Democrats win key Pennsylvania races; Republicans take Ohio Senate seat in the midterms

An election that Republicans had hyped as a red wave is turning out to be anything but, with Democrats over-performing the expectations of many in House and Senate races.

Here are five takeaways from the 2022 election results so far, including President Joe Biden’s low job approval ratings and the pain of inflation didn’t have the impact Republicans had hoped for.

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Voters in Michigan passed a ballot proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution, NBC News projects.

Proposal 3 not only will legalize abortions, but also protect those performing or receiving abortions from being charged.

Michigan voters passed a ballot measure to expand voting access in the state, NBC News projects.

Proposal 2 changes voting policies in Michigan, including requiring nine days of early voting, authorizing absentee ballot drop boxes and allowing voters without photo ID to sign an affidavit verifying their identity.

WASHINGTON — A deeply divided American electorate delivered a Congress so evenly split that partisan control remained unknown Wednesday morning — and may for some time — after Republican hopes for a major “red wave” dissipated.

Hours after polls closed, dozens of critical House and Senate races remained too close to call. It could be weeks before control of the Senate is settled if the Georgia contest between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is forced into a runoff in December.

It’s a far cry from the decisive early victory Republicans expected to sweep them into power on Capitol Hill, based on recent polls and historical trends. The GOP in anticipation had already drawn up plans to investigate and potentially even impeach President Joe Biden.

Flawed candidates and concerns about abortion rights ended up proving major obstacles to Republicans, who were banking on riding dissatisfaction about the economy and Biden’s low approval ratings into power. 

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Sen. Mark Kelly. D-Ariz., told supporters in Tucson he is feeling confident despite not knowing the outcome of his race against Republican Blake Masters.

“I know it’s been a long night. And I’ll tell you what, folks, I am feeling confident tonight,” he said. “Now, at the same time, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have the final results for a little while.”

He also thanked his wife, Gabby Giffords, whose congressional career was cut short in 2011 by an assassination attempt. The crowd chanted her name as Kelly called her his best friend and inspiration.

“With everything life has thrown at us, we have always had each other’s backs,” he said. “You’re my best friend, the person who taught me the most about public service, and none of this would be possible without you.”

Shortly before 2 a.m. ET, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy appeared at his “Take Back the House” victory party and vowed that Republicans would be in the majority soon as races continued to be called through the night.

“When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told a cheering crowd of dozens of young GOP staffers at the Westin hotel in Washington, D.C.

While Republicans failed to knock out a number of vulnerable Democratic incumbents Tuesday night, McCarthy celebrated GOP pickups across the country, from New York and Virginia to Florida. He took particular pleasure in noting that Republicans had ousted Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the head of the Democratic campaign arm known as the DCCC. 

“We defeated the Democrat campaign chairman, which will be the first time in over 40 years a DCCC chair lost his re-election,” said McCarthy, who was joined onstage by Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee.

McCarthy is the favorite to be speaker of the House next year, although a narrow GOP majority could complicate his path to obtaining the speaker’s gavel.

Maintaining access to abortion care was one of the main issues Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer featured in her re-election campaign, and it appears to have resonated with many voters, the NBC News Exit Poll found.

Forty-five percent of Michigan voters said abortion was the main issue that determined how they voted. Of those voters, 78% said they shared Whitmer’s position of keeping abortion legal in most cases.

Tudor Dixon, Whitmer's Republican challenger, on the other hand, emphasized concerns about inflation and crime in her ads. While Michigan voters were more likely to say they trusted Dixon to handle crime (56%) than Whitmer (39%), only 6% said crime was a key issue in their decisions.

Both campaigns painted the other candidate's views as too extreme. However, voters were significantly more likely to say they were concerned only about Dixon’s views being too extreme (49%) than that they were concerned only about Whitmer’s views (34%).

J.D. Vance’s victory in Ohio’s Senate race appears to have much to do with the state's political landscape. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, Ohio midterms voters identified as Republicans over Democrats by an 11-point margin. By comparison, in the last midterm election, the Ohio electorate tilted Republican by 5 percentage points.

Ohio’s independent midterms voters broke for Democrat Tim Ryan in the Senate race by a narrow 3-point margin. If the state were less politically lopsided, Vance would have had tougher time defeating Ryan.

Former President Trump endorsed Vance, but Trump's favorability rating in Ohio (43%) is only slightly higher than it is nationally (39%). Only about 1 in 5 Ohio midterms voters said supporting Trump was a reason for their votes.

Asked which candidate quality mattered most, a majority of Vance voters (56%) cited his sharing their values. Ryan voters were more likely to cite honesty and integrity (41%).

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The early energy of election night has dwindled at the Republican watch party outside Phoenix as it becomes clear official results will not be announced anytime soon.

The slow count, due in part to mail-in voting and reports of glitches at some polling sites, has been the main focus of the few GOP candidates who spoke Tuesday evening.

“We have become the laughingstock when it comes to our elections, and it’s time we clean them up,” said Abe Hamadeh, a Republican running for attorney general.

“This is going to be a long fight,” he added. “Once every single vote is counted, I assure you we will be victorious.”