US Midterms: All eyes on these top races
These high-stakes races will tell us a lot about 2024 and how politics will shift in US
When will the results of the US midterms be known? In the 2020 presidential elections, due to slow vote counting in many states, it took several for news organisations to declare Joe Biden the president-elect.
It is possible that we won’t know the winners of the 2022 midterm election on the election night.
Although in recent years, midterm election results were announced on the election night or the morning after, however, some experts predict that it make until the next morning to know this year’s winners.
While the anticipation to the final vote -- and the results -- continues, here is a quick primer on the most closely watched races in these elections.
Nevada Senate
In 2020, Donald Trump made massive strides nationally with the Latino vote, gaining a whopping 17 percentage points with the group. And in 2022, Nevada - a state whose population is 30 percent Latino - will be the perfect test of whether his gains hold up.
On election night, specifically watch North Las Vegas. That’s a heavily Latino area that swung right in the 2020 election.
If Adam Laxalt - a Trump-allied Republican from a Nevada political dynasty - can perform well there, that’s a great sign for the GOP. It means the party as a whole, not just Trump, has made those gains.
Ohio Senate
Republicans have spent six years scratching their heads at Trump, wondering which elements of his approach work and which are off-putting excesses.
J.D. Vance, the GOP candidate, is road-testing one answer.
Vance is running as a right-wing populist, essentially proposing that the government actively favor the cultural and economic preferences of conservative blue-collar voters. Trump has gestured at these ideas; Vance is trying to mold them into a coherent system of thought.
If Vance wins handily - especially if he matches Trump’s 2020 eight-point win margin - he’ll immediately bottle his ideology and start exporting it to other states.
North Carolina Senate
Black voters are the base of the Democratic Party, but in recent years, some have left for the GOP. Barack Obama won 97 percent of the two-party Black vote in 2012. But Hillary Clinton only took 93 percent. Joe Biden took 90 percent.
North Carolina is the best opportunity to see whether this trend has continued.
If Cheri Beasley - the first Black woman to be the state Supreme Court’s chief justice - reverses the slide, Democrats will rush to North Carolina to learn from her. If Rep. Ted Budd - the most generic Republican imaginable - gains ground, they might despair instead.
Colorado Senate
Colorado is another demographic check for Democrats. The state is flush with college graduates, a group that moved strongly toward Democrats in 2020. Statewide, Biden posted a sky-high 15-point margin.
But, after Trump left office, Republicans regained some ground with college grads. Most notably, GOP hedge fund executive Glenn Youngkin took the Virginia governorship in 2021 in part by winning back well-educated D.C. suburbanites.
If Republican Joe O’Dea can eat into Democratic Sen. Michael F. Bennet’s margin in Colorado, it’ll prove that Youngkin wasn’t a fluke. And if O’Dea runs into problems, Republicans may have to look elsewhere for votes in 2024.
Arizona governor
Republicans across the country (inaccurately) assert that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election. But Kari Lake stands out: She built her primary campaign around the claim and, as a former newscaster, has been trying to put some shine on the claims.
If Lake wins, Republicans will immediately imitate her phrasing and mannerisms in an effort to keep the base (and Trump himself) happy without coming across as too crazy to swing voters.
(With inputs from agencies)