Polls opened across the United States on Tuesday in midterm elections that will decide control of the House and the Senate, along with 36 governor's races and a long list of state ballot measures. The first polling places opened just after 6 a.m. Eastern time in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky and Maine, with lines forming at schools and community centers before sunrise.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate's 100 seats are on the ballot, and about 210 million Americans are registered to vote. Republicans control both chambers going into the vote: the Senate stands at 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats, while the House has 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, one independent and two vacant seats. To win the Senate majority, Democrats need a net gain of four seats, while in the House they need to flip only a handful of districts to reach the 218 seats required for control.
More than 46 million Americans had already voted early, by mail or in person, as of Oct. 30, according to the University of Florida Election Lab. That surpassed the 45.9 million who voted early in the entire 2022 midterm, setting a record for a midterm election. Early voting is available to all voters in 47 states and Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, Michigan and New York offered expanded early voting in a midterm for the first time.
In South Carolina, about 1.04 million people voted during the state's 12-day early voting period, nearly double the roughly 561,000 who voted early in the 2022 midterm, the state election commission said.
Prediction markets point to a strong night for Democrats. Traders on Kalshi put the chance of Democrats winning control of the House at more than 90%, and prediction market traders saw a nearly 75% chance of Democrats winning the Senate, CNBC reported. Political scientist Chapman Rackaway of Radford University said prediction markets have "about a similar reliability as polls."
