The races to watch in US midterms

US voters head to the polls today for midterm elections billed as a referendum on Donald Trump, even though the president’s name will not appear on a single ballot.

Up for grabs are all 435 seats in the lower house of Congress – the House of Representatives, where the Democrats expect to secure a majority – as well as 35 out of the 100 seats in the Senate, where the competition is predicted to be far closer.

Democrats would need to win four of seven Senate races deemed to be a “toss-up” by independent elections analyst The Cook Political Report to give them control of Congress, and with it “the power to limit Trump’s ambitions, reject his judicial nominations and investigate his administration”, said the BBC. Here are the races to watch:

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Michigan

Probably the most hard-fought and vitriolic Senate race in this election cycle. Republicans have tried to paint Democrat candidate Abdul El-Sayed as a socialist and an Islamic extremist with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Polls have remained neck-and-neck but a late shock endorsement for Republican challenger Mike Rogers by Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, could have a decisive impact. Crucially, this is one of the few toss-up Senate seats currently held by the Democrats, and winning it back would be a boost to Republican hopes of clinging on to a majority in Congress.

Alaska

Democrat candidate Mary Peltola, the first Indigenous Alaskan to be elected to the House of Representatives, has campaigned for the Senate on a platform of “fish, family, freedom” to come within touching distance of flipping the Republican seat.

While Alaska’s ranked-choice system has historically made it harder for pollsters to predict the winner, the election campaign has also been marred by controversy and accusations of dirty tricks with the appearance of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. One is the incumbent Republican senator, the other a retired teacher with no prior political experience, sparking claims he had been induced to run by the senator’s opponents in the hopes of confusing voters.

Texas

The Lone Star state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 40 years, but polls show rising star James Talarico is in with a fighting chance. At more than half a billion dollars and counting, it is the most expensive Senate race in US history, with Republican challenger and arch-Trump loyalist Attorney General Ken Paxton trying to paint his opponent – who once suggested God was non-binary – as far-left on culture issues. But Talarico, a 37-year-old former teacher who studied to be a Christian minister, has nonetheless managed to cut through with voters in the traditionally deep-red Republican stronghold.

Kansas

Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, but rising farming and fuel costs linked to Trump’s war in Iran, as well as the impact of the president’s immigration crackdown on rural businesses, means the state is unexpectedly up for grabs. The Democrats have also benefited from picking charismatic Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton as their candidate in a state with a large evangelical and mainline Protestant population. The latest polls show him narrowly ahead of incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall in what would be a hugely symbolic gain for the Democrats.