US voters will decide whether Democrats can overturn Republican majorities in Congress, where the party needs four gains in both the House and Senate to take control.
The count could run for days or weeks because Senate contests are expected to be closer than House races, while ranked choice voting in two states and the spread of mail-in voting may delay clear results.
Results and exit polls are due to begin arriving from 6pm ET, as polling stations close in eastern Indiana and Kentucky. Early results from 7pm ET will come from Republican-held House seats in Florida, Virginia and Texas.
In Michigan, polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, after which local clerks will start posting partial results online. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told local news that new laws require counties to report results within an hour of polls closing.
All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of 100 Senate seats are on the ballot. Republicans hold the House by 218-214 and the Senate by 53-47.
Early voting has set midterm records in several states. Yet the share of precincts reporting, once a familiar measure of election-night progress, has become all but useless in many states because of mail-in and early voting.
A race is called when the candidate behind has no viable route to victory. Early vote totals are accurate in almost every instance, though county and state election officials say election-night figures remain unofficial.
The Senate may prove the harder chamber to settle. Seven states are especially competitive, and a New York Times poll published on the eve of election day put Democrats narrowly ahead in contests to take Republican seats in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.
Those contests carry distinct political histories. Democrats last won a Senate race in North Carolina in 2008. Ohio, once regarded as a swing state, has become solidly Republican over the past decade. Maine is the only state where a Republican holds a Senate seat in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024.
Michigan’s Senate contest pits the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against the Republican Mike Rogers. Rogers received an endorsement on Sunday from the Democratic US Representative Haley Stevens, who backed the Trump-supported Republican candidate.
Donald Trump, speaking at an event in Washington on Monday, said: “Our whole country is booming” and “We're making an absolute fortune.”
Alaska, Maine and California are among the states that take longer to count votes. Their results could shape the discussion in the days after the election, with the balance of power in both chambers unresolved.
Claims of voter fraud will also be tested against the record: fraud in the United States is exceptionally rare, and recent investigations have found no widespread illegal voting.
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