In a surprising turn of events, Democrat Xochitl Torres Small has won in New Mexico's 2nd congressional district. The Republican nominee, Yvette Herrell had led on Election Night, with numerous media outlets declaring her the winner. However, absentee ballots counted Wednesday were heavily weighted toward Torres Small, putting her over the top.
Democrats have now won 224 seats, Republicans 197, with 14 remaining uncalled. That's a net gain of 29 for Democrats. All 14 of the undecided races are currently held by the GOP. (Vote Counts for Uncalled Races >>).
Democrats will have control of this branch of Congress beginning in January. As of this writing, they have won 220 seats, more than the 218 needed for a majority. Republicans have won 197. 18 districts remain uncalled. All but one of the remaining seats is currently held by the GOP. If you'd like to game out the remaining seats, here's an interactive House map based on actual results.
We've updated the Poll Closing Times schedule for this week's midterm elections. The first polls close at 6:00PM Eastern in parts of Kentucky and Indiana, with the final ones at 1:00AM Wednesday morning in portions of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
The page includes the number of Senate, Governor and House races that are affected by each closing time. This is based on the latest poll close time for the state or district. In most cases, a race won't be called before this time.
Note that there's a lot of local variation in closing times. Your polling place may close earlier. Do not rely on this schedule to determine when to vote.
Just a little over a week before the midterms, here's an overview of where each of this year's 35 Senate elections stands. For each race, we display the polling average (choose a state), a consensus forecaster rating and the FiveThirtyEight probability from their Classic model. All information is as of late morning on Sunday, October 28th.
A new poll conducted by Strategic Research Associates gives Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer a 16 point lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. The same firm's prior poll, just three weeks ago, had the margin at 10 points.
52% of those polled had an unfavorable view of Heitkamp, a large increase from 41% who felt that way three weeks ago. According to the pollster: "“Senator Heitkamp appears to have been hurt by her vote against Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as by subsequent campaign missteps widely covered in the media.”
Defending 26 of 35 seats up for election this year, Democratic prospects for gaining control of the Senate in the 2018 midterms were never all that good. However, an unexpected win in an Alabama special election late last year coupled with more competitive than expected races in Texas and Tennessee gave the party a few narrow but plausible paths to gain the two seats needed. However, recent polling has been less promising. It remains to be seen whether the GOP Senate bump is temporary - a short-term reflection of the Kavanaugh confirmation fight - or one that will carry through to Election Day.
To gain control, Democrats must win 28 of the 35 elections, including a minimum of two Republican seats. The most likely path to that would be holding all of their 26 seats while winning the toss-up races in GOP-held Arizona and Nevada. The problem is that this path isn't all that likely in today's polarized voting era. According to Pew Research, since 2013, 69 of 73 Senate elections have been won by candidates belonging to the party that won the state's most recent presidential race. This year, ten of the seats Democrats are defending were won by Donald Trump in 2016, including five by 18% or more (Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia).
A loss in any of the 28 seats above obviously means Democrats need to pick one up elsewhere. The only three realistic options are Tennessee, Texas and the Mississippi special election. The other four Republican-held seats are not competitive.
While over 300 of the 435 House seats are generally considered 'safe' for the incumbent party, there is a subset that is especially solid -- those with no major party opposition. This year, 42 seats fall into that category. That's a much smaller total number than the past two cycles, with the vast majority of the difference coming on the Democratic side. Reflecting the current climate, there are only 3 seats where that party doesn't have a candidate on the November ballot.
We've divided these into a few different groups. However, it doesn't change the bottom line that these 42 seats are all but certain to remain with the current party.
Totally Unopposed: There are 16 incumbents that have the ballot all to themselves. One of them, Michael Doyle (PA-18) is running unopposed in a district partially modified in redistricting. A 17th seat on this list is currently held Michael Capuano (MA-7), who was defeated by Ayanna Pressley in his bid for renomination.
