2022 midterm election results

Democrat Wes Moore will be elected governor of Maryland, CNN projects, becoming the first Black person to lead the state. 

He will defeat Republican state Delegate Dan Cox, an election denier backed by former President Donald Trump who ran on a hardline conservative platform. Retiring GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate, did not endorse Cox, who had defeated Hogan’s chosen successor in the Republican primary in July. 

Moore will be just the third Black American to be elected governor in US history, after Virginia’s Douglas Wilder, who was elected to a term in 1989, and Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick, who was first elected in 2006 and served two terms. Two others, New York’s David Paterson, who served from 2008 to 2010, and Louisiana’s Pinckney Pinchback, who served for a little over a year between 1872 and 1873, were elevated to the governorship after their predecessors resigned or were driven out. Pinchback was a Republican, but the other three Black governors were Democrats. 

Moore, a Rhodes scholar and former White House fellow, is also the former CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, New York City’s largest anti-poverty nonprofit. He gained national recognition after authoring the 2010 book “The Other Wes Moore,” an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore.  

The first-time candidate is also a veteran, having served as a captain and paratrooper with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, where he led soldiers in combat in Afghanistan.   

Moore had the backing of establishment Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and the support of Oprah Winfrey before winning the crowded Democratic primary in July.   

Moore, who was considered an overwhelming favorite to win in the deep-blue state, participated in only one debate with Cox, hosted by Maryland Public Television on October 12, in which the two sparred over policies and took jabs at one another.   

Moore called Cox an “extremist election denier,” citing a tweet from the Republican nominee in which he touted sponsoring buses for Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally following his loss in the 2020 presidential election. Cox tweeted that he was doing so to “#StoptheSteal.” 

Cox accused Moore of wanting to “defund the police,” to which the Democratic nominee responded, “That’s not true.”  

Moore’s running mate, former state Del. Aruna Miller, who immigrated with her family from India as a child, will also make history with her election as Maryland’s first Asian American lieutenant governor. Governor and lieutenant governor nominees are elected on the same ticket in the Old Line State.   

CNN’s Melissa Holzberg DePalo, Eric Bradner and Zachary B. Wolf contributed to this report. 

Republican Sen. John Hoeven will win a third term in North Dakota, CNN projects.

Democrat Gov. Jared Polis will win reelection in Colorado, CNN projects, and defeat Republican Heidi Ganahl.  

Polis campaigned on his record, including enacting all-day kindergarten and efforts to decrease health care costs. 

Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet will win reelection in Colorado, CNN projects, staving off a strong challenge from Republican Joe O’Dea. 

Bennet, who was first elected in 2010, was the favorite in the race, but O’Dea, the CEO of a construction company, found some success in Colorado by breaking with his own party at times, pitching a more moderate position in a state that has leaned toward Democrats for years. 

Bennet, aided by the state’s Democratic lean, ran a strong campaign focused on local issues like public land advocacy and broader issues like changing political culture by stopping corporate influence in politics.

The Democrat also successfully pushed back on O’Dea’s attempt to portray a more moderate image. 

“I think he’s painting himself that way. I mean, it’s incredible. He has said that he would have voted for all three of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees notwithstanding the fact that he knows that they overturned Roe v. Wade. He opposes, as you just heard, Colorado’s law codifying a woman’s right to choose,” Bennet told CNN in October. “He says that Donald Trump, even though he probably knows better, bears no responsibility for what happened on January 6.” 

Headed into the election, Democrats said they were confident Bennet would win. But the party’s top Senate outside organization, Senate Majority PAC, spent millions to unsuccessfully boost O’Dea’s more conservative primary opponent earlier in the year. 

Bennet also may have been aided by former President Donald Trump's late, anti-O’Dea foray into the race. 

After O’Dea told CNN he would “actively” campaign against former President Donald Trump and for other GOP candidates if the former President runs again, Trump slammed him as a “RINO” (Republican in name only) and suggested Trump’s supporters wouldn’t vote for a “stupid” person like O’Dea. 

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen will win reelection in Maryland, CNN projects, defeating Republican Chris Chaffee.

Prior to winning his Senate seat in 2016, Van Hollen was a member of the House from 2003 to 2017.

Maryland has a Republican governor in Larry Hogan, but the state typically favors Democrats in federal elections.

As polls close in Wisconsin, a “cautiously optimistic” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson took the stage briefly at his election night party in Neenah, Wisconsin – but only to lead the audience in a rendition of happy birthday for his granddaughter.

His opponent, Democratic Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, has been feeling good throughout the night, optimistic that “we’ve done all that we could,” but also urging those who were still in line as polls closed to stay in line.

Neither President Biden nor former President Donald Trump visited the state once in the final two months leading up to the election, notable considering between the two they’ve stopped in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Florida, and more in the final run-up. 

Sen. Johnson has touched on the wider implications of what a win for him would mean, aside from “send a very strong signal to our Democrat colleagues that their policies aren’t working.”

It could be a major contributor to Republicans winning the Senate, setting the stage for him to become chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ permanent subcommittee on investigations. 

“I would be like a mosquito in a nudist colony. It would be a target-rich environment,” Johnson told supporters on the eve of Election Day. 

Both he and Barnes have campaigned not just on Wisconsin’s Senate seat, but on the future of the country being on the line. 

If Barnes wins, he would be the state’s first Black Senator and among the youngest, unseating the two-term Republican. 

“I can guarantee you we have not been outworked,” Barnes told CNN Monday.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will be reelected to serve his 21st full term for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, CNN projects.

As the results start to trickle to in, with Democrat Tim Ryan currently in the lead in Ohio's Senate race, supporters at GOP candidate J.D. Vance’s headquarters told CNN they’re expecting that lead to narrow as more votes get tallied up.

Supporters are betting it will be a big night for Republicans here in the Buckeye State.

One supporter told CNN they’ll be watching to see how Republican congressional candidates in more competitive districts, like J.R. Majewski, perform in order to get a sense of just how big of night it will be for Ohio Republicans.

Meanwhile, Ryan’s camp said; while Vance has started to close the gap, they’re remaining optimistic and pointing to the fact Ryan has overperformed in the early vote in Warren, Franklin and Stark counties. 

After the polls closed, Ryan tweeted a picture of himself with son with the caption: “We left it all on the field."

View Ryan's tweet:

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, has been elected as the Bay State’s governor, CNN projects, defeating GOP nominee Geoff Diehl, a state lawmaker who had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Healey will become Massachusetts’ first elected female governor and the first out lesbian state executive in the US.

Her victory reclaims the office for Democrats, who have been shut out of the corner office for all but eight of the past 30 years, in the otherwise blue state. It also marks a pick-up for national Democrats who entered the night defending 20 of the 36 contested governor’s offices. 

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker decided not to seek a third term, despite his high approval ratings, after it became apparent that the Trump wing of the GOP was coalescing behind a primary challenge. 

Healey’s historic victory comes on the heels of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s own pathbreaking win a year earlier, when Wu became the first woman elected to lead the city. Unlike Diehl, who defeated a moderate Republican opponent in the primary, Healey ran effectively unopposed, with her January 2022 decision to enter the contest clearing the Democratic field.