Voters across the United States went to the polls on Tuesday to close out a bitterly contested midterm campaign that will settle which party controls Congress and deliver the first countrywide judgment on President Trump's second term, The New York Times reports.
The president has told supporters repeatedly to vote as though his name were on the ballot and has argued that Republicans would prevail if his base showed up. Democratic campaigns, by contrast, have pinned the financial strain on ordinary households on the president and his flagship policies.
Why it matters
The results will shape the balance of power in Washington for the rest of Trump's term and set the political weather ahead of the next presidential cycle. The New York Times describes the contest as a referendum on the president's leadership, and both parties have campaigned as if that framing were correct — Republicans working to turn the vote into a straight choice between themselves and opponents they describe as far-left radicals, Democrats working to keep the spotlight on the cost of living.
Surveys cited by The Times show Democrats broadly favored to take the House, though it remains uncertain how far into Republican-leaning territory their gains might reach. Polling also suggests Democrats could add seats in the Senate, and party leaders are said to be cautiously hopeful about capturing a majority — an outcome that would require them to defend every seat they currently hold while also unseating four Republican incumbents.
Record early voting and record spending
Early participation has surpassed recent midterm records, according to The Times, with tens of millions of ballots already submitted before Election Day. Turnout in the early period ran ahead of the previous midterm cycle in every major Senate battleground, and in several key states the proportion of registered Democrats among early voters rose.
Money has flowed at an extraordinary pace as well. Measured by political advertising, this is the costliest midterm since at least 2018, according to data from AdImpact cited in the reporting. Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, gave $474 million to Republican candidates and allied groups — a sum The Times describes as more than any donor has spent in a single election cycle.
The first polling places closed at 7 p.m. Eastern, but complete results may not be clear for days or even weeks, especially where margins are narrow. The Times notes that in 2024 it took three weeks to establish winners in California's tightest House contests.
The map, the courts and the campaign trail
Senate control will come down to a set of battlegrounds: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas, according to The Times.
Election officials and Democrats have voiced concern that the president's repeated criticism of election administration could stir friction at polling sites and produce unfounded challenges to the results. The administration has pushed to show that noncitizens have voted, but few people have faced charges related to voter fraud, The Times reports.
In the courts, a federal judge declined a request from Democratic lawmakers and party organizations to bar the Trump administration from pressuring states to vet incoming ballots. The Supreme Court also issued what The Times characterized as an unusual rebuke to the president, indicating it was unwilling to help him interfere with how states run their elections.
Separately, the Justice Department is preparing roughly 20 letters telling Democrats they are targets of a widening criminal probe into the recruitment of a similarly named candidate to run against Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Recipients are expected to include Marc Elias, a well-known elections lawyer, and at least one official at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, one of those people said. The letters point to possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges, that person added.
The Justice Department also said it is dispatching election monitors and observers to all 50 states, broadening a practice that had previously been narrower in scope. Nearly 1,000 monitors and observers will be sent, up from about 600 in earlier elections, though that remains a small number against the more than 100,000 polling locations nationwide.
Voters interviewed by The Times described affordability as their central concern. Charity Minner, 40, of Fort Worth, Texas, said she backed Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in part because his accounts of his own family's struggles with the cost of living convinced her he would make the issue a priority. In Dearborn Heights, Michigan, Abbas Ammar, 41, a restaurant owner who said he had voted Republican before, was first in line at the Canfield Community Center and cast his ballot for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee.
In Augusta, Maine, where grocery, fuel and heating oil prices have dominated the past few weeks, the Senate race has become a test of the president's policies, according to The Times. Backers of Democrat Troy Jackson said tariffs and the war in Iran had pushed their living costs too high. Supporters of incumbent Susan Collins pointed to her mixed voting record as evidence of independent, bipartisan judgment, while Jackson's backers argued she sides with Trump too often and has enabled decisions that made life more expensive in the state.
The Times said more than 400 of its reporters, editors, data analysts, video journalists and photographers have covered the midterms.
What to watch: results from the eleven Senate battlegrounds, which may take days to resolve, and whether Democratic gains in the House extend beyond the seats the party is favored to win.
