US Midterm Elections

Results are coming in for one of the most closely watched midterm elections in recent memory. Voting across the country largely went smoothly, with a few isolated technical and logistical hiccups.

History has shown that the President’s party usually takes a beating in the first midterm election, and polls predict the Democrats may lose control of the House, if not the Senate as well. As votes are tallied, Republicans are showing an edge in House races and the contest for control of the Senate is tight.

Republicans made big gains in Florida, with Gov. Ron DeSantis winning reelection by a huge margin, a sign that Florida’s electorate has swung to the GOP, with major potential ramifications for the electoral map in the 2024 presidential elections. Beyond that there are few signs of a massive blow out across the country by Republicans.

According to the Associated Press, Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger held her seat in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., a district that was widely seen as an early predictor of a Republican wave, a lot comes down to whether Democrats can hold the Senate, which would provide a bulwark to Republicans sending bills to President Joe Biden’s desk and blocking his judicial nominees. Many of the most closely-watched races have yet to be decided and will likely take hours, if not days to call.

A key race is in Georgia, where former football star Hershel Walker presents a major test of the power of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Walker, who’s been the subject of news stories that he paid for a woman’s abortion despite his strict anti-abortion stance, is facing incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. In Pennsylvania’s Senate race, the Democrat lieutenant governor John Fetterman is up against Trump’s pick TV doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz. And in Ohio, Trump’s pick for senate, J.D. Vance, defeated his opponent, Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan.

A so-called red wave of Republican seats could bolster Trump’s case that he’s the party’s best chance to reclaim the White House in 2024. At a rally in Ohio on Monday night, he teased a “very big announcement” at his private club in Florida on Nov. 15.

Each election helps maintain the clockwork of a democracy, but this one, at this moment in the country, carries a lot of freight. At stake is not just the balance of power in Congress and in state capitols—nor only the consequences for the economy, the climate, women’s health, the wealth gap, and what we as a country think is important. Also on the line is the mechanics of elections themselves, and the basic mathematics of how the people communicate their will.

There are a lot of ways it can be gummed up.

One test is whether Republican candidates who have denied Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020 will accept the results in 2022 if they are defeated, or only if they win. Two years of Trump’s unfounded denials of the 2020 results have opened the door to a raft of candidates who have shown an unwillingness to accept vetted vote tallies. Another question is whether the public is prepared to potentially wait days for final outcomes, as tens of millions of mail-in and absentee ballots are counted. In some states with closely watched races like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Republicans are expected to have higher tallies early in the count, with Democratic votes coming in later as mail-in ballots and absentee ballots are counted.

A Republican surge in Congress will mean more investigations of Biden’s Administration and his family, and also force Democrats to confront Biden’s reelection chances and whether he’s the party’s best hope to beat a potential Trump candidacy for a second time.

Brian Kemp defeats Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has defeated former state house majority leader Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor’s race. Abrams acknowledged the defeat in an appearance in Atlanta Tuesday night, saying she offered “congratulations” to Kemp.It was the second match-up between Kemp and Abrams and the second time Georgia did not elect what would have been the first Black woman governor in U.S. history; Kemp defeated Abrams for the governorship in 2018 as well.

Kemp shot to national prominence when he refused to help former President Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election. His re-election this year makes him one of the only Republicans to cross Trump and keep his job.

J.D. Vance wins Ohio Senate seat

The tight race for an open Senate seat in Ohio ground to a narrow end, with Democratic nominee Tim Ryan coming up short against first-time candidate J.D. Vance, a Republican who captured the GOP nomination powered by an endorsement of ex-President Donald Trump. The Associated Press called the race, and a Democratic official tells TIME that Ryan has called Vance to concede.

Ryan, a 10-term member of the House who sought to defeat Nancy Pelosi as the Democratic leader and tried for his party’s presidential nomination in 2020, had counted on his blue-collar appeal to break a conservative slide in a state that twice voted for Trump. Ryan hails from the northeast corner of the state where the manufacturing core has been hollowed out over the last few decades. He campaigned as an everyman who drank Miller Lite, wore hoodie sweatshirts on the trail, and blasted Trump and his allies like Vance as extremism.

Vance, meanwhile, matured as a candidate as the campaign pivoted from a competitive primary to a general election with national implications. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy and a venture capitalist, similarly tried to appeal to the working-class base of the Ohio electorate. Vance benefited from a raft of cash from billionaire Peter Thiel, and he certainly was not hurt by incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine’s easy victory for a second term.

The seat is currently held by Republican Sen. Rob Portman, meaning Vance’s win does little to advance the GOP’s effort to win the majority.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coasts to re-election

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis easily won re-election on Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press, positioning him for potential national ambitions or a future bid for the presidency.

DeSantis faced Democrat Charlie Crist, who himself served as a Republican Governor of Florida from 2007 until 2011. (He became a Democrat in 2012.) With 80% of votes counted, De Santis had 58% of the vote to Crist’s 41%.

A rising star in the GOP, DeSantis defined his first term as governor with resistance to pandemic-era restrictions and brash right-wing stances on America’s culture wars. His funding vastly outpaced Crist’s, and he focused his campaign on criticizing Democrats for what he described as the “woke agenda.” Widely considered to be a future Republican presidential contender, the conservative firebrand made headlines this year for his stances on LGBTQ issues, handling of immigration policy, and investigations into alleged voter fraud. He repeatedly drew liberal ire and swallowed media cycle after media cycle, leaving Crist and his moderate approach largely ignored.

While he’s been re-elected to another four years in office, it remains unclear if he’ll serve all of them—in a recent debate DeSantis, 44, did not answer when Crist pressed him to commit to a full-four year term rather than run for President in 2024. Former President Donald Trump, a registered Florida voter who is also mulling a presidential bid, told reporters on Tuesday that he had voted for DeSantis’ re-election, although he had mocked the governor at a rally just days before, potentially teeing up the primary dynamics for next cycle.