Midterm Live: House and Senate Races Could Reshape the Balance of Power in 2022

On the morning of Election Day, November 8, 2022, the question hanging over Washington was simple: would Democrats keep their thin hold on Congress? Republicans were hoping to take it back, and the result would shape what remained of President Joe Biden's agenda for the rest of his term.

In the House, the numbers favored the GOP. Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had held the majority since 2018, when they won it in Donald Trump's first midterm. Republicans needed a net gain of just five seats across dozens of competitive districts, and they were trying to win dozens. FiveThirtyEight forecast that Republicans would take control. History pointed the same way: in the modern era, the president's party has lost congressional seats in virtually every first-term midterm.

If Republicans did win the House, their caucus would elect a new speaker and take power on January 3, 2023. They would run every committee and decide which bills reached the floor.

The Senate looked much closer. Twenty-one Republican seats and 14 Democratic seats were up, and FiveThirtyEight called the contest a dead heat. Whichever party won would likely hold only the slimmest margin, which would leave Biden somewhat more room for common ground there. Much of what he had achieved in office had come through bipartisan Senate negotiations. Even so, a Republican Senate could pass bills sent over by a GOP House, adding political pressure on the president, and the party would regain committee control and with it the power to investigate and oversee the administration.

Three Senate races stood out. In Pennsylvania, Democrats hoped to pick up the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, but polls showed a tight contest between Democrat John Fetterman, the state's lieutenant governor, and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon. In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was seeking a full six-year term against Republican Herschel Walker, whose abortion controversy might hurt his chances. In Nevada, one of four main Republican pickup opportunities was the seat of Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who polls showed narrowly trailing Adam Laxalt, the state's former attorney general.

Thirty-six governorships were also on the ballot. FiveThirtyEight projected that Massachusetts and Maryland would flip to Democrats, and that Nevada, Wisconsin and possibly Oregon would flip to Republicans.

Voters in several states were also deciding ballot measures. Abortion was on the ballot in five states, the first such votes since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and left abortion rights to the states. California, Michigan and Vermont asked voters, in some form, whether to establish a right to abortion. Kentucky asked whether its constitution should say there is no such right, and no government funding for it. Montana asked whether to require medical care for infants born alive after an attempted abortion.

Five states, Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota, had measures to amend their constitutions and legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older. Approval would add them to the 19 states and the District of Columbia that already allow it. Prohibitions have fallen steadily in the decade since Colorado and Washington approved recreational cannabis, and even some Deep South states have allowed medical marijuana.

The results, as they came in, would settle who controls the committees and the floor in January, and how much leverage Biden would have afterward.