US midterms: Democrats need four Senate gains as voters go to the polls

Voting day and what is at stake

Americans vote on Tuesday, 3 November, in midterm elections held halfway through Donald Trump's presidential term. Voters will choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and governors in up to 36 states. Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress. A Democratic House majority would give the opposition control of committees that can open investigations, summon officials and request documents, and it could start an impeachment procedure. Removing a president would still require a two-thirds vote to convict in the Senate.

House and Senate arithmetic

Democrats need 218 of the 435 House seats. The Silver Bulletin and Economist models gave them a 95% chance of reaching that figure at the end of October, while the Decision Desk HQ model put it at 80%. The Senate is more open. Republicans hold 53 seats, which is enough to keep control with 50 because Vice President J. D. Vance breaks ties. Democrats therefore need 51 seats, which means winning four more seats than they lose.

Republicans53

Democrats47

Republicans

53 seats

Democrats

47 seats

Data from the article text

The Senate battlegrounds

EL PAÍS's polling average has Democratic candidates ahead in North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Kansas, Alaska and Iowa, all currently held by Republicans. The margins in Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Maine are about three points, one point in Alaska and under half a point in Iowa, which is within the usual polling error. In Ohio, a late-September Marist poll gave Sherrod Brown 51% against 43% for Jon Husted among registered voters. In Maine, Troy Jackson replaced Graham Platner as the Democratic candidate in July, after Platner's campaign collapsed amid personal scandals and sexual harassment accusations that he denied. Susan Collins, a veteran Republican, has outperformed her polls before, and Democrats fear a repeat of 2020, when she won by more than 8 points. In Alaska, Mary Peltola leads in the polls against incumbent Dan Sullivan, although she has been accused of playing dirty, with a report saying her team persuaded a namesake of Sullivan to run as an independent. In Georgia, Jon Ossoff holds a lead of about nine points over his Republican rival, and Texas is seen as a race that could deal a heavy setback to Republicans if James Talarico beats Paxton, since a Democratic win there has not happened since the 1980s.

Election night and the count

The first results are expected as polls close on the East Coast, and the schedule runs on Eastern time, six hours behind Spain. Georgia and Virginia come first at 19:00 Eastern, followed by North Carolina and Ohio at 19:30 and Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey, Maine and New Hampshire at 20:00. Texas, Iowa, Kansas and Michigan follow at 21:00, which El PAÍS describes as the hour that will be decisive for the Senate.

Florida counts quickly and can project most results within hours. Alaska accepts ballots up to fifteen days after Election Day, and Texas and California count mail ballots that arrive later if they carry a postmark dated Election Day. Maine uses ranked-choice voting, so the result could take days if no candidate passes 50%. Networks combine exit polls with telephone, text and online surveys, and newsrooms are cautious about early calls after past exit-poll errors. The Associated Press calls a winner only when it has very high confidence in the result.

What a Democratic win would change

If Republicans keep Congress, Trump would have more room to push his agenda through. A Democratic House would make his promises harder to turn into law, and a Democratic Senate would make it harder for him to win confirmation of federal judges, ministers and ambassadors. David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University in Saint Paul and a CNN commentator, told a World Press Institute conference that Democrats could have enough support to win but not enough to govern. He argued that Trump's veto and the 60-vote filibuster would block most Democratic legislation, leaving them mainly able to investigate and check the government.