The 2018 midterm elections include dozens of races that may affect the balance of power in the United States House of Representatives and Senate for years to come. Currently, Republicans hold the majority of seats in both the House and Senate.
Get live updates on Election Day for the results in key tightly contested races. We are tracking Senate races for states including Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. For governor, we are tracking races in states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Wisconsin. And for the House of Representatives, we are tracking races in Florida’s 26th District, Kentucky’s 6th District, Nebraska’s 2nd District, New Hampshire’s 1st District, Ohio’s 1st District, Pennsylvania’s 1st District, Texas’s 7th District, and Virginia’s 7th District.
In 2016, Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo kept his seat, while Hillary Clinton won in South Florida. The Miami Republican has been a sharp critic of Trump’s rhetoric. Will that be enough to hang on against Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in a historically Republican area?
Amy McGrath broke out early this year with a viral ad about her time in the military, and held steady with Republican Rep. Andy Barr this year in this district, which is in the Lexington area. This district combines elements of the South and the Midwest (it’s near Cincinnati); will Democrats win in a place they rarely do?
At the beginning of the year, this district — which is in the Omaha area — looked like a key pickup opportunity for Democrats. Their candidate, Kara Eastman, has run on Medicare for All, which might make her a bit of a test for how very progressive ideas do in a swing district.
Republicans and Democrats have been trading this district back and forth for years. It’s currently held by a retiring Democrat. Fun fact about it, though: For the last decade, the national House vote has been within 1% of how this district votes. Keep an eye on it early in the night for a potential sign of how things might go.
A promising Democrat, Aftab Pureval, challenged a longtime Republican incumbent, Steve Chabot, in the Cincinnati suburbs. Pureval’s campaign got bogged down in all kinds of problems in its final weeks, however, potentially damaging what looked like it could be a major success story.
This district covers some of the Philly suburbs, a key place in 2016 for Donald Trump. The Republican incumbent, Brian Fitzpatrick, voted against the Obamacare repeal last year, however, which has made him difficult to attack in a year in which many Democrats have run on health care.
After a divisive primary, Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher has polled close to even with incumbent Rep. John Culberson in the suburbs of Houston. It’s wild that there’s a competitive race in Houston, but it may be part of the future, and Fletcher may be helped by turnout for Beto O’Rourke.
Four years ago, Dave Brat defeated then–House majority leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary for this district on an anti-establishment, restrictionist immigration message — an event that heralded the rise of Donald Trump. Four years later, Brat has had to embrace the Republican establishment and Democrat Abigail Spanberger may be able to defeat him.
After years as an anti-war Green Party activist, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has positioned herself a centrist in the House, and against Republican Rep. Martha McSally, an Air Force veteran who’s tried hard to ingratiate herself with President Trump and his voters this year. Though the Democrat’s campaign runs counter to the activist energy in the Democratic Party (and has frustrated immigration activists), a Sinema victory would be a big deal for the party’s hopes in the state.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, whose popularity has actually grown over time, has run a robust campaign for Senate against incumbent Bill Nelson. In the past, Nelson has outperformed Democratic presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Al Gore. But this year, most people think Democratic governor candidate Andrew Gillum will help save Nelson.
Will Joe Donnelly hang on? The Democratic senator represents one of the more conservative states. If he loses to Republican Mike Braun, Democrats have little chance of even keeping their current total in the Senate.
If Claire McCaskill keeps her Senate seat, she may be the luckiest politician in America; she first won in 2006 in a Democratic wave year, then won reelection against terrible candidate, Todd Akin, and then will have hung on in one of America’s more pro-Trump states. She’s kept it tight with Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley all year, and, who knows, could pull it off.
Most election experts have considered Dean Heller the most vulnerable Senate Republican for a long time — he represents a state Hillary Clinton and a Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto, won in 2016. But Democrat Jacky Rosen hasn’t quite taken off, and Heller may be able to hang on. This is a key race for control of the Senate.
Over the last few years, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez faced corruption charges (which ended in a mistrial). He ran for reelection anyway, and now there’s a chance that challenger Bob Hugin could unseat him — even in this very strong environment for Democrats.
When Bob Corker announced he was retiring, not everyone lined up behind Marsha Blackburn, the Republican who has run a national campaign right behind Donald Trump. The thinking is that Phil Bredesen, the state’s centrist two-term governor, maybe could eke out a Democratic win here. Polling hasn’t really supported that, but we’ll see what happens.
You’ve heard about this one. Polling has Beto O’Rourke down a few or several points to Ted Cruz, which means that if O’Rourke wins on Tuesday, pollsters have probably been modeling the makeup of the electorate incorrectly. We’ll see!
Joe Manchin is expected to win in West Virginia, where he’s managed to keep a political identity distinct from other Democrats, as his state backs Trump heavily. Notably, he’s emphasized Obamacare this year.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is expected to win in Arizona, but the candidacy of David Garcia is interesting to watch here — he’s run on public education and a more liberal approach to immigration. How Garcia and Kyrsten Sinema do in the statewide elections will be worth taking a look at on Wednesday morning.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum would be Florida’s first black governor. After narrowly winning this summer’s primary, he’s also proven able to kind of do it all: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both like him. Trump endorsed Republican Ron DeSantis early on, and DeSantis’s support among racists on the right has damaged his bid.
If elected, Stacey Abrams would become the nation’s first black woman governor. She’s running against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who has refused to resign despite Democrats charging that he is working to suppress votes, accusations that have dominated the last few weeks of the race. If neither candidate clears 50% (likely, because there is a third-party candidate), this race will head to a December runoff.
Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state best known for his short time aboard the Trump commission to investigate voter fraud, is running. But given his unpopularity (and a wildly unpopular period of Republican leadership under former governor Sam Brownback), some people think Democrat Laura Kelly has a shot at winning here.
After one of the most successful Republican runs in recent memory, Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are in trouble. Chasing a third term, Walker has warned all year of a Democratic wave. He’s trying to hang on against Democrat Tony Evers, another education candidate.
By Katherine Miller, Theresa Tamkins, and Ben King