2022 midterm election results

Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans will defeat Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, CNN projects, a big win for Republicans as they vie to take back control of the House. 

Luria is a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Kiggans was a top Republican recruit this cycle, taking advantage of Virginia’s redistricting process which shifted Luria’s district from a tough, but competitive, area for Democrats to an even steeper climb. That shift, and the prospect of Democrats losing a seat, turned the race between Luria and Kiggans into one of the closely watched contests in the nation. 

Luria ran on her role on the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, hammering Kiggans for aligning herself with top Republicans who have diminished the attack on the Capitol, claiming it made her “not fit to serve in the United States Congress.” 

Kiggans, like many Republicans across the country, used rising prices and economic woes against Luria, arguing that “hard-working Americans are hurting from Joe Biden’s disastrous, failed economic policies. And in the 2nd Congressional District, these policies go by the name of Elaine Luria.” 

Republican confidence in winning the seat grew after the 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin carried the area during the race, boosting Republican hopes of ousting the Democrat who won her first term in office in 2018. 

The Georgia Senate race remains something of a seesaw tonight, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker seeing their advantages expand and contract throughout the evening. 

But at Walker’s campaign headquarters now, supporters are cheering as he narrowly took an edge over Warnock and inched closer to 50% – even as it remains entirely unclear whether the race will move to a Dec. 6 runoff.

Walker aides still see plenty of reasons to be optimistic tonight, with several counties in north Georgia – deep and reliably red – among those with a share of the outstanding vote. They believe the heavy Election Day vote benefits Walker.

Ralph Reed took the stage a few minutes ago and told supporters to settle in for a while longer, saying: “Get ready to party but it’s going to be a long night.”

So far tonight, only one thing is clear and constant: Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is outperforming Walker.

Kemp and Walker may share a political party, but tonight they are holding separate campaign parties – about two blocks apart in north Atlanta. 

Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, Leigh M. Chapman, said it will take “a few days” for the state’s unofficial election results to be complete, and called on “voters, candidates and the media” to be patient.

Chapman, a Democrat, cited “a handful of typical election day incidents,” including a few polling places opening late, power outages and a gas leak. But she said that “all were quickly handled.”

“In a very dynamic environment, Pennsylvania once again executed a free, fair and secure election,” Chapman said.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise will win reelection in Louisiana's 1st Congressional District, CNN projects.

Republican Rich McCormick will defeat Democrat Bob Christian in the House race for Georgia’s 6th District, CNN projects.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger will win reelection in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, CNN projects, a significant win in the Democratic Party’s bid to stem their losses in the 2022 midterms.

Spanberger will defeat Republican Yesli Vega, a Prince William County supervisor who Democrats spent millions to define as too extreme on abortion. The strategy, which seized on the momentum felt in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June and Vega’s conservative views on the issue, worked for Democrats, who banked on the issue being critical to swing suburban voters in the district.

Spanberger, who was first elected to the House in 2018, was seen as a top target for Republicans, who got a boost when Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia. Youngkin carried the area that made up Virginia’s 7th District, increasing Republican hopes of ousting the Democrat. 

Spanberger has now proven her ability to hold onto the once solidly red congressional seat after winning it in what was a good year for Democrats in 2018. By holding onto the seat in 2020 and 2022, Spanberger continues to be the only Democrat since 1971 to represent the district in Congress. 

As results roll in, the balance of the Senate is currently tied — both Republicans and Democrats are projected to now hold 40 seats each, with many more still with results coming in.

In the races that have been called since polls have been closing, CNN projected Democrats have won in four states and Republicans have won in 10 states, including an additional special election in Oklahoma.

Either party needs 50 seats to win the majority.

Most voters in this year’s election view one party positively, and the other negatively – nationally, about 4 in 10 have a favorable view of only the Democratic Party, and a similar share have a favorable view of only the Republican Party, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Unsurprisingly, these voters almost unanimously supported their favored party in their district’s congressional election.

But there’s also a smaller bloc of voters – about 11% of the electorate, nationwide – who dislike both parties. This group broke in favor of the Republicans, with nearly 6 in 10 favoring a GOP House candidate this year. That’s a shift from 2018, when voters who disliked both parties were about evenly split in their vote.

Voters who were most upset with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade differed from those who felt less profoundly unhappy with the decision, the exit polls show. Those who were angry about the overturning of Roe (about 39% of the electorate) overwhelmingly voted Democratic for the House (about 85% picked the Democratic candidate). Those who were dissatisfied but not angry (about 21% of the electorate) narrowly favored the GOP.

There was also a difference between voters who were most pessimistic about the economy, and those who felt less strongly negative. While nearly 9 in 10 voters who said the economy was poor voted for a GOP House candidate, about 6 in 10 who described the economy as “not so good” backed a Democratic candidate.

To some extent, these divides reflect the partisan differences already baked into views on abortion and the economy. Voters who considered themselves Democrats were roughly 59 points more than voters who considered themselves Republican to say they were angry about Roe v. Wade being overturned. Republicans, meanwhile, were about 28 points likelier than Democrats to call the economy poor.

Election officials for four of Wisconsin’s largest cities told CNN that they’re all likely to finish vote-counting within the next two hours. 

Milwaukee, the state’s most populous city, expects to finish its tally of absentee ballots before 10 p.m. CT, Claire Woodall-Vogg, the Milwaukee Election Commission executive director, said at a news conference. 

That’s hours earlier than during the 2020 election, when the city took until after 3 a.m. to finish counting and transmitting results to county officials. The speedier process is in part because there are only about a third as many absentee ballots for the city to count this year, as compared to 2020, Woodall-Vogg said. 

In Madison, the state’s capital, results will be transmitted to the county within the next hour, City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl told CNN. Madison does not have a “central count” of absentee ballots, so both in-person and absentee ballots are counted at local polling places. 

Green Bay will likely be “wrapping up” its count “in the next hour or two,” City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys told CNN. 

“We have a lot of workers, definitely fewer absentee ballots, and we also have speeded up our process,” Jeffreys said. 

And in Racine, City Clerk Tara McMenamin said in a text message that she anticipated counting will be finished close to 10 p.m. CT. 

More background: In Wisconsin’s decentralized election system, municipalities tally votes and then report their results to counties, which then post the results online. So it could take additional time for counties to publicly report the results they receive.