the GOP conference would have very significant leverage – and they are certain to use it.

Stanage also flagged up that two stars of the Democratic party failed again, which will be hard to take:

Stacey Abrams lost to Brian Kemp in Georgia and former representative Beto O’Rourke went down to Greg Abbott in Texas.

The two results were expected – both candidates had lagged by significant margins in polling. But still, each candidate had been seen, not so long ago, as a bright and rising star in the Democratic party.

Their luster is badly dimmed now, given that Tuesday marked Abrams’s second successive loss to Kemp, and O’Rourke’s third setback after losing a 2018 Senate race to Ted Cruz and abandoning an underwhelming bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Updated

One person who looks likely to benefit from the midterms results is ultra-conservative Republican Ron DeSantis. He was re-elected as governor of Florida, saying that the state is where “woke goes to die”. DeSantis defeated Democrat Charlie Crist in the midterm elections, granting him a second term as Florida’s governor. There is every likelihood, as the Republican party comes to terms with these results, that DeSantis could be their frontrunner for the White House nomination in 2024.

Updated

Young voters often come in for criticism for being apathetic about politics and staying at home, but at least one analyst is laying the cause of the Democrats better than anticipated performance at the feet of Generation Z, who appear from exit polls to have massively skewed towards them.

Here is a snippet of Adam Gabbatt’s report from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and what could prove to be a significant Senate win for John Fetterman:

The Democratic party received a huge boost in Pennsylvania in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when John Fetterman won the state’s US Senate race to increase his party’s chances of retaining control of the chamber.

Fetterman was declared the winner over Mehmet Oz, the Republican celebrity doctor, six hours after the polls closed, overturning a Republican-held Senate seat to bolster Democrats’ chances of retaining the chamber.

The Democrat, who suffered a stroke in May which has impacted his ability to speak and process the sound of others’ speech, spent months ahead of Oz in the polls, but the race had tightened in recent weeks after a disappointing performance from Fetterman in a debate.

It made for a jubilant atmosphere at Fetterman’s election night event in Pittsburgh, close to the borough of Braddock where Fetterman spent 13 years as mayor. Fetterman took the stage at 1.15am to declare victory, and said he had fought “for every person that works hard but never got ahead”.

“This campaign has always been about fighting for anyone that ever got knocked down that got back up. This race is for the future of every community across Pennsylvania, for every small town or person that ever felt left behind,” Fetterman said.

“I’m proud of what we ran on,” he said. “Protecting a woman’s right to choose, raising the minimum wage.”

Read more of Adam Gabbatt’s report here: Fetterman defeats Oz in Pennsylvania Senate race, giving Democrats a boost

Updated

Republican candidates who denied that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election were a prominent feature in the run-up to the midterms, but many of them have failed to get elected. CNN’s Daniel Dale has produced this list of some of the candidates – and what they claimed about the 2020 election – that CNN is currently projecting to lose:

Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania, who made extensive efforts to try to overturn Biden’s win.

Dan Cox of Maryland, who said he didn’t recognize Biden as the president and who co-organized buses to the “Stop the Steal” rally on 6 January.

Paul LePage of Maine, who falsely claimed that 2020 was “clearly a stolen election.”

Lee Zeldin of New York, who, as a member of Congress, voted against certifying Biden’s victories in Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Geoff Diehl of Massachusetts, who said in mid-2021 that the election wasn’t stolen but by 2022 was saying that it was certainly stolen.

Scott Jensen of Minnesota, who refused to affirm the legitimacy of Biden’s win and who baselessly suggested imprisoning the state’s Democratic elections chief.

Tim Michels of Wisconsin, who baselessly claimed that “President Trump probably would be president right now if we had election integrity.”

Tudor Dixon of Michigan, who falsely claimed Trump won Michigan in 2020 even though he actually lost by more than 154,000 votes.

Heidi Ganahl of Colorado, who refused on multiple occasions to say whether Biden was the legitimate winner and then selected a promoter of false election conspiracy theories as her running mate.

CNN also lists several candidates who disputed the 2020 election results who have won or are projected to win, including Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brad Little of Idaho, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota.

Greg Abbott who will serve another term as governor of Texas.
Greg Abbott. who will serve another term as governor of Texas. Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

The New York Times has estimated that nearly 200 Republicans who have questioned the results of the 2020 election have won races so far in the midterms.

Updated

US voters have not just been choosing senators, representatives and governors, they have also voted on a range of issues, as Victoria Bekiempis and Kari Paul report:

Multiple states voted on whether or not to legalize recreational marijuana, part of a growing “green wave” that has already led to many relaxing their laws on cannabis use. In Maryland, voters green-lighted a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana for adults over 21, making it the 20th state to take that step.

Voters in four other states – including Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota – were considering similar marijuana measures in elections seen as a test of legalization’s support in more conservative parts of the country. As of late Tuesday night, the results were mixed, with recreation marijuana measures rejected in Arkansas and North Dakota.

Another ballot measure on legal drug use was in Colorado, where voters weighed a ballot measure that, if passed, would decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms.

Elsewhere, voters weighed up measures on abortion access in the wake of the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade. Reliably, Democratic California and Vermont voted to protect abortion rights in their state constitutions, while in Michigan – a closely watched presidential battleground – voters approved a ballot measure affirming the right to make personal reproductive decisions without interference.

Read more from Victoria Bekiempis and Kari Paul here: Marijuana, abortion, climate crisis – what was down the ballot in the midterms

Updated

Midterms 2022: how the closest Senate races stand

The Senate seats up for grabs in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin are likely to define the next two years of Joe Biden’s term as president. The crucial swing seat of Pennsylvania has already gone to Democrat John Fetterman. Here is how the others stand:

  • Georgia – Democrat Raphael Warnock has a narrow lead over Herschel Walker, but if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the race will head to a runoff – just like two Senate races did in Georgia in 2021.

  • Arizona – Senator Mark Kelly leads his Republican rival, venture capitalist Blake Masters, but the race is too early to call.

  • Nevada – Republican Adam Laxalt is out in front against Catherine Cortes Masto, but officials have warned there could be a significant delay to getting the results.

  • Wisconsin – Ron Johnson looks likely to hold this for the Republicans.

Updated

Hugo Lowell is in West Palm Beach, Florida for the Guardian, and reports on Donald Trump’s reaction to results so far:

It was expected to be a moment of triumph for Donald Trump, but it did not quite turn out that way.

The former US president appeared uneasy about underwhelming Republican performance in the midterms at an election watch party he hosted at his plush Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, after it was clear there would be no “red wave” that he had implored his supporters to deliver.

The election night gathering, organized in the large ballroom at his Florida property, was not an event where the often talkative Trump seemed particularly interested in addressing guests or even speaking to reporters after he delivered a short and solitary speech.

Trump, expected to announce his third campaign for the White House next week, had anticipated strengthening his position as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination by delivering wins for candidates he endorsed, but the results in the most competitive contests were decidedly mixed.

Former US president Donald Trump speaks to the media during an election night event at Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump speaks to the media during an election night event at Mar-a-Lago. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In Pennsylvania, the Democrat John Fetterman defeated the Republican Mehmet Oz to flip a Senate seat, while the Democrat Josh Shapiro won the governor’s race against the Republican Doug Mastriano. In Arizona, Kari Lake and Blake Masters, who followed Trump’s playbook, were both behind Democratic counterparts, though in Ohio, the Republican JD Vance did score a Senate win.

You can read more of Hugo Lowell’s report here: ‘Interesting evening’: Trump has little to say as Republicans fail to deliver

Updated

Hobbs leads Lake in tight Arizona governor race – criticises Lake for 'spreading misinformation'

Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake in the race for Arizona governor, but the battle for control of the crucial battleground state was too early to call, the AP reports.

Lake has been spreading disinformation that there is an issue with the election, while Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state who rose to prominence defending the integrity of President Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona in 2020, has said: “I have every confidence that the counties administering this election conducted a free and fair election, and their results will be accurate.”

She told supporters gathered in Phoenix. “But they will take time, so prepare for a long evening and a few more days of counting.”

Mail ballots returned Tuesday or shortly before were not yet reported and will be counted in the coming days.

Democratic candidate for governor of Arizona Katie Hobbs at a 2022 US midterm elections night party in Phoenix, Arizona.
Katie Hobbs, the Democratic candidate for governor of Arizona, at a midterm elections night party in Phoenix. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Lake, on the other hand, without producing any evidence, told supporters it was like “groundhog day”.

“We had November 3, 2020, that was called incompetency 101,” Lake said. “We need honest elections and we’re going to bring them to you, Arizona, I assure you of that. The system we have right now does not work.”

Hobbs told her supporters: “I know we’re all eager to find out who won each of these incredibly important races, but we will need to be patient and wait for every vote to be counted. We know my opponent and her allies have been sowing doubt and confusion throughout this campaign, and it’s unacceptable that they were spreading misinformation today while people were exercising their right to vote.”

Updated

Here are five quick takeaways from what we know of results so far:

No red wave yet
A wave of Republican wins was expected by almost everyone in the last few weeks of the campaign. While the party performed strongly in Florida under the governor, Ron DeSantis, across the rest of the US many candidates faltered.

Democratic surprise
Democrats were so certain that they were in for a beating that some party figures, such as the California governor, Gavin Newsom, appeared already to be engaging in a blame game. Instead, they unexpectedly held on to vulnerable House seats from Virginia to Texas and scored comfortable wins in the Senate that had been doubted, such as in New Hampshire.

House Republicans have trouble ahead
The current minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declared victory before all the results were in. “When you awake,” he said, “we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi” – the Democratic speaker – “will be in the minority”. That seemed likely but some projections had the majority at just one seat. Anything nearly so narrow will place McCarthy at the mercy of a fractured caucus.

Trump v DeSantis
Donald Trump’s widely expected imminent announcement of a 2024 White House run now looks slightly less certain – or at least slightly less certain to clear opponents from his path. His main rival in the party, DeSantis, is emerging strengthened after over-performing strongly while high-profile Trump-endorsed candidates struggled.

Democracy defenders fared well – but threat remains
Numerous high-profile Republican candidates who have backed Trump’s lie about electoral fraud lost their races. But due to the fact that election denial has become so commonplace in the Republican party, it is likely to remain a strong force. The Washington Post estimated that at least 159 election-denying Republicans had won their races on Tuesday.

Updated

Midterms 2022: what we know so far

It will still be a while until we know which party will win control of the House and Senate, but Democrats have performed better than expected as a predicted “red wave” of Republican support failed to materialise in the 2022 US midterm elections. John Fetterman has flipped the crucial Pennsylvania Senate seat in favor of Joe Biden, while a slew of election-denying Republican candidates backed by Donald Trump failed to win their races. The final make-up of the House of Representatives is still too close to call. You can find all of the latest results here, and these are some of the key points so far:

  • Democrat John Fetterman has won the Pennsylvania Senate race, the Associated Press confirms, giving Joe Biden’s party another seat in Congress’ upper chamber and increasing their chances of holding it for another two years.

  • Nevada Democrats and Republicans have urged patience as residents await to hear the outcome of several razor-thin elections, including the Senate race, one of the tightest in the country, which could end up making all the difference in who controls the Senate. Full results will not come in tonight, officials have said, and may not be known for several days.

  • Republican senator Mike Lee has won re-election in Utah. He was up against independent Evan McMullin, who had cast himself as a foe of Trump.

  • JD Vance won the Republican Senate race in Ohio, dashing Democrats’ hopes of picking up another seat in the chamber.

  • Josh Green, a Democrat and Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, has won the race to be the state’s next governor, the AP projects. Green defeated Duke Aiona, a Republican and former lieutenant governor, by what appeared to be a wide margin.

  • Republican incumbent Greg Abbott defeated his Democratic rival, Beto O’Rourke, to win a third term as governor in Texas. Attorney general Ken Paxton, who denied the result of the 2020 presidential election, pushed false conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud, and remains embroiled in legal trouble, also won a third term, defeating Democrat Rochelle Garza.

  • District 34 in Texas is back to being blue after far-right conspiracy theorist Mayra Flores, who made her mark as the first female Mexican-born member of the House, lost the seat she won in a June special election.

  • Florida’s voters tilted further towards the Republicans, re-electing firebrand governor Ron DeSantis and senator Marco Rubio.

  • New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, has won her election for a full term in office. A former lieutenant governor, Hochul took over leadership of the state last year after Andrew Cuomo resigned following accusations of sexual misconduct. She defeated Republican Lee Zeldin in the battle for a full term.

  • Democrat Gretchen Whitmer has won re-election as Michigan’s governor, beating Republican challenger Tudor Dixon. Whitmer was the target of intense Republican attacks for her enforcement of regulations intended to curb Covid-19 after it broke out in 2020, and the Republicans hoped to oust her from office in the perennial battleground state.

  • Democrat Josh Shapiro bested 2020 election denier Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s governorship race. Maryland elected the first Black governor in its history, Democrat Wes Moore.

  • In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who played a key role in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, lost his re-election bid to Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who put defending democracy at the centre of his campaign. Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state who staunchly defended the 2020 election results, defeated Kristina Karamo, who rose to prominence after she spread false claims about fraud after ballots were counted in Detroit in 2020.

  • New Mexico’s Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, has won re-election, defeating Republican challenger Mark Ronchetti.

  • Organizers claimed victory after Michigan voters appeared well on their way to approving a constitutional amendment that would significantly expand voting access and make it much harder for anyone to try and overturn the results of an election. And in another victory for abortion rights advocates, campaigners declared victory on proposal three in Michigan – the ballot initiative looking to enshrine a constitutional right to the procedure. It follows similar, earlier victories for abortion rights measures in California and Vermont.

  • Nancy Pelosi has issued a statement hailing an unexpectedly good performance by Democrats, even as votes are still being counted, 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. Many thanks to our grassroots volunteers for enabling every voter to have their say in our democracy.”

Updated

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