Semafor Bellwethers: Follow our expert team

12:10 AM

The Democrats’ Blue Wall is at risk in the Senate, not just in the White House race.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Sens. Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin are all running ahead of Kamala Harris in their respective states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But they’re also all currently trailing, and the prospects of a Republican majority as big as 55 seats are very real.

Even after Republicans ousted Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown to get their likely 51st seat, the races in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are still very high-stakes. The results will make the difference between threadbare Republican control of Senate control and potentially the biggest GOP majority in 25 years (Republicans had 55 seats in 1999 and 2005).

12:01 AM

In Wisconsin’s Waukesha County, Democrats were hoping for a dramatic suburban shift that could offset other losses. With 92% of ballots counted, they got only a small shift in their direction, trimming Trump’s 21-point lead from four years ago to a 19-point lead. Trump offset that win with incremental gains in Dane County.

11:25 PM

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Susan Wild was hoping that her challenging reelection bid might get a boost from trash talk. It hasn’t worked out for her so far.

After comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s closing Madison Square Garden rally, Democrats ramped up their outreach to Latinos in the state. About 77,000 Puerto Ricans live in Wild’s 7th District, according to a 2023 census report.

“They’ve been hustling like crazy to get people there, bussing Puerto Ricans in from NYC and other places,” one Democratic operative familiar with the plan told Semafor last week.

That effort may not have made the difference it needed to in Wild’s campaign against Republican Ryan Mackenzie in this swing district; she is currently trailing him by 2 points with 87% of the vote accounted for. Wild had grown her polling margin in the race since July, with the most recent poll indicating a 6% lead in early October. Mackenzie, for his part, has gone on the attack against Wild on border security.

The implications of the 7th District race extend beyond Wild’s future. The Eastern Pennsylvania district, encompassing Allentown, Bethlehem, and the Lehigh Valley, is one of the most competitive in a hotly contested presidential battleground state.

And both parties see pickup opportunities in other swing Pennsylvania districts. Republican Rep. Scott Perry is trailing in the 10th District, and Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright is leading in the 8th District. Both were rated as toss-ups. Perry is facing Democrat Janelle Stelson, who led the incumbent in recent polls and has won the backing of a group of former House Republicans looking to oust the former Freedom Caucus chair.

Republicans have poured millions into Cartwright’s district. Still, polling shows that the six-term member is well-positioned to retain his seat even without Biden at the top ticket to tout his Scranton roots (the outgoing president’s birthplace is a linchpin of the 8th District).

11:01 PM

If past is prologue, the race won’t be called in Maryland’s 6th District for a while. Back in 2022, Republican Neil Parrott conceded to Democratic Rep. David Trone three days after election night.

But it’s looking good for Parrott this time around; he leads Democratic rival April McClain Delaney by 4 points with 73% of the vote counted.

The seat came open after Trone passed up another term to mount an unsuccessful Senate bid. Parrott’s new opponent is the wife of the district’s previous congressman, John Delaney.

According to Parrott’s polling, he has commanded about 17% of Democratic voters in the district — and if that performance holds true, Delaney will need to pull away her own share of GOP voters.Maryland’s 6th is one of the most competitive races in the state, despite drawing a “Lean Democrat” rating from Cook Political Report. That’s in part because redistricting stripped a portion of Democratic-heavy Montgomery County from the district.

Delaney was also expected to benefit from Angela Alsobrooks’ now-victorious Senate run. But Democrats are also banking on Harris’ position at the top of the ticket to drive out voters. Overall, Marylanders gave Harris a 9% boost on job favorability since February in a state where Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts 2 to 1.

10:37 PM

Pennsylvania’s Butler County, the site of a failed assassination attempt on Trump, saw only an incremental shift toward him — a bit of a departure from what he’s getting in red parts of the state. With most of the vote counted, he increased his margin by 1,608 votes, as Harris improved on Biden’s vote total while he improved by more. Not much of a change in a place that became so emotionally resonant for Republicans, but enough.

10:45 PM

Beyond the must-win states, it’s important to look at whether any races outside the main battlefield are getting close. Republicans were excited about recruiting Nella Domenici, the daughter of longtime New Mexico senator Pete Domenici, to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Martin Heinrich. And some Democrats at times have thought Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley could be vulnerable in a seat they once held.

Well, those hopes didn’t pan out — and Heinrich and Hawley are winning pretty comfortably as both races are called for them. Neither are surprises, but they do take off the board a couple of states that could have made things interesting.

10:37 PM

Democrats probably weren’t expecting to have to wait until after 10:30 p.m. to know that Tim Kaine won a third term, but here we are. The GOP didn’t really contest the race, seeing far better opportunities elsewhere, but Kaine ran far enough ahead of Kamala Harris to prevail against Hung Cao.

Democratic senators are trying to outrun Harris across the map — but Virginia is bluer than the purple states where Kaine’s colleagues are fighting for their political lives. And Kaine’s win looks to be far narrower than his 16-point victory in 2018.

Virginia’s apparent shift to the right will offer some warning signs for Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, who’s gearing up for a 2025 gubernatorial run, and Sen. Mark Warner, who’s up for reelection in Virginia in 2026.

Next year’s gubernatorial race will be among the first referendums on the incoming president; Democrats are still smarting about their 2021 loss to Glenn Youngkin and will be looking to take back control in Richmond next year.

10:18 PM

In Indiana, the Hamilton County bellwether barely moved — 1 point toward Democrats from 2020. In bellwether Vigo County, Trump grew his margin from 15 points to 21 points. That’s the ongoing story of Election Night, with rural voters of all races moving toward the GOP and suburban voters edging narrowly toward Democrats, not enough to build a winning Harris coalition.

10:15 PM

North Carolina Rep. Don Davis is leading Republican Laurie Buckhout by 5 points with nearly 80% of votes tallied, giving hope to Democrats who are trying to take back the House.

Davis has broken with his party on several big issues in the House: He voted to condemn the Biden administration over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, supported a bill requiring voters to show proof of citizenship and most recently, backed a resolution condemning Harris’ failure to secure the US-Mexico border.

His Eastern North Carolina district was one of several redrawn by a Republican-led state legislature in 2023. Davis’ seat was redrawn to include redder areas that Trump won in 2020 but was still rated a toss-up, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Democrats have held the seat for three decades.

The campaign arms of both parties have spent more than $23 million combined on the race.

Democrats had one big concern: turnout. A week before the election, 36,000 fewer Black voters had cast ballots in person compared to the same time in 2020. Democrats launched a massive get-out-the-vote campaign two weeks before the election, narrowing the Black voter gap by some 40,000 votes.

On the opposite end of the state, concerns over whether Hurricane Helene would impact the state’s 25 FEMA-designated disaster counties abated after election officials announced more than a third of the state had already voted. Along with Black voters, Democrats were looking to turn out storm-impacted voters in stronghold Asheville and peel off some votes from rural counties in the swing state.

10:00 PM

The ongoing story of the night is Trump running better in rural and exurban counties with voters of all races. That was true in the Nash County bellwether, a test of whether Trump had room to improve with non-white voters outside big cities who moved right in 2016 and 2020. He did: Trump won the county by 2 points, netting 1000 votes, after losing it by just 120 votes four years ago.

9:50 PM

Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna County, one our bellwethers, has largely finished its count, with a slight shift right from 2020 — a 3-point win for Harris, down from Biden’s 8-point win over Trump. He’s running around 2000 votes ahead of his total that year, and Harris is running 3000 votes behind Biden. Sen. Bob Casey, who like Biden was born in the county (and still lives in Scranton), did match the 2020 Biden margin.

9:46 PM

Democrats had to spend millions to fend off former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, but it worked. The race call for Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks shows just how steep a mountain Hogan had to climb in one of the nation’s bluest states. Hogan is steadily outpacing Trump as returns keep coming in, but not to the outlandish degree he would have needed in order to claim a Senate seat.

Republicans were never banking on Maryland as a win, though, and Democrats never really freaked out about the race after Alsobrooks won the primary earlier this year. But the state was still a crucial piece of the Senate map.

There would be no path to a Democratic majority without Maryland, and the GOP’s focus there — as well as a pro-Hogan super PAC — made Democrats take seriously a state they otherwise would have coasted to victory in.

9:30 PM

Democrats needed to hold on to Virginia’s 7th District to have a fighting chance at reclaiming the House, and so far it’s looking good for them. Their nominee, Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, is ahead of Republican rival Derrick Anderson by roughly 3 points, with 77% of the vote in.

President Joe Biden won the district in 2020 by 6.7%; a year later, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin bested a Democrat to win the district by 3%. The battleground district stretches from central to northern Virginia, where Anderson is trying to flip a seat now held by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. She’s running for governor rather than seeking another term.

Eugene Vindman came into the race with name recognition as the whistleblower in then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, where his brother Alexander was a key witness.

The two Army veterans had been close in polling for most of the race as controversies hit both of them. Anderson went viral after posing with his friend’s wife and three daughters, drawing criticism for trying to pass them off as his own family. Vindman drew a stolen valor accusation from the opposing party for mischaracterizing his military rank after retirement.

And along the state’s eastern border, Rep. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va. is holding on to a razor-thin lead over challenger Missy Cotter Smasal. The district has flipped parties twice in the past six years, the last time from Republican to Democrat in 2022, when Elaine Luria lost to Kiggans after redistricting turned the district slightly more red.

9:23 PM

Sherrod Brown is running ahead of Harris in Ohio, but not by enough for Democrats to feel comfortable about hanging onto a seat that could lose them the Senate majority before midnight. Brown needs to run well ahead of Harris to have a chance of winning here, and at the moment he is outpacing her — but not by enough.

That’s in part because Trump is currently leading the state by more than Democrats wanted, which is good news for Republican nominee Bernie Moreno. Former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan told us that Harris needs to get within 5 or 6 points of Trump to give Brown a great chance in the state. Brown wouldn’t put a number on it the last time we talked to him, but Trump has won Ohio by 8 points the last two cycles.

And at the moment he’s right around that number.

With Democrats’ pick-up chances looking dead in Florida and tough in Texas, Brown’s loss would effectively hand control of the chamber to the Republicans.

9:08 PM

Most of Roanoke County, in southwest Virginia, has been counted; we marked this as a rural Trump bellwether, in part because both he and JD Vance held rallies there. Trump won it by 22 points in 2020, and is up by 27 points now. He is not on track to win Virginia overall, but this is a good example of the over-performance he’s seeing outside suburbs and cities, which Democrats need to out-match in those areas.

9:04 PM

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is currently leading Republican opponent Derek Merrin by 8 points in Ohio’s 9th District. It’s a pretty good sign for her party, which needs her to hang on to boost its chances at taking back the House.

Two years ago, Kaptur beat Republican JR Majewski by more than 13 points, but Merrin is a less polarizing candidate — so the longest-serving woman in Congress can expect to see her race run a little closer this time around.

In another critical Ohio race, the 13th District, polling showed Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes and her Republican opponent Kevin Coughlin in a close race just a week ago. With about 40% of the vote in, Sykes is leading Coughlin, shoring up her chances to return to the House.

But if the race remains this tight for the rest of the night, it could be a sign that House control itself will also stay too close to call for a while.

8:50 PM

Colin Allred is staying alive in Texas’ Senate race. And that’s a vindication … of sorts for Democrats’ fall decision to pour resources into a longshot battle against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. Now there are two questions: Can Allred improve on Beto O’Rourke’s performance against Cruz in 2018 … and could Cruz actually lose?

We won’t have definitive answers for a little while longer on the second question. But on the first one, the early numbers show Cruz running a bit behind Trump and leading Allred by close to his 2018 margin of less than 3 points.

This race is critical for a couple reasons: If Jon Tester or Sherrod Brown don’t win in Montana or Ohio, Texas is probably the best way for Democrats to make up for the lost Senate seat. Republicans are just one pickup away from taking back an outright majority regardless of the presidential result, but an Allred win in Texas would deliver Democrats a shocking pathway to Senate control.

All that said, it’s a tough state for them and the numbers show it even as Allred outperforms Kamala Harris significantly.

8:34 PM

In the North Carolina counties that have mostly finished their count — all rural — Donald Trump is at or slightly ahead of his 2020 margins. In Union County, the conservative bellwether we’re watching outside Charlotte, Trump got 61% of the vote in 2020 and is at 63% with about three-quarters of the vote counted. We’re now at the part of the night where states that saw heavy advertising from both candidates are coming in, and there is no significant suburban swing toward Harris.

8:19 PM

It’s a romp for Republicans in Florida — their best presidential performance since the 1980s, continued gains with Latino voters, and success in keeping both progressive ballot measures under 60%. (They need to crack that number to pass). All of those are victories for Ron DeSantis, who spent political capital and some state resources on stopping Amendments 3 and 4, preventing the legalization of marijuana and stopping abortion rights from being added to the state constitution. They currently look unlikely to pass.

8:10 PM

The trend in Loudoun County, Virginia is encouraging for Republicans. With 95% of ballots counting, Harris is winning the county by 17 points, down from Biden’s 25-point win there in 2020. Trump has already won more votes there than he did against Biden; Harris is running around 15,000 votes behind. It’s a reverse of what early vote patterns showed outside Indianapolis, and weaker than the Harris performance in the rest of northern Virginia.

8:08 PM

Rick Scott is used to waiting for his election wins, but he won’t have to do that this time around. The GOP senator won his second term against former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and the race was called well within the dinner hour — at least on the panhandle.

Scott is slightly lagging behind Donald Trump, but Democrats are a long way from their onetime dreams about taking Florida Senate seats. And Florida was one of their only pick-up opportunities in a map that’s stacked against them.

They’ll now have to wait until Texas results start rolling in to see if their other opportunity has any chance of hitting — although to be fair, Democrats spent a lot more national money on beating Ted Cruz in Texas than they did on Scott in Florida. Another note: Scott’s win means he will compete in next week’s leadership race to succeed Mitch McConnell, an aide confirmed.

7:47 PM

Donald Trump and Senate nominee Jim Banks are both romping in Indiana, and the governor’s race has already been called for Mike Braun, whom Banks will be replacing in Congress. But the numbers here really matter — so we’re looking closely at Braun’s underperformance relative to Trump and Banks.

And we’re paying close attention to the northern Indianapolis suburbs of Hamilton County, where Banks is overperforming both Trump and Braun against their Democratic rivals. Banks is beating Democratic opponent Valerie McCray narrowly (as he leads the race overall by roughly 30 points). That means Banks is significantly running ahead of the rest of the ticket in a county where the suburban demographics are reflective of other critical Midwest races.

For context, Republican Todd Young won the last Senate race here by about 21 points. It’ll be interesting to see whether Banks can beat that.

7:23 PM

Trump is running a bit ahead of his 2020 numbers in every New Hampshire town that’s fully reported — first Dixville Notch (and its 6 voters), now the more reliably Republican towns of Belmont and Epsom. He’s leading in Epsom by 24 points, after winning it by 18 in 2020, and by 23 points in Milton, another town he won by 18 in 2020. There’s no Democratic win map that takes a New Hampshire loss into account — neither party really competed here — but this is in line with some final polling that found Harris running 2-4 points behind Biden’s easy 7-point 2020 win.

7:09 PM

The first significant movement toward either candidate tonight is taking place in Boone County, which like our first Bellwether Hamilton County is outside of Indianapolis. In 2020, Donald Trump won Boone County with 58% of the vote; with 91% of votes counted, he’s carrying it with 54% of the vote. Democrats are looking for any sign of suburban movement in their direction, once one of these counties wraps up.

6:00 pm

Polls are closed in Indiana (you can read our guide as to what to expect each hour), home to Hamilton County, our first bellwether for potentially Harris-friendly suburban voters, and Vigo County, where Republicans have historically done well in the Terre Haute area.