We are into the home stretch of the campaign. This election comes down to those who want to protect women’s rights, LGBQT rights, our democracy, the middle class, and the safety of our streets on one side against those who want to undermine the concept of free and fair elections and impose an authoritarian theocracy on the other side. The midterm elections are more like parliamentary elections in other countries. There is no national race and winning is about the results of multiple state and local races.
As in 2020, there is expected to be a large number of votes by mail. Some states have changed their laws to allow counting of mail-in ballots to start earlier, but some still require the process of verifying and counting mail-in ballots to begin on election day. So there will be some states in which the Republican candidate will take an early lead based on the in-person votes, but the Democrat candidate will close that gap (and potentially take the lead) as the mail-in votes are counted. On the other hand, in states that announce mail-in and early voting results first, the opposite will occur.
These previews will go in the order of poll closing times. In states that are in two time zones, some states will release results as polls close. Others will hold off on releasing results until all polls close. If I know that a state holds off until all polls close, I will put the state in the time when the last polls close. Otherwise, I will put the state in when the majority of the polls close. I will list the time by Central Standard Time as that is my time zone. For ease of conversion, CST is UTC +8 (i.e. it is 8 p.m. UTC when it is noon CST), Atlantic ST +2 (2 p.m AtST for noon CST), Eastern ST +1 (1 p.m. EST for noon CST), Mountain ST -1 (MST 11:00 a.m. for noon CST), Pacific ST -2 (PST 10 a.m. for noon CST), Alaska ST -3 (9 a.m. AkSt for noon CST) and Hawaiian ST -4 (8:00 a.m. HST for noon CST).
The first states to partially close are Indiana and Kentucky at 5:00 p.m. CST. The polls actually close at 6:00 p.m. local time, so the poll closings are in the part of the state that is in the Eastern time zones. These are the only two states to have closing times before 7:00 p.m. local time which makes in-person votes by people with jobs rather hard. Neither of these states are likely to have any close races for Congress or Governor as much as the Senate would be improved if Rand Paul had to go back to practicing medicine. The most interesting thing is that Kentucky, like Kansas before it, has a proposition to amend the state constitution to expressly state that there is no right to abortion.
The first chunk of states to close comes at 6:00 p.m. CST (along with the remainder of the Kentucky and Indiana). Polls will fully close in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. Polls will close in most of Florida (all but the western panhandle).
Georgia is likely to be the first lost house seat of the evening for the Democrats. The current split is eight Republicans and six Democrats but the Democrats hold two swing seats. In redistricting, those two swing seats were redrawn as one safe Republican seat and one lean Democrat seat. Georgia requires candidates to get a majority of the vote. Right now, both the race for Governor (currently held by Republican Brian Kemp) and Senate (currently held by Democrat Raphael Warnock are very close. There are Libertarian candidates in both races and, thus, there is a real possibility that either or both races could end up in a runoff which would take place in December. Georgia is probably number two on the list of winnable Senate seats for the Republicans. If Senator Warnock can hold on and avoid a runoff, the odds of Democrats keeping the Senate increase dramatically.
Florida (like Ohio) has been the great white whale of Democratic hopes in recent years. The state is close enough that Democrats have a fighting chance, but lean Republican voters tend to return home on election day. Florida is another state in which Republicans were ruthless in redistricting. Coming into this cycle, the split in the Congressional representation was 16-11. Florida gained a seat after the 2022 census, and the new lines look very likely to give a 20-8 split. Democrats might gain a seat back for 2024 in court as the Republican killed a minority district in redistricting., but for now as the results come in from Florida, the Republicans are likely to have gained five seats within the hour — enough to be a tentative majority in the House. Because Governor Ron DeSatan, sorry Ron DeSantis, is pure evil and fighting a cold war with the Orange Menance, Democrat Charles Crist has a chance at pulling off an upset for Governor. And because Senator Marco Rubio is such a bad senator and bad candidate, Democrat Val Demings has an outside shot at winning the senate seat. If either of those happens, Democrats could be in good shape for holding their own, but both are unlikely.
All the races in South Carolina might be projected within five minutes of closing. The house map is sufficiently gerrymandered that it takes a really, really bad candidate for a race to become competitive.
There are no changes expected in Vermont. The current Republican governor Phil Scott is actually one of the last of the dying breed of moderate Republicans, and — even though the names in the seats will be changing with current Democratic Representative Peter Welch moving up to the Senate seat currently held by retiring Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Democratic State Senator Rebecca Balint moving to Congress — the parties should remain the same. The real interest in Vermont is on the propositions on the ballot. If protecting abortion rights can win in Kansas, there should be no problem with a pro-choice proposition winning in Vermont. The more interesting proposition is one on slavery. While the Thirteenth Amendment generally forbids slavery, it contains an exception for prison labor. Now, in most states, prison labor receives some minimum compensation, but there is a move to amend state constitutions to bar the use of prisoners as slave labor. It is unclear, how, the amendment to the Vermont Constitution would impact the level of compensation which must be provided to prisoners.
In Virginia, with state elections being in odd-years and neither Senate seat being up this cycle, the focus is all on the House. Redistricting shuffled which seats lean which way. The district that is most likely to be competitive is the Second district, currently held by Democratic Representative Elaine Luria. If the Democrats can hold the Second in Virginia, they have a chance at keeping the House. Other seats to focus on are the Seventh and Tenth. The Democrats should keep both seats, but, if there is a decent sized Republican wave, both could fall.
Most states close at the top of the hour, but there are a handful of states that have a bottom of the hour closing time. Three states close at 6:30 p.m. — North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. North Carolina and Ohio are like Florida in that the states are close enough that Democrats have hopes at winning, but the Republicans have just enough of an edge that, with limited exceptions, the Republicans tend to pull things out. North Carolina is probably fourth on the Democrats’ potential Senate pickup lists (behind Wisconsin but ahead of Florida). In the House, currently the Republicans have an 8-5 majority with one new seat. The lines in North Carolina were drawn by the courts after the legislature drew unfair lines (with the current lines being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in December). Under the court drawn lines, it is looking like a 7-6 split with one seat to close too call. If the Democrats can pick up that closse seat (the Thriteenth district), these results could help swing things back and offset the Florida gerrymander.
The main race in Ohio is the Senate race. For most of the year, the experts have seen this seat as the second most likely to flip to the Democrats. And the Republican nominee, J.D. Vance, is clearly unfit to hold public office at any level, much less a Senate seat. However, Ohio has proven a frustrating state for Democrats in which money is spent but no results are achieved. So there has been an on-going argument of how much money national Democrats should spend to help Representative Tim Ryan with Ohio Democrats thinking that the national party has not done enough. Winning this seat would all but guarantee a Democratic majority in the Senate (as it is unlikely that Democrats would win Ohio without also winning Pennsylvania and maybe Wisconsin). For the House, the current split is 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Ohio lost a seat, and it is most likely to be a Democrat seat that disappears. But there are three potentially close races — the First, the Ninth, and the Thirteenth — which could go either way. The First is currently a Republican seat, the Ninth is currently a Democratic seat, the Thirteenth was a Democratic seat but the old Thirteenth has been carved up and the old Sixteenth was a Republican seat. The Republicans should keep the governor’s seat.
West Virginia should be a competitive state. Republican policies do not care about the health of most residents of West Virginia. The problem is that coal plays a large role in the economy of West Virginia, and, any realistic environmental policy means the continued decline of the coal industry. So the short-term interests of the state drives voters to support the Republican Party. Because West Virginia lost a house seat, it will be sending one fewer Republican to the house in 2023, but the key races in West Virginia should be called by 6:45.
In short, this first two hours feature a handful of key races that could give a clue to the rest of the evening, but — in what will be a recurring theme — the vast majority of races will not be competitive. The key focus should be the Senate races in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, and the governor races in Florida and Georgia. There are a handful of house races that will point the way for whether the Democrats have a shot at keeping the majority or if there will be a Republican wave.
